Jump to content

DCI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PRELIMS - 8/11/16


Recommended Posts

Trying to remember: when the organization was initially announced, Texas had lately had two Open Class corps fold, one of whom, Forte, left members stranded in Indiana, and the other, Revolution, who never even got performance rights for their show that season (which DCI discovered after the season when they reached out to the publishers to get the media rights). And I recall that some other supposed startup corps (in Georgia?) had announced but kept canceling camp dates, and that operation appeared to many observers to be some sort of scam.

So some skepticism may have been justified.

However, here and here are two early threads about the Guardians, and it's probably fair to describe some posts in the second one as more skeptical than necessary. A good lesson for us all. And congratulations to the Guardians! The only Open Class corps to improve its position yesterday relative to the rest of O.C., and one of only two whose absolute score improved (the other being BDB, of course).

(Just found here the 2012 discussion of Accent Marching Academy, which is probably the earlier group I was thinking of. Anybody know what ever came of that operation?)

I'm not speaking about skeptics. The dream of starting a drum corps v. the reality cannot be underestimated. And some of the skeptics may be the reason why the dream of a then 19 year old potential director became a reality. My understanding is the corps has a number of good people involved. Sadly I've already heard rumblings in Indy of one corps not competing next year and one reorganizing may fold. So we need to be realistic, but that differs from some of the comments stated in the past.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just saw the full recaps from last night. Wow, BD and Crown both got nailed in music (the disperity and staggering amongst the judges in their individual scores was incredible), while the Bluecoats we're pretty level across the board in all captions. The bottom line - BD and Crown have plenty room to grow tonight. I still think its going to be tough to beat the Bluecoats but I wouldn't get too excited about the spread, I predict tonight all three corps will be within .5 of each other.

See, this is what is absolutely awful with the "no full recaps" garbage from DCI. We have no clue: there is zero accountability to judges, the system, etc. It's horrible and doesn't seem to stop any sort of real perceived "slotting" as was a major argument for passage. All it's done has caused mild confusion at best, and maybe annoyance and bitter disappointment at worst.

I've followed DCI less this season than I have since I first got into the activity in 90, and while I have my hands full a little bit with family stuff I attribute most of this to no real recaps. I used to follow scores & analyze recaps every evening after every show; I'd watch every live stream and do my own comparison to what I saw vs what some of the judges saw. This year I have little interest: living in San Diego there are very few opportunities for live shows, and it's hard to get into things with so little information out there from DCI. I'm sure I'm in the minority, and I suspected conversation might turn a little bit this week to the "hidden recaps" decision. I've seen some full recaps from people I know on drum corps staffs, but the whole disappearance of transparency in the system feels a lot more shady than perceived slotting (which didn't seem to go away, at least not in the Top 6) ever has.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, beating the GE winner will require the number 2 in GE to nearly sweep all remaining captions... that is a super tall order. So long as this remains competitive in captions between 3 or 4 corps... the GE winner is the winner... especially if they also win at least 1 other caption.

This isn't perfectly true... but it's pretty near perfect.

Agreed...

Since 2001, only twice has the GE winner not won the championship.

2008, BD won GE by 0.05, but were 4th in Music (1st in Brass but 5th in Percussion)

2015, Crown won GE by 0.1, but were 3rd in Visual and 3rd in Music while BD won but captions

With the Bluecoats ahead 0.35 in GE, within 0.15 of 1st in Visual, and ahead 0.388 in Music something dramatic would have to happen form them to be passed overall.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See, this is what is absolutely awful with the "no full recaps" garbage from DCI. We have no clue: there is zero accountability to judges, the system, etc. It's horrible and doesn't seem to stop any sort of real perceived "slotting" as was a major argument for passage. All it's done has caused mild confusion at best, and maybe annoyance and bitter disappointment at worst.

I've followed DCI less this season than I have since I first got into the activity in 90, and while I have my hands full a little bit with family stuff I attribute most of this to no real recaps. I used to follow scores & analyze recaps every evening after every show; I'd watch every live stream and do my own comparison to what I saw vs what some of the judges saw. This year I have little interest: living in San Diego there are very few opportunities for live shows, and it's hard to get into things with so little information out there from DCI. I'm sure I'm in the minority, and I suspected conversation might turn a little bit this week to the "hidden recaps" decision. I've seen some full recaps from people I know on drum corps staffs, but the whole disappearance of transparency in the system feels a lot more shady than perceived slotting (which didn't seem to go away, at least not in the Top 6) ever has.

What accountability was there before that there isn't now?

Having DCP be able to see the full recaps doesn't make a difference in that regard one way or the other. Staffs are still going to critique and still getting full recaps.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm totally against the "hide the recaps! hide yo kids! hide yo wife!" stance DCI has taken because I think it encourages disengagement by a subsection of the fan-base, but I don't think it's actually changed anything about how judging works, for better or worse.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

With three corps scoring within LESS than a point of each other, it's "clear?"

'Coats won a prelim, but It sure doesn't seem clear to the judges that they are a "step" above. Judges seem to find they are a tiny fraction above.

It may be true that Bluecoats will eventually win, but this isn't a run away by any stretch of the imagination.

No one, including George, has said it is a runaway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Plus, so much of the good work they are doing in brass and music ensemble was wasted last night due to (continued) overuse of synth, particularly on the low end. It's been that way live all summer, and it was absolutely horrid last night in the theater. They were by no means the only ones guilty of this (I'm looking at you, Madison Scouts and Boston Crusaders), but you'd think after several years of it they'd figure it out. You know who didn't have synth/sub issues? Cavies, SCV, Crown, Devils, or Bluecoats.

Particularly bad in the movie theaters was the ear-splitting violin, followed by an inaudible french horn feature. Cadets seemed clearly less mature in the use of electronics than the 4 groups ahead of them. That has to be affecting Music Analysis scores, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

oPyYSDs.jpg

Darn! What I hate about DCP mobile is no zoom function on the phone. Now I gotta go find a computer.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Darn! What I hate about DCP mobile is no zoom function on the phone. Now I gotta go find a computer.

If you have Android, press and hold on the picture and hit save image.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...