Stop all the Storytelling

[Lance]

I have seen 90's drum corps, as I was around at the time. I understand this to a certain point, but I also remember that Star '93 did a LOT of pit breaks with blasting hornline, granted it was frowned upon at the time, but now is the norm and everyone loves that show. I understand, people will always find something to ##### about, but if you like Star '93, then you shouldn't complain about shows now.

they played 2 pieces of music

[UKSuperman]

they played 2 pieces of music

They still stretched it to the alotted time limit. Just because they played 2 pieces of music it's different? I don't think so.

[JoeDz]

In 1989, Phantom Regiment finished second in DCI with 98.4 using ONE symphony: 1, 2, 4th movement from Dvorak's 9th symphony "New World," one of my favorite shows for both music and visual....

.....and in 1960, Garfield Cadets won American Legion Nationals (84.98) with NINE unrelated songs. It's not what you play, it's HOW you play it.

[DrumManTx]

In 1989, Phantom Regiment finished second in DCI with 98.4 using ONE symphony: 1, 2, 4th movement from Dvorak's 9th symphony "New World," one of my favorite shows for both music and visual....

.....and in 1960, Garfield Cadets won American Legion Nationals (84.98) with NINE unrelated songs. It's not what you play, it's HOW you play it.

Amen.

[ftwdrummer]

Barber (and Martha Graham, for whom he wrote the ballet) was definitely inspired by the Greek story of Jason and Medea. There are many versions of their story, but the most famous one, Jason abandons his wife, Medea, for another woman, so in revenge she murders their (i.e., her own) children.

Let's see a corps stage that!

Wait, you mean Star leaving DCI after that year wasn't intended to be an elaborately metaphorical "killing the kids?"

[hammondbrass]

Over the 15 years of my DCI fandom, there has been a strong move toward explicit theme and direct storytelling.

In 2014, Crown did a show about outer space. It's pretty much the consensus view that it wasn't the greatest design, but hear me out. In the beginning of the season, there was the Major Tom introduction, an overly-long but timbrally-intriguing percussion feature, the echo effects etc.

One of the (many) great things about Space Oddity by Bowie (RIP) is that it trails off at the end. The listener is left to wonder what happened to the astronaut. Did some small valve on his spaceship fail and cause him to asphyxiate? Did he go into a wormhole? Did mysterious radiation transform him into an interdemensional squid-creature? But in Crown's final narrative with added narration, Major Tom goes into space, some things happen, then he comes home. There's not a lot of space for the audience to contribute to the narrative with their own creativity.

One of the reasons that I (and many others) prefer the movie 2001 (an inspiration for the Bowie song) to Arthur C. Clarke's novelization is that it shows, rather than tells. Everything is spelled out in the book, whereas the viewer has to interpret the images, etc. in the film. Drum corps, I argue, is the same way. Would Cadets 2005 been better with giant waterfall props in Liquid? Subtly and discretion can be good things, but I feel like judging is pushing everything to be SO literal and forcing everyone to tell a LITERAL story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Drum corps is a ~13 minute audio-visual medium. Hard to tell a simple story in a coherent and compelling way in that time, let alone something deeper, even with narration etc. Even Crown 2013, which some see as the greatest show designer ever, basically comes down to "love is nice."

TL;DR: Stop trying so hard to be "deep" and tell some profound story in your show, use music and visuals to create a mood and err on the side of subtly

What Bowie did is still a story is it not? Your literal thesis statement is: STOP ALL THE STORYTELLING, right? Am I understanding that correctly? Although open ended at the end, as you describe, it's still a story. Much akin to Ives' Unanswered Question. I think an instrumental drum corps interpretation will always be more abstract than a song sung with the luxury of lyrics. Music is always telling a story. Whether it's good or not is up to the designers and performers.

[whitedawn]

TL;DR: Stop trying so hard to be "deep" and tell some profound story in your show, use music and visuals to create a mood and err on the side of subtly

It wouldn't be such a problem if drum corps designers weren't crummy storytellers, which the overwhelming majority are. They are almost always trying to fit too much narrative into a short time.

Check out this, much better example. It's 6 minutes long. Dude is looking for something. At the end, maybe finds it. Allows the viewer to think for themselves:

[MikeD]

As others have said, one big problem is that, unless you resort to narration, which even in movies (where voice is a much more essential part of the art form) almost always feels like a cheat, it's very hard to tell a story, and it's made even more difficult by the short time frame.

Hmmmm...."The Christmas Story"?????

[Corps Scores]

I loved Boston Crusaders' Animal Farm. Once I saw the G7 formation at the Premiere, I knew exactly what they were trying to communicate. It might have been a little...self-referentially political...but it's another good example (to me) of how a corps can take a well-known story and design an understandable show around it, and even twist it a bit in a clever way to make a statement.

[MikeD]

Well let's put it this way, suppose somebody who had never heard the work watched Crown 2016 and then went to hear a professional orchestra play Barber's piece. Do you think they'd recognize it as the same work? At best, I think they might pick up on the big climactic chords as the same. That's what I mean by cherry-picking: Crown 2016 uses a couple of significant musical moments from Medea, but discards the structure, development, most of the themes, and the resolution of the original.

I don't hate Klesch's arrangement this year, nor did I hate what Cadets did in 2013, but I don't see either as committing to a performance of Barber's piece the way that Star 1993 did.

They are not playing Medea as a standalone piece of music. They use the themes from that and other pieces to create the overall music and visual package they want to present to the audience. All elements are intertwined today, whether or not there is an elaborate story in the show.