DCI Suggestion Box

[N.E. Brigand]

Just saying, the majority of the "other" marching circuits--including BOA, state marching band circuits, WGI, etc.--are all going the opposite direction, as has DCI.

They're all going about it wrong, so DCI should too.

[N.E. Brigand]

The other side of this, though, is to say that the person engineering the mix SHOULD be an adult and NOT a marching member.

"I marched iPad in Crown 2015." Isn't that a bit silly?

All triggering of SFX still has to be done by the kids on the field. The only thing the audio engineer does is stand in the bleachers and adjust the levels of everything. I think it SHOULD be done by a professional/adult instead of the kids. Let the kids perform the show, let the adults worry about the other stuff.

Yeah, that "only thing" is hardly anything. It's not like we expect the unmiked brass players or battery to adjust their own volume levels.

[N.E. Brigand]

I've been mostly responding and reading, but this is my first "wish" from DCI and, by which, I mean the corps that make it up:

Please, please, STOP STOP STOP teaching pit members to bob up and down with a completely over-emphasized beat of the tempo like an apple thrown in a bucket of water. I understand and agree with mechanical and defined mallet pre-positioning and even orchestrating the unison hand movement, but...

THE BOBBING UP AND DOWN IN MOCK-EMOTION KEEPING TIME IS NOT USED ANYWHERE ELSE IN KEYBOARD PERFORMANCE--YOU SHOULD NOT BE TEACHING OR ALLOWING IT IN DRUM CORPS!

IT LOOKS S-T-U-P-I-D, *NOT* PROFESSIONAL, AND IS A ***HUGE DISTRACTION*** FROM ENJOYING THE QUALITY OF THEIR PLAYING.

Thank you for allowing me to spout off. I'm sure some of you actually enjoy watching the pit act like bobble-headed puppets at the end of some "magical" string controlling their movements. So be it.

At some point in the past couple years, someone here posted a link to a video of a couple current or recent DCI members watching and commenting on the video of Madison Scouts' 1988 championship show. One comment that I particularly remember was their complaint that Madison's pit members weren't visibly "performing".

[N.E. Brigand]

The pit is the most-amped section of the entire corps--they couldn't possibly be more "in" the performance but, even if they wanted to be more "in" it, they need only turn the dial on the master board.

Although how well can they hear themselves, being positioned behind the speakers? Unlike many professional musicians, I don't think most of them have monitors.

[N.E. Brigand]

For DCI and Michael Boo: I'd love to have a way to search the all the Live Blogs after the fact by individual corps. Don't know how this could be done, but scrolling through the entire live blog to look for the live blog portion regarding a specific corps performance (say I want to find out all the background that was discussed about Bluecoat's show during finals for example) is extremely tedious. Other than that, sure love the live blogs as an extension to the other ways to view the shows both online and live.

Agreed, this would be helpful. So much useful information there that I'd like to more easily read later.

[N.E. Brigand]

If your favorite show doesn't win, who cares?! Is your own enjoyment of something dependent on how someone else, in this case a group of judges, view it?

For the most part, we shouldn't care, but isn't there some danger that if there is too great a disparity between what the judges reward and what the audiences like, the corps will strive for the former at the expense of the latter, thus leading to smaller audiences?

I think there is, and that the danger led to DCI's Cesario-driven initiative to make the sheets a little more audience-friendly.

[N.E. Brigand]

I think you're missing the point that Sweeney Todd and Snow White can be dreams of a little girl.

But not when you presented BD in late July, right?

[N.E. Brigand]

I simply loved its beautiful design. It wasn't highbrow, it was story-telling. Maybe that's what most object to.

So what was the story? It ought to be possible to tell the entire story of an eleven-minute drum corps show in a short paragraph without missing any plot elements. I'd love to see that paragraph.

[N.E. Brigand]

So, your solution is the double the cost of the judging pool to DCI? I'm pretty sure that the corps directors would find little value in it.

Well, DCI already doubles up the G.E. judges at championships, so they apparently half-agree with cube on this point.

[N.E. Brigand]

No music samples that last more than a beat. Every sound must be made in real time.

Loved Bluecoats' show, but nonetheless largely agree with this suggestion. I'd like to think that the G.E. they gain from how they used longer samples this year should more than outweigh the penalty that ought to apply for violating the "one stroke, one note" rule. A rule which has largely been ignored, since I don't remember ever hearing that it was repealed. Was it?