Cadets 2016

[chaddyt]

Blue Devils website already has congratulations to Bloo on their website, CLASS ACT... from start to finish. Looked at YEA and saw about what I expected. Nothing

Nothing on Crown's site either.

Or SCV's.

[Rochester New York]

Cavaliers sounded COMPLETELY electronically enhanced, meaning the live horn ensemble was mic'd and amp'd for loudness, drums as well. When Cav's played, I heard sideline speakers. When Cadets played, I heard the horns and drums on the field where they were standing.

Cadets' natural sound sounded much better than the amp'd sound, to my ears.

Agreed, agreed, agreed. I've been saying this for years, though with [name of different corps] inserted.

HOWEVER, it's worth remembering that it was the Cadets/Hopkins, more than anyone else, that made amplification such a dominant force in this activity--thus ensuring that design would ultimately prove more important than musicianship.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. (Maybe that can be their theme next year...)

[Newseditor44]

Incredibly frustrating. Why do you think it's headed in that direction?

As an instructor at the High School level, I can tell you that judges routinely reward groups that play less notes, but sound cleaner. Also, since judges are judging the quality and effect of the "music", how that music is created seems less and less of importance to them. (i.e. synths) We've been told this during critique on any number of occasions by judges. They certainly don't reward you for playing more notes by way of non-electronic based instrumentation (winds, drums), nor are there any compulsories with respect to the length of time that non-electronic instrumentation is used. So in theory you could roll out there with a predominantly electronic show and win music. We've actually seen this happen on several occasions.

In fact, one time a judge remarked how much demand and quantity of notes we played and suggested we water it down because it gave them too much material to "judge" and scored us much lower than several other groups who played very little via winds/drums.

Also, judges don't seem to reward anymore for playing difficult musical passages while marching. "Park and bark" hit sections sandwiched between scatter drill is apparently just fine now.

Another thing, our pit plays some amazing runs compared to other lines, but if we aren't "expressive" enough, then we score below other groups who, again, are doing less, taking less risks, but have the better optics. Don't get me wrong, it's all important, but they are basically saying that optics are more important than the notes themselves, both in terms of quantity and quality.

So I can't speak for DCI, but judging at the High School level is going in the completely wrong direction by rewarding form over function, while allowing electronic instrumentation to count for as much or more of the musical score as winds/drums.

[Newseditor44]

Crown has congratulated them via social media on more than one occasion. Updating the website will take more time (they don't have the staff that BD does). YEA is down a marketing person and looking for help in the social media front, so I doubt that it has anything to do with a lack of class, and more than likely is a staffing issue. Don't read anything more into it.

Nothing on Crown's site either.

Or SCV's.

[George Dixon]

Nothing on Crown's site either.

Or SCV's.

Sshhhh

Don't bring up rational comparitive examples

[Phantom1701]

Incredibly frustrating. Why do you think it's headed in that direction?

Any number of things.

-Certainly judges bring their own preferences and biases to each competition. If you are doing things that they do at their own schools, corps or indoor groups, then they are more likely to give you a favorable score.

-The influence of WGI cannot be overlooked here.

-Greater emphasis on GE, story-telling, and visuals.as opposed to the music itself. (again, see point 2)

-Judges like clean. To them clean > demand.

-Due to the fact that the GE and visual packages are more important to judges, they will forgive reduced wind/percussion contributions as they know from their own experience that there isn't enough rehearsal time to do it all. So something has to give and it would seem most judges and directors are content with that being the wind/percussion generated music.

Just my 2 cents of course, but in critiques I've not been shy about questioning judges as to the reason why they score us (or other groups) one way or another and much of what you see above is straight from the horses mouth.

[Lance]

scores and judging be ######

last night's performance convinced me to add the cadets to scv and crown as the only shows i'll buy VPD's of this season

you guys were brilliant

[chaddyt]

Crown has congratulated them via social media on more than one occasion. Updating the website will take more time (they don't have the staff that BD does). YEA is down a marketing person and looking for help in the social media front, so I doubt that it has anything to do with a lack of class, and more than likely is a staffing issue. Don't read anything more into it.

I didn't mean to infer that Crown or SCV were lacking in class by any means.

Just wanted to point out to the poster I quoted that a lack of congratulations via website means nothing.

[defeldus2]

Nothing on Crown's site either.

Or SCV's.

Crown and SCV both did plenty of shout outs for BLoo on social media. Didn't see anything there from Cadets though, but as said that isn't a sign of anything other than not having a dedicated person for those roles.

Edited August 14, 2016 by defeldus2

[Hook'emCavies]

This time last year, I said the exact same thing, and in fact I publicly selected Cadets to win it all.

Everyone knows what the problems are, but does the leadership have the willpower to make the changes? Continually cycling through second and third tier staff is not the answer.

Oh I know, but I think Hopkins will get things going again. I don't know him as a person, but he knows how to create great programs. I am very interested into the direction he will take the corps next season.