DCI Loopholes, Rule clarifications/changes?

[Jeff Ream]

To be clear:

have you heard the hundreds of tapes made the last few seasons of every corps to verify that no judge ever complained about balance? Have you been to critique and heard judges say something like, "yeah I just overlooked the egregious balance failure."

Or are you going more on the thought of, "I thought it was loud but that corps still did well so there is a systematic judging failure."

I'm not picking a fight or trying to be facetious, I'm genuinely curious. I've talked to staffer who have said their score was not what it could've been because of balance problems (both of the "too loud" and "too soft" variety). I've talked to a few judges who mentioned electronic failures as a reason why a corps maybe didn't achieve as high a score as they would've had the electronics worked (with the, "live by the technology/die by the technology" adage). I think just because it might not be obvious (i.e. Cadets are not going to go from second to fifth because their narration mic failed one night) doesn't mean judges don't take that into account when determining effect or music scores.

I have seen in Wgi where if electronics died, your finalist chances die

[N.E. Brigand]

The problem is what one person thinks of as horrendous out of balance...thunderous goo...doesn't come across to another the same way. As I had stated earlier, I have been at shows where I then read reviews by some about how terrible the balance was...too much synth...thunderous goo, etc, and I felt as if I must have been to a different show, as I had no such issues with the overall sound. I just think a lot of it is the mindset of the listener.

Some of it may also depend on the listener is sitting. So much volume coming from just a few speaker locations (relative to the overall brass and percussion sounds coming from 100 different locations) means that some people really are getting blasted by goo.

And of course, the sound in a significant percentage of the seats at Lucas Oil really is terrible. Remember last year when people who had good seats for Finals were astonished by the poor sound quality on a video shown here of Crown's encore that was shot from upper-level seats? But that problem isn't particularly about the amplified sound being too loud. In fact, as I've mentioned before, what came through BD's speakers in 2012 ("Dans l’Arabie des trois midis, Des tours aux fronts de caïmans" and so on) was almost impossible to hear from where I sat--a friend watching BD's show for the first-time ever at Finals didn't even realize there was any spoken words. This may have improved their show for some listeners!

But in my opinion, based on having seen many shows live since 2009 and checking my experiences later against recordings on CD, DVD, and Fan Network, the thunderous goo has lessened in the past two years especially, which means that there really was a balance problem before.

Edited October 2, 2014 by N.E. Brigand

[perc2100]

I have seen in Wgi where if electronics died, your finalist chances die

Ditto, though a group I taught one year had electronics/sampled narration not work in Prelims and we did competitively well. The next day at Finals we had all of our electronics working and we dropped a placement or two. There are a lot of logical reasons why we dropped, but I always thought it was a goofy coincidence that "no narration = higher placement."

[HornTeacher]

Ditto, though a group I taught one year had electronics/sampled narration not work in Prelims and we did competitively well. The next day at Finals we had all of our electronics working and we dropped a placement or two. There are a lot of logical reasons why we dropped, but I always thought it was a goofy coincidence that "no narration = higher placement."

Hmmmmmmm....gentle message from on High on that one??? (KIDDING!!! )

[xandandl]

N.E.B. wrote this, this is what N.E.B. wrote: "Some of it [my edit, that is balance problems] may also depend on (where) the listener is sitting. So much volume coming from just a few speaker locations (relative to the overall brass and percussion sounds coming from 100 different locations) means that some people really are getting blasted by goo."

Bump!

Notice the increase in speaker units many corps added on the field once corps started hitting San Antonio, Atlanta, Allentown and Indy.Ticket holders beyond the 40 were complaining that they didn't know what the narrators and tapes were saying and why the synthesizer(s) seemed louder than 7 dozen horns.

Edited October 3, 2014 by xandandl

[HornTeacher]

May I respectfully ask a simple question? And by respectfully, I mean that I wasn't in the position of being an ardent rule-follower, or even so much as a non-ardent rule-aware observer "back in the day."

What happened "back in the day" (from a score-based relation) to Corps who had sections of their show not be readily or obviously decipherable within the time limit of their respective shows?? Not trying to be a pissant about the whole deal...but...at least to me, it seems that the more we add in the present day, the more we seem to demand (and with a certain self-appointed RIGHT to demand) special allowances based upon that which we've chosen to add to the "performance experience." I'm sorry, but again,at times it appears that we fully expect that we can "have our cake and eat it, too."

Edited October 3, 2014 by HornTeacher

[N.E. Brigand]

What happened "back in the day" (from a score-based relation) to corps who had sections of their show not be readily or obviously decipherable within the time limit of their respective shows?

One response would be: obviously decipherable to whom?

Nearly 20 years ago, I remember my sister telling me how she had just seen a film called The Neon Bilble, which she didn't care for. I mentioned how I had just been skimming a little review of the film that specifically praised a passage in which some point or other was being made about an image onscreen (I don't remember what) via the film's score, which quoted the theme from Gone with the Wind. My sister remembered that scene, but said it made no impression on her, because she'd never seen Gone with the Wind and didn't know its theme. Who was at fault there: the artist or the viewer? The filmmaker was making a reference to the most-seen movie ever. How much more obviously decipherable was he supposed to be? And yet, if the film were a corps and my sister were a judge, I think she'd be perfectly within her rights to say the performance wasn't generating any effect at that point.

I'm sorry, but again,at times it appears that we fully expect that we can "have our cake and eat it, too."

Just because this is the third time I've seen that common phrase cited in as many days, let me note a point that most people don't realize: the phrase is supposed to be "eat your cake and have it, too", meaning you still have it on hand after you've eaten it.

Edited October 3, 2014 by N.E. Brigand

[HornTeacher]

One response would be: obviously decipherable to whom?

Nearly 20 years ago, I remember my sister telling me how she had just seen a film called The Neon Bilble, which she didn't care for. I mentioned how I had just been skimming a little review of the film that specifically praised a passage in which some point or other was being made about an image onscreen (I don't remember what) via the film's score, which quoted the theme from Gone with the Wind. My sister remembered that scene, but said it made no impression on her, because she'd never seen Gone with the Wind and didn't know its theme. Who was at fault there: the artist or the viewer? The filmmaker was making a reference to the most-seen movie ever. How much more obviously decipherable was he supposed to be? And yet, if the film were a corps and my sister were a judge, I think she'd be perfectly within her rights to say the performance wasn't generating any effect at that point.

Just because this is the third time I've seen that common phrase cited in as many days, let me note a point that most people don't realize: the phrase is supposed to be "eat your cake and have it, too", meaning you still have it on hand after you've eaten it.

Thank you, N.E. It was stated by me in error, and in my ignorance. You are correct.

[N.E. Brigand]

Oh, almost everybody says it the way you did (and I always used to), although I imagine a lot of people wonder, in the back of their minds, "What's so hard about having a cake and then eating it?" but never have the opportunity to look it up. (Another one that long puzzled me was "the exception that proves the rule".)

[xandandl]

It is my recollection that BITD shows were much more literal than the imagery-evoking designs we see today.

Judges did not have had to read every book printed, seen every film produced, or heard every score ever written to understand the effect of the show in front of them.

With the rise of Star of Indiana, the various designers who developed out of the Greater Boston corps, and the increasing dominance of the Blue Devils, the allusions and multi-layerings of meanings gradually grew more complex. Some might also cite the development of the WGI/BOA show designs in a parallel universe having an influence on the complexity of DCI show designs. Often the same designers were working in other arenas where they experimented, perfecteded, and tweeked. The judging communities there are larger than merely those few who are DCI certified (I think the number was under 100 for DCI when the last change in scoresheets occurred; this included the "retired" judges who had kept their credentials.)

Within the past decade, DCI experimented with meetings between judges and designers before the show performance as well as the post show critique. Resumes of the shows began to be distributed to the judges in the off season before the first shows so that they as judges would understand what they were viewing/hearing. IIRC, these developments were also West Coast initiated. The Garfield Cadets' No More War show libretto in 1972 and Michael Cesario's libretto for Phantom Regiment in the late '80's were probably the first mass-marketings so that audience would understand as well.

Edited October 4, 2014 by xandandl