Rules Congress 2016

[corpsband]

Currently it's just General Effect 1 and General Effect 2 with no indication of visual or music.

I agree that what's on the sheets seems fine. Combining brass and percussion into music is fine, but they should then call it music GE.

in practice there's still a music guy and visual guy. so while it says "1" and "2" on the recap, in practice it's GEM and GEV.

[xandandl]

in practice there's still a music guy and visual guy. so while it says "1" and "2" on the recap, in practice it's GEM and GEV.

Merely coincidence?

While most of us like gems, especially musical gems,

given what we have seen on the field the last season from corps like Coats and SCV, this is interesting for the visuals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEV

Edited October 16, 2015 by xandandl

[perc2100]

What I meant... while visual risks are rewarded, even to the degree where some degree of imperfection is accepted as a fair tradeoff, music judging (and design/performance) has gone in the opposite direction. Risks are not tolerated, much less rewarded. If it cannot be played perfectly every time, it is removed from the design (sometimes as dictated by judge commentary).

This has been consummate though, from the beginning of time:

with the tic system difficult phrases that couldn't get clean were hosed so they didn't get tic'ed late season; with the buildup system IDK if judges' mindsets still thought tic-based or if designers/instructors still thought 'perfect or watered' but that seems to be how it's always been. I think in the modern era, however, the activity got to a point where visual drove music design in the sense that phrases were extended or cut, or watered/changed, to enhance the visual instead of vice versa. There's a great segment on the 2005 ESPN broadcast where Cavaliers' staff was discussing extending a battery phrase to support a visual design.

I think risks are still taken musically, though. Just look at Cavaliers' marimba think last year: large chunks of the show lived/died by the execution of those features and that stuff was pretty dirty for quite a bit of the summer. I loved that the corps designed LOTS of the show around that stuff, and Cavaliers did a great job exploring different visual and sonic ideas/uses of the marimbas + were wise & patient enough to know it was worth keeping to achieve cleanliness. Obviously the design was committed to that stuff, but it was a HUGE risk that paid off competitively for the corps: their highest placement of the post-Gaines era.

[perc2100]

Even so, I think you're on to something here, and here's why: It's part of a larger cultural context from outside the activity. There's a big difference between not being impressed with something and being actively annoyed with something. When a visual or dance move goes wrong, it's not impressive. It's an "Oops". But music errors grate on the soul. It's an "Ouch". So there is less tolerance for error in music. I think this leads to a culture in DCI in which musical demand is carefully crafted to exceed current skills only by a controlled amount, while viz designers can take a flyer and see what happens. People talk about solo fracks years and decades later (though tact may prevent them from writing about them on here). It's like a punch in the face, to be honest. It's ok, it's a competition, but obviously the whole horn line can't be doing that. But a whole guard can get pretty scruffy for a while and only viz people will cry ouch.

Not to mention, it's easier to water or tweak a musical phrase if it's dirty than it is to re-write visual phrases. Often from a time-table standpoint, there is FAR less rehearsal time needed to dedicate to a music cut or water ("instead of this phrase, take the flams out & stick the part like this," rep a dozen times, good to go) vs having to rewrite several pages of drill to accommodate inability to clean. Reconfiguring 150ish dots to get from one acceptable 'moment' to the next could be a really arduous task for a vis. designer, and then another ordeal on the practice field: it's why it's not uncommon per say to see a corps perform three shows in a row and notice slight changes in musical phrases each night, but a corps takes several rehearsal blocks/days before they put in a visual change

[Pete Freedman]

Not to mention, it's easier to water or tweak a musical phrase if it's dirty than it is to re-write visual phrases. Often from a time-table standpoint, there is FAR less rehearsal time needed to dedicate to a music cut or water ("instead of this phrase, take the flams out & stick the part like this," rep a dozen times, good to go) vs having to rewrite several pages of drill to accommodate inability to clean. Reconfiguring 150ish dots to get from one acceptable 'moment' to the next could be a really arduous task for a vis. designer, and then another ordeal on the practice field: it's why it's not uncommon per say to see a corps perform three shows in a row and notice slight changes in musical phrases each night, but a corps takes several rehearsal blocks/days before they put in a visual change

Yes, my understanding is that they generally start the day in subsections, proceed to sections then do visual in the afternoon all together. Of course it could vary.

This means that decisions to water can be discussed and decided the previous evening and implemented in the morning. Done and dusted before lunch, I would think?

Also, if the visual difficulty involves running from point A to point B in a roughly straight line, well that's going to be tough to 'fix'. But there's generally going to be a direct path to simplifying the music: just remove some notes, Amadeus.

[perc2100]

Yes, my understanding is that they generally start the day in subsections, proceed to sections then do visual in the afternoon all together. Of course it could vary.

This means that decisions to water can be discussed and decided the previous evening and implemented in the morning. Done and dusted before lunch, I would think?

Also, if the visual difficulty involves running from point A to point B in a roughly straight line, well that's going to be tough to 'fix'. But there's generally going to be a direct path to simplifying the music: just remove some notes, Amadeus.

Yeah, that's kind of my point! When I marched music changes were very easy to implement, often quick and painless. Vis. changes were a much more involved thing, especially if it was a move that involved the full corps (obviously if you're tweaking the drum line sets it's quite a bit easier)

[Pete Freedman]

Does anyone know if this rules congress will be discussing DCI rules other than contest rules?

[cixelsyd]

Making changes to the show, musically and visually, is as old as drum corps itself. Things that were just not working or cleaning up have always been tweaked throughout the season. At some point you just have to decide that to clean spot X is not worth the time it might take, if you can get more band for the buck by rehearsing other areas. We used to refer to it as "bring out the garden hose" even back in my day.

This has been consummate though, from the beginning of time:

with the tic system difficult phrases that couldn't get clean were hosed so they didn't get tic'ed late season; with the buildup system IDK if judges' mindsets still thought tic-based or if designers/instructors still thought 'perfect or watered' but that seems to be how it's always been.

As you both appear to be percussionists, you may see this differently - rightfully so, as percussion is a different situation from brass.

Yes, watering down difficult musical passages has been done for quite some time. You can go back to 1973 and find occasional instances where notes were removed. You will also notice corps bringing their entire soprano lines up front for extended multiple tonguing features that could not possibly be executed "tickless" every time. Brass solos were commonplace, many of which exhibited demanding displays of range and advanced playing techniques. Hornlines pushed dynamics to the limit of their ability to control the quality of sound - or beyond, as the risk of toeing that line paid off in effect.

All of these aspects of brass performance have been filtered over time in a risk averse approach, the likes of which has no parallel on the visual side.