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Drum Corps Shows - Aesthetic Requirements as per Aristotle


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Naturally, but I was responding to the claim that the meaning of Phantom's 2010 show was so clear that everyone understood it. My point being: not everyone did.

Some audience members are smarter than others? Not trying to sound elitist or anything like that. It's just that when presented with something symbolic in nature, you have to put in SOME brain power to figure out what's going on. It's like analyzing a book in English class. To catch the symbolism, you do have to think about it (and with a simple visual presentation from a DCI show, it's a lot easier to figure out than analysis of the color red in english class).

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  • 6 months later...
Here's the interview of Program Coordinator Dean Westman on the meaning of the word Tilt as the incidentally selected symbol for their show. He basically reveals that there was no underlying meaning other than a vague reference to these composers being "off kilter", no specifics about these composers lives, no thematic argument, no story, no series of events, no humanity, no pattern or progression or game other than examples of things tilting and "messing with perspective", and no effort to link the visual design to the composers point of view being "off kilter" in the context of other symphonic music or how that related to the player running and jumping off the scalene triangle at the end. But #### that pitch bend was awesome! :tounge2:


= = =

DCI Field Pass

7/2014

Interviewer: One of the world class shows generating a lot of buzz in the early season is the Bluecoats 2014 production, Tilt. Last Saturday morning, outside a Muncie Indiana’s Starbucks, I sat down with Coat’s program coordinator Dean Westman to find out more about the design and execution of the show.


Westman: Well, it, it, it started with music. And that happened in September. I mean we gave ourselves about three weeks off, and we came at it this year in the spirit of let’s find the most exciting repertoire we possibly can. And when you have visual designers that are Tony Award winning visual designers, they had the confidence that we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with it, you know we’re talking about John Vanderkolff, Jim Moore, Fred Vigola (sp). And so it all started with music. And we had the music and we found this, the three composers, Tyondai Braxton, Andy Akoho and Vienna Teng, and and we, we were on fire with this music. And I’m talking until late March, we had no idea where it was going.


And uh, the conversation turned to how could we mess with perspective. Audience perspective because this music feels so off kilter compared to what you know we consider classical music or orchestral music. It really is 21st century music. And when we started the conversation about perspective, that’s how we got into the word tilt. And that’s how we got into tilting the field and these scalene triangles, and it all kind of snowballed from, from there. Uh but it very much started with, with the repertoire.


You know Dan there are so many amazing story tellers in this activity. Um, and so many designers that that is right in their wheelhouse, and I have no problem admitting I’m not one of them. You know, I, it, it, it’s tough to do. And um, for, for us, it, this was just a, this was just a better fit for the Bluecoats to take this kind of music first approach. And when you, and again John Vanderkolff, everybody knows what he’s done with Star 93 with Blast, but he also has like a degree in music theory from the Eastman School of Music, so we, we can approach it that way when you have a visual designer that does a harmonic analysis of the score you give him.


Interviewer: Wow, and the talent level this year seems to have gone up another notch as well.


Westman: Yeah, yeah absolutely. That’s been happening in my four years, I, I’ve seen that steadily over each year, the numbers of kids auditioning, and, and the talent level and you can’t even be in the room when they’re doing the auditions because it’s heart wrenching to watch. There’s players that, when I marched would have been the best player we had, and they’re not making it. Uh, and I think that’s, that’s not just a Bluecoat comment, I think that’s where the activity’s at. The virtuosity that’s going on in this activity right now, um, we saw that in Muncie last night. Uh, it didn’t matter what corps was on, There’s a level of virtuosity that’s ridiculous to me.


Interviewer: And there is a level of preparedness we didn’t see at the beginning of the season ten years ago either.


Westman: Yeah you have to, you have to have that. I mean y-, eh, there, there’s a good pressure to do that. And I think that, that, the Cineaste is , that, that pushes you. You know that’s going to be out there, and you , you don’t want to come out un-, unprepared, and I think sometimes people talk about oh you don’t want to give everything away at the beginning of the season and you have room to grow and whatever. Everybody has room to grow. Um, Gordon Henderson used to teach me drum corps don’t peek, staffs do. So I, I don’t believe in showing your cards too early. I believe in that everybody paid a tick-, you know a price for a ticket and they all deserve a great show and we’re going to get better and we’re, it’s going to evolve. But uh we’re, we are kind of showing a lot, a whole bunch of the card, every card we know right now. And the cards we haven’t shown are the ones that we’re still just figuring out.


Interviewer: Let’s talk about some of the unique aspects of the design of this show and uh I hesitate to call it props, they’re more like parts of the stage. These triangles, what kind of triangles are they?


Westman: Yeah they’re scal-, scalene triangles and that was a, they started sketching those, it was, I remember it was at my house, and it was some time in the spring when we had, when we had a design meeting. And then they workshopped it, and they had like a, the guy who built the prop almost has like a Santa’s workshop, and I went out there and it was John, Jim Moore, Greg Lagola. It took a huge element of work-shopping to get those pieces to do exactly what we needed them to do, and from a logistical standpoint to be able to separate into parts and fit in a box truck and all the things and, and I gotta give our corps director massive props, pun, pun very much intended in that he let us as designers live in a bubble and not say why, here’s why we can’t. And here’s why this won’t work, whether it’s cost or the logistics of moving it, um he does a great job of letting us live in that bubble, and if, if there’s ever something we can’t make it work with our corps director David Glasgow, it’s literally because we can’t make it work. Um, but that, it, it turned out great.


Interviewer: There is one part of your show that is generating more talk, more kudos than anything else right now in a show that’s full of great surprises, what’s being called the pitch bend. You have a big powerful chord from the horn line, and all of a sudden, they lean back and the pitch drops off, it becomes electronic at some point, but you can still make out the horn line, and the horn line rejoins in. I’ll play an example right here.


Interviewer: Okay, talk about this pitch bend and where the idea came from.


Westman: Well it came from our brass arranger, Doug Thrower, um and he started talking about that over the winter, and um, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little bit skeptical, um but the devil was in the details on that. And I think people might look at that and go oh, it’s this synthesized effect, and it is in that it’s being elect-, it is happening electronically, but what went into that, that is us. We did a recording session during spring training with the horn line that took an entire block of just various chords, various volumes, various ranges, um and so what you hear there is the Bluecoats horn line passed off to the virtual Bluecoats horn line, um and then it does the pitch bend, recaptured by the actual Bluecoats horn line, then the virtual horn line bends it again back to the actual. So, it wasn’t like well, we’ll just play a chord with some you know finale sound and do it, that’s us. Um, and we took the time to do it, and I remember when they were recording it, I uh contacted DCI’s artistic director Michael Cesario and I said, I told him what we were doing, and I said this is either going to be the coolest thing, or it’s going to be extremely silly. I’m not sure yet, and we both agreed, you know, with no risk, there’s there is no reward. And um, and then and then the coordination of what Jim did from a choreography standpoint and how he pulls the musicians away from their mouthpiece and they make eye contact with the audience on the bend, kind of in a way to give them a wink and say, “we’re not playing our instruments right now is, is to me that, that’s what enhances it. But it was a great collaboration between Doug Thrower, our electronics designer uh Vince Oliver who is just rookie of the year with the Bluecoats. An absolute young brilliant musician and um, and our visual team.


Interviewer: Man, the drum line sounds good this year.


Westman: Yeah, no they’re on fire. That that, I think, I think people like us or anybody who’s been following the Bluecoats or just percussion in this activity, we’ve seen that coming with these guys. Every year it seems like they’re ratcheting it up, and then this year it’s, it’s just every time I, no matter what it is, whether I’m watching them go through their fundamental program, um or I’m watching them just in a visual block or I’m watching them in the context of their show, it just hits me as professional. Everything they do just feels professional. There’s nothing student, um, about what those guys are doing, and when you have leadership like they have, and when it’s written by you know Tom Rarick is a professional musician in the United States Air Force band, and that’s just, he approaches it, and I think it’s what I’m most proud of this year when, and this goes, speaks to the whole book. Is, I d-, at no point with us do I hear brass book, drum book, pit book, electronics. I think, I think the goal ultimately, I hope what we’re all shooting for is I think what we’re achieving at certainly the highest level we ever have, which it sounds like a score. It just sounds like a score. But when you have musicians like Doug and Tom and Vince, that’s their goal. It’s not about I wrote the best brass book, I wrote the best drum book, I did the best electronics, they almost want it just, it’s like a composer composed a great score, that was the goal and then we laid a visual idea to it.


Bluecoats Program Coordinator Dean Westman. You can catch the Coats in action, tonight, New Haven Connecticut, tomorrow night in Bristol, Rhode Island, and Saturday night July fifth at the Bean Pot invitational in Lynn, Mass. Our theme music is by Mark Higgenbotham. DCI’s field pass is presented by Zildjian. Check out all of Zildjian’s products at Zildjian dot com. I’m Dan Potter, have a great Independence Day Weekend, and we’ll be back with another Field Pass next week.

Edited by Brutus
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I personally enjoyed Bluecoats 2014 much more than 2013 because it gave me more of what has always attracted me to drum corps. These are my persnal inclinations.

I enjoy hearing and learning new, refreshing "lyrical" and melodic music that hooks and intrigues me. I also found this to be true of Blue Knights 2014 and to my surprise Blue Devils as well. Well-crafted drill, staging, color, packaging adding to that music is a bonus. Cleanliness of difficult performance often IS General Effect for me.

Ideological agendas and political agendas are what I am trying to "get away" from with the activity. (ie WGI: anthropogenic climate change, holocaust programs, racial harmony, blah, blah).

A loose but non-moralizing non-preachy theme or storyline is fine. I loved Cadets Christmas show, Side by Side, and Angels vs. Demons. I fear that the overuse of front and backfield panels and formulaic programming is making them less innovative recently.

I also love what Crown has been doing recently and they are always fresh musically, visually, and programwise. Consider "Triple Crown", "Rach Star", e=mc2, and last year's Major Tom launch, spacetrip and re-entry.

Lyrical music, thought-provoking, cool drill and limited "voice" (actual performers on the field) that has me converted.

I hope I haven't strayed too off-topic but needed to contrast the original posters "spectacle" vs. "deep meaning" with my own opposite preferences.

Edited by denverjohn
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"Meaning" and a well developed theme can simply be the Nordic opera star being eaten by the shark at the end of the Velvet Knight's show, a lampoon of entertainment memes. It's not hard.

Another example is SCV '99 where the build in the music was met with the rotating wedge that turned into an arrow. The pattern was the swelling music.

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Ideological agendas and political agendas are what I am trying to "get away" from with the activity. (ie WGI: anthropogenic climate change, holocaust programs, racial harmony, blah, blah).

These WGI shows are almost painfully preachy and way way too "on the nose." Really disturbing. Where's the humor? The joy, the complexity, the naughtiness, the off-center point of view?

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"...Aristotle was a Greek, and marched in the fourth century BC. The Greeks were basically G7 until about the first or second century AD, long after Aristotle aged out. They then dropped to open class for the next couple millennia. Now, the Romans were medaling until about 400AD, before going inactive due to poor management and Huns. "

Mel Brooks, as the 2,000 year-old man, would have described it thusly. This was a truly funny posting.

News flash for drum corps designers:

You have 11 minutes, or so. Combining War and Peace, the Upanishads, Torah, and Call of the Wild probably won't cut it. Listen to Dr. Baggs, the Aristotle of Drum Corps: "The formula is simple: Good music, well-played."

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Listen to Dr. Baggs, the Aristotle of Drum Corps: "The formula is simple: Good music, well-played."

The activity would be dead if that dumb mantra had been followed. Now that the activity has matured and evolved to encompass complex dramatic actions and subtle visual themes (and some not so subtle), that shallow, empty beer bottle advice just doesn't cut it. Maybe in 1976 this worked, but now that our brains are fully developed, no.

That's like going to the Art Institute of Chicago and saying, "It's all about color."

Provincial sayings like this completely negate of the maturation of this art form. Now dramatic elements are supporting the visual, lending depth and humanity, meaning, and even humor to the musical pieces.

Not all shows of dramatic depth and thematic argument are successful. Some shows with dramatic action or thematic arguments have become preachy and uncomfortably on-the-nose. Cadet's Angels and Demons show was so subtle, so clear, so rich, it became a profound work of art-- a commentary on good and evil, and the nature of that duality as an ineluctable component in the human experience. Cadet's An American Portrait last year became a swirling toilet bowl of unbiodegradable patriotic color amid a cacophonous hurl of shouted speeches from great US statesmen topped off with confetti canons and red white and blue Roman candle enemas-- an in your face preach-apalooza. Way too on the nose, completely lacking in subtlety and just uncomfortable to watch, despite it being brilliantly executed and a good original concept before the plastic banner machine fired up and shrink wrapped the entire corps, mummifying them.

Edited by Brutus
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The activity would be dead if that dumb mantra had been followed. Now that the activity has matured and evolved to encompass complex dramatic actions and subtle visual themes (and some not so subtle), that shallow, empty beer bottle advice just doesn't cut it. Maybe in 1976, this worked, but now that our brains are fully developed, no.

That's like going to the Art Institute of Chicago and saying, "It's all about color."

Provincial sayings like this completely negate of the maturation of this art form. Now dramatic elements are supporting the visual, lending depth and humanity, meaning, and even humor to the musical pieces.

Not all shows of dramatic depth and thematic argument are successful. Some shows with dramatic action or thematic arguments have become preachy and uncomfortably on-the-nose. Cadet's Angels and Demons show was so subtle, so clear, so rich, it became a profound work of art-- a commentary on good and evil, and the nature of duality as an ineluctable component in the human experience. Cadet's An American Portrait last year became a swirling toilet bowl of unbiodegradable patriotic color amid a cacophonous hurl of shouted speeches from great US statesmen topped off with confetti canons and red white and blue Roman candle enemas-- an in your face preach-fest. Way too on the nose, completely lacking in subtlety and just uncomfortable to watch, despite it being brilliantly executed and a good original concept before the plastic banner machine fired up and shrink wrapped the entire corps, mummifying them.

This post is surprisingly on the money.

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The activity would be dead if that dumb mantra had been followed. Now that the activity has matured and evolved to encompass complex dramatic actions and subtle visual themes (and some not so subtle), that shallow, empty beer bottle advice just doesn't cut it. Maybe in 1976, this worked, but now that our brains are fully developed, no.

That's like going to the Art Institute of Chicago and saying, "It's all about color."

Provincial sayings like this completely negate of the maturation of this art form. Now dramatic elements are supporting the visual, lending depth and humanity, meaning, and even humor to the musical pieces.

Not all shows of dramatic depth and thematic argument are successful. Some shows with dramatic action or thematic arguments have become preachy and uncomfortably on-the-nose. Cadet's Angels and Demons show was so subtle, so clear, so rich, it became a profound work of art-- a commentary on good and evil, and the nature of duality as an ineluctable component in the human experience. Cadet's An American Portrait last year became a swirling toilet bowl of unbiodegradable patriotic color amid a cacophonous hurl of shouted speeches from great US statesmen topped off with confetti canons and red white and blue Roman candle enemas-- an in your face preach-fest. Way too on the nose, completely lacking in subtlety and just uncomfortable to watch, despite it being brilliantly executed and a good original concept before the plastic banner machine fired up and shrink wrapped the entire corps, mummifying them.

Whereas the thematic depth of Star 1993 was essentially..."Medea, yeah she's a real b#tch."

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