Emergence of the Front Ensemble

[Cappybara]

So.. what's the issue here? If the pit wants to head bob, let them ####### head bob.

[garfield]

So.. what's the issue here? If the pit wants to head bob, let them ####### head bob.

As I said, if they want to ####### head-bob for visual points, let them ####### head-bob.

But to claim there's a utility to it that somehow miraculously compensates for a MAXIMUM 8-frigging-hundredths of a second (in a typical FE spread) is simply folly.

Can't beat distance-math or sound-physics, no matter how much head-bobbing they do.

[Eleran]

Yes they can tell when exactly the pulses hit their ictus

This had me chuckling a bit, because while you are using it for its musical definition (a rhythmical or metrical stress) it also has a medical definition: a stroke or seizure; a fit, which some might say characterizes some of the emoting we see.

[Cappybara]

As I said, if they want to ####### head-bob for visual points, let them ####### head-bob.

But to claim there's a utility to it that somehow miraculously compensates for a MAXIMUM 8-frigging-hundredths of a second (in a typical FE spread) is simply folly.

Can't beat distance-math or sound-physics, no matter how much head-bobbing they do.

Or maybe it just gets them into the performance and helps keep their groove? It could be used for visual, but that doesn't mean that is its only utility.

There are plenty of students who can get off tempo EVEN IF they're close to each other. It happens.

[MarimbaManiac]

"MAXIMUM 8-frigging-hundredths" of a second in a vacuum with perfect listening situations and clarity without any deviation or variation...which, as anyone who has participated in drum corps knows, is never the case. You're completely dismissing the point about interpretation and reacting to variations because it fits your biased narrative. A narrative that doesn't reflect any actual primary research or experience on your part.

So, ya know...there's that.

[snare_guy_83]

[garfield]

Battery is not FE, and the experience in both sections is completely different.

Even IF the battery is attempting to compensate for their distance from the drum major (which is not always the case), it's almost never completely compensating for the difference since they are usually moving towards or away from the FE as they are playing, making adjusting for that difference nearly impossible. So adjustments need to be done in the front ensemble, and they are usually done at the center and communicated out. Listening through the hornline and interpreting what the drumline is doing isn't easy, and it's better done by one or two people rather than interpreted individually.

What's hilarious to me is that you are blithely dismissing the work that FE designers and instructional staff have been doing for decades based on your own erroneous assumptions. The system that has been created was born out of a generation of trial and error and fine tuned using each teams individual styles. Yes, when students play in the same style using the same preparatory techniques they can very clearly read the communications from the person next to them. Yes they can tell when exactly the pulses hit their ictus or when the person next to the is going to attack by watching the bend of their elbow/wrist/etc. Yes this is worlds easier and clearer than individually listening through 80 horns back to the snare line for a specific rhythmic pattern. Your dismissal of pulsing as as simply "entertainment or over-performance" doesn't distill the accuracy of these facts.

So you focus on keeping the drumline clean so the center has something clear to listen for, and the FE will focus on how best to respond to that.

Never claimed the battery and FE are the same in any way.

What do you mean "IF" the battery is attempting to compensate? The moment a battery begins to move away from the DM they begin to compensate by climbing on top of the beat. "...never completely compensating..."? Considering that, at mid-field, we're talking about a little more than 0.07 seconds of delay to the sidelines, ANY compensation is going make a substantive audible difference. And, you contend, that because the battery never really fully compensates for that max 14/100's of a second, the FE is going to be able to adjust? What if the battery does half a good job? The FE is going to "adjust" 7/100's of a second? Seriously?

I'll accept your contention (dubious, but I'll grant it) that FE members can each focus on the ictus of the player next to them, but the notion that doing so assists tempo timing is nutso- they'd all have to be focused on the center to fix timing errors else the error will get compounded as it travels out from the center from player to player, causing a whole lot more delay than the 8/100's of a second sound delay!

I don't doubt that mallet height and speed are critical to playing accuracy and that consistency in those techniques helps both the FE's timing and the staff's ability to clean. But even accurate referencing of the next player in line doesn't tie each player to the center accurately simply because of the variables of note prep, stroke length/speed, and ictus definition.

And just so everyone now bored to tears with this discussion has some reference of the time differential we're discussing, the average sound pulse of a finger-snap is 0.02 seconds. The idea of a head-bob or any other kind of body pulse cleaning a time delay error of 0.08 seconds is simply laughable on its face.

If head bobbing were any solution at all to the effects of distance from the podium, the whole darn corps would be bobbing to every piece of music.

[skevinp]

Ironically, the guy on the right might have won if he had bobbed his head at the right time.

[luv4corps]

I don't care about the math or fancy semantics. What makes sense to me is that head-bobbing and/or other movements are an essential component of a successful pit performance. I don't understand what there is to quibble about here.

Edited September 1, 2016 by luv4corps

[garfield]

This had me chuckling a bit, because while you are using it for its musical definition (a rhythmical or metrical stress) it also has a medical definition: a stroke or seizure; a fit, which some might say characterizes some of the emoting we see.

I saw that, too, but didn't want to diminish MarimbaManiac's contention by suggesting I was about to have an ictus listening to his claim.

Well, I guess I just did. So there's that.