DCI Suggestion Box

[Jeff Ream]

and what has to be deciphered further in the discussion is the challenge of why do the crowds "throw the babies" and cheer as compared to seeing what the intelligencia see.

It's not just the audience who are considered "the ignorant" in the GE discussion. Sometimes even the MMs are lumped into that discussion.

This summer I had professional dealings with the members of 3 finalist corps. Never in my 44 years in the activity did I hear such disdain for who was judging. The comment that struck me and which was heard from corps members in all three corps was concerning the GE judge (who judged several major shows this season and last) is that "as he wasn't even capable of touching his toes and tying his own shoelaces, why did he have any say about their gymnastic drills, physical endurance, and performance?"

To me, the credibility gap has to be addressed. The cognoscenti (we understand it, you obviously don't) don't seem to be getting the discussion at all, as seen in Jeff Ream's comments above. "better than it has ever been" is not a standard of excellence in business marketing, education, or plain human respect.

if a corps has legit issue with a judge, there is a process for them to raise their grievances to DCi to have the issue addressed, and possibly have the judge yanked.

however, MM's don't have that power. if a corps did complain and DCI let them judge it means the corps argument was faulty, or that DCI dropped the ball. Having seen what someone who trialed this year had to go through, if the corps bothered to protest at all, their argument i'm going to guess was 99% score based and didn't link it to commentary.

remember effect also is he triad....intellectual, emotional and aesthetic. of the top corps, I feel all did a great job balancing the triad, and even more importantly, they mastered the real key to effect...it isn't just the big moment, but also the build in AND out of the moment.

let's take BD for a second since they always get hammered about being too intellectual, and even a few years ago I agreed heartily. This years show, they kept the key elements out until finals week...Clara. While seeing it early I was a little confused what they were going for. As the season progressed, things started making more sense about the fairy tales and what the books and stuff were for. You add Clara finals week....bingo! They tied it all together.

to me, IMO, and i'm sure the haters will arise....the change to black for Cadets hurt the show. Oh yeah neon is the 10th element...I mean come on, what person that doesn't read Hops facebook page knows that from memory? I don't. The keys to Cadets show were speed and velocity...all of which were cancelled out the second the corps went all black. White made them look faster! Plus, but going all black and focusing on the neon, you highlighted their weakest caption...the guard!

[Jeff Ream]

" good GE" in a show is whatever the GE judge(s) thinks it is. It is that simple, imo.

or in reality, they meet the criteria on the sheet.

shocking I know

[GUARDLING]

or in reality, they meet the criteria on the sheet.

shocking I know

[N.E. Brigand]

Let's take BD for a second, since they always get hammered about being too intellectual, and even a few years ago I agreed heartily. This years show, they kept the key element out until Finals week . . . Clara. While seeing it early I was a little confused what they were going for, as the season progressed, things started making more sense about the fairy tales and what the books and stuff were for. You add Clara finals week--bingo! They tied it all together.

I said in the Finals thread, before scores were announced, that I would be reasonably content to see any of the top four take the gold, so I'm no knee-jerk Blue Devils opponent. With that in mind: if you're right, and I think you are, then for most of the season, BD probably should have been scoring a little lower in visual effect even than they sometimes were. I said a few times before championship week that BD's show was somewhat confusing when seen live, particularly from on high (as the G.E. judges see it), and I even cited comments I had solicited from other fans in the stands to support that claim. (The books weren't identifiable as such under the typical outdoor stadium lights, the characters with giant capes were the only ones even approximately recognizable as their fairy-tale counterparts, etc. Not to mention that the show generally looked more cluttered than did, for instance, Crown 2014, a show that was subject to many complaints about its overall visual appearance.) But a few BD aficionados here ridiculed those comments, intimating that the only audience members who couldn't follow BD's show were mentally deficient.

Since championship week, I've seen more than one comment here stating that the addition of Clara made the show clear to them. Unless they, like me and the people who saw BD's show live when I did, are oafs, this means, as I said in late July, that the show wasn't fully clear before.

[N.E. Brigand]

Oh yeah, neon is the 10th element . . . I mean come on, what person who doesn't read Hop's Facebook page knows that from memory?

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium . . .

I still can sing about two-thirds of this from memory before stumbling* (neon comes near the end):

But I no longer remember most atomic numbers. Though I daresay a number (though far from a majority) of high school and college students know the atomic numbers of the first thirty elements or so, as of course do a lot of scientists!

*Thanks to the "Presidential Boogie" (which I can't find on Youtube), even now I can name all 44 presidents in chronological order in about ten seconds. But that's a much shorter list.

[HornTeacher]

let's take BD for a second since they always get hammered about being too intellectual, and even a few years ago I agreed heartily. This years show, they kept the key elements out until finals week...Clara. While seeing it early I was a little confused what they were going for. As the season progressed, things started making more sense about the fairy tales and what the books and stuff were for. You add Clara finals week....bingo! They tied it all together.

You see, this is the exact area of modern drum corps (and, I suppose, the marching activity at large) that I find most perplexing. And my confusion simply boils down to the concept of any show being deemed "too intellectual." What does that mean? That a show is designed so much from a standpoint which seemingly expects a Philosophy degree from Harvard in order to be understood? Or a show which expects an equal amount of drum corps knowledge, background, and savviness from every single crowd along the summer-long schedule? To me, the possibility for a realization of the latter question is highly questionable, at best.

So...the task of the modern show designer, as I understand it, comes down to a simple analogy of adhering to the message of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." "Not too intellectual....not intellectual enough...but just right." Just right enough so that every observer (not to mention adjudicator responsible for assessing the corps' show on any and every given night throughout the summer) can find the show stimulating enough to maintain interest, yet not so overt that it reduces the observer to the point of boredom. To be fair, that is a responsibility of which I wouldn't wish upon my greatest enemy. Multiply that by the number of weeks which consists the "season"...and honestly, sometimes I sit perplexed to think that it is even possible.

As a musician who is well-aware of the classification of music which falls under the heading of "Program Music" (that is, music written to tell a story; music such as "Scheherezade" by Rimsky-Korsakov, "Symphonie Fantastique" by Berlioz, "A Lincoln Portrait" by Aaron Copland, and "Pictures At An Exhibition" by Modeste Mussorgsky), it seems that what is expected from the modern drum corps staff is to design a programmatic show, often consisting of disparate selections of music, which will portray a story readily understood (but not TOO much so) by every person, judging or non-judging throughout the summer, and which will be open enough to allow for changes which will bring greater and greater appeal the closer the activity nears to the ultimate "Finals Week."

Hmmmmmmm......makes one almost yearn back for the days of Madison's "A Drum Corps Lovers Dream," where the apparent message was merely "we're going to blow your balls off....and do an artistic and effective job of doing so."

Edit: I wrote the above under duress, after being kidnapped by the election team of Donald Trump...and was forced to use the wording so chosen.

Edit #2: To me, all of the above would be the greatest argument for the abolition of narration within drum corps shows. Adding narration to a show, for the purpose of making the show's message more coherent or understandable, is much akin to the need for one to explain the punch-line of a joke: if you need to do it, then the joke isn't funny. If you need narration to make the show's "story" understandable, then the message of the show itself isn't apparent.

Edited August 27, 2015 by HornTeacher

[N.E. Brigand]

Are BD's show really all that intellectual? Or do some members of the audience just perceive them that way? (Must I quote Britney Spears on Sundance again?)

[N.E. Brigand]

To me, all of the above would be the greatest argument for the abolition of narration within drum corps shows. Adding narration to a show, for the purpose of making the show's message more coherent or understandable, is much akin to the need for one to explain the punch-line of a joke: if you need to do it, then the joke isn't funny. If you need narration to make the show's "story" understandable, then the message of the show itself isn't apparent.

I guess the question is: when are corps adding narration to "make the show's message more coherent", and when are they using narration because narration is an artistically valid element to include in the show?

Is the full meaning of Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra clear without Eric Crozier's narration? Is the full meaning of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf clear without Prokofiev's narration? Would the full meaning of most operas be clear without the lyrics?

[HornTeacher]

Are BD's show really all that intellectual? Or do some members of the audience just perceive them that way? (Must I quote Britney Spears on Sundance again?)

Is that simply your very tactful way of asking whether the question is one of "Are their shows really all that intellectual? Or is it more that some people lack the ability to perceive anything which lies on a less-than-obvious plain.?" While maintaining proper decorum, I would venture toward the area of the latter.

[HornTeacher]

I guess the question is: when are corps adding narration to "make the show's message more coherent", and when are they using narration because narration is an artistically valid element to include in the show?

Is the full meaning of Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra clear without Eric Crozier's narration? Is the full meaning of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf clear without Prokofiev's narration? Would the full meaning of most operas be clear without the lyrics?

I appreciate the intellectual questions, N.E. I'm afraid that I'm going to need some time to consider an answer worthy of your query. But in the meantime, as to opera: opera without lyrics is simply nothing other than orchestral Program Music with vocal effects. In the meantime, I'll let J.Willis jump in and clarify where I am in error.