Need help with BD Chop and Paste, Walk and Stand approach to design

[Stu]

45 minutes ago, ShutUpAndPlayYerGuitar said:

I came here for the straw man arguments. I am not disappointed.

But.... that was not made-up. A lecture like that  from a music professor and marching show designer actually occurred in the stands after many, including me, were disappointed by a show design.  So, not a staw-man but a real-man anecdote.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Stu

[Stu]

3 hours ago, jwillis35 said:

On point no. 1, there are plenty of folks who think they can pinpoint the type of entertainment most people would like to see, or that they SHOULD see. They want to tell us what we should like and what DCI SHOULD be.  I try to refrain from that.  I don't know what Drum Corps is supposed to be, I only know that it WILL BE what the corps themselves decide to produce.  Those corps will follow the youth movement.  If the kids stop coming to auditions, then they will change their tune.  

 

As for point no. 2: whether we like it or not, the WGI, BOA effect on DCI is what brought a lot of youth to the activity. I don't expect everyone to like it.  The younger base of fans is where DCI has to concentrate its marketing. Many are marching, and many are fans. Newer and younger fans = dollars.  Lots of youth marching = dollars to the corps.  We've seen more youth auditioning for drum corps than we have in a long time.  We have seen the rise of a number of new drum corps (like Genesis, etc.) and the open class circuit has become more robust. Much more so than it was in the 90s or early 2000s. Show attendance has been good to really good.  During the 1980s (a period of corps that I loved) we sadly saw the demise of too many corps to list. From Bridgemen, 27th Lancers, North Star, Avant Guarde, Pride of Cincinnati, and many many others. Even corps like Garfield, Crossmen, Glassmen were always in financial trouble. The Bluecoats in the early 80s were in financial trouble -- almost folded.  Phantom Regiment was in huge financial trouble in the 90s and early 2000s, and the stories like this are a plenty.  As much as I loved the 80s and 90s, I was tired of hearing about the death of another corps. 

 

Back to the chop & paste effect. Drum & Bugle Corps has always utilized a chop & paste method with music, but it was somewhat less so in the 1970s and 1980s because visual wasn't driving the bus. No doubt. For those saying songs like "Memory" or "Ice Castles" were played in full -- um no. The Broadway songs are much longer.  Madison took those tunes and arranged them for field. BD did the same, as did Cavaliers and others.  Nobody was playing those songs in full, but the arrangements didn't feel forced and corps tended to only play 3 or 4 tunes.  Today's corps tend to put a lot of music into a show, there is no doubt about that.  And I will admit that sometimes that is a turnoff to me. If the corps is unable to make the music book flow then chances are I will not like the show as much.  

 

Having said that I have also wanted more integration with visual.  The two can work well with each other (great music and visual) and I still see plenty of moments like this in drum corps.  I also see a WGI/BOA effect, but I am fine with that. I want the activity to be exciting for our youth. I want HS and College kids to march or become fans. The activity will only survive if they get involved.  As for us old timers, and I speak for myself only here, it is doubtful I will ever love a decade more than the 1980s. That is when I grew up, when I was in HS and College, when I began seeing shows, when I was marching in my HS band, etc.  Despite my love of the 1980s, I feel drum corps is better off today. I feel corps are managed better. I see more enthusiasm with the youth.  And admittedly I see lots of shows each summer that I really like, and the Blue Devils (the igniter of this thread) have grabbed me with some super special shows in the last decade (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016).  By the way, I feel this 2017 show is going to be special when all said and done. 

 

Boos and Cheers, not necessarily during the show, but more so during score announcements is a pretty good indicator as to what the fans in general like and do not like as entertainment.  And while it is true that the corps need to appeal to the youth in order to procure performers, part of that appeal is having 40,000 people in the stands at a major venue which paid big bucks being entertained.  Ignore the Boos from the fans and continue to design competitively winning shows that elicit Boos at your own peril, because at some point the stadium will empty out on you no mater the 'quality' of the performance.

The death of many corps over the years is one of poor business practices combined with skyrocketing tour costs.   This is something that I have to really commend BD on; they have a business model which should be studied by all corps!

Chop and Paste is not the same thing as a truncated arrangement which still respects the melody and phrasing within the source material. And that respect of the source material used to be the arranging style in pre-Y2K DCI.  However, because the post-Y2K way to design a DCI show began to move into treating Visual First and Foremost taking the front driving seat above all else, the visual driven sound arranging that underpins the visual became disjunctive with little melodic development and choppy phrasing while pulling from a plethora of original source music

When there is a great marriage between comprehensible music composition and extraordinary visual design, where music is treated with just as much respect in terms of melody and phrasing as the visual, it is in those shows that I personal find the best creativity.  It takes a masterful design team to pull off both simultaneously.  And when one runs ramrod over the other, whether it is music driven or visual driven, that show not only cheats the audience but also cheats the performers.

[cowtown]

23 hours ago, Candid Insight said:

Although I am new to DCP I have been involved in the activity as a marching member, instructor, arranger, and judge for over 4 decades (brass).

Because of that, I have seen the transitions the activity has made and the posts in this thread reflect a breadcrumb trail of the progression, plus the diverse perspectives people have regarding the design changes we now see.  Although I am an older fan, I appreciate most of the innovation that we are seeing.

Park and play has become a staple for corps for the 'compulsory' sixteenth note segments seemingly written into all all brass programs. Some corps do it (play while not moving) more than others (as noted with Blue Devils). Even the 'walking to the next set' approach is not particularly offensive to me if well coordinated and not drawn out.  What seems a bit unfair is when one top 5 corps (Corps A) walks to the next set for their transitions and does a ton of park and play while another top 5 corps (Corps B) delivers a continuous orchestrated and difficult visual design, and much less park and play, yet Corps B gets lower scores.  This seems to reward a corps for attempting less.

An example from 2016 is Crown versus Blue Devils.  Both corps performed at an extremely high level.  Crown had very little 'park and play', and no significant walking to the next set in their show.  The Blue Devils had significant 'park and play' and quite a bit of 'less organized' transitions.  I appreciated both shows very much, but it seemed Crown got less credit in the content areas, specifically lower scores in Visual Analysis and Music Analysis.  From my perspective, it seems easier to perform while stationary and visual sets that are 'free form' act as almost as a 'break' from the visual being judged. Some people will disagree and cite Blue Devils' less organized transitions are part of their design and should get higher credit. I enjoy a difficult brass passage played well, and I think doing that on the move should get more credit. Personal preferences are huge and artistry is very subjective, so I know many people have a totally different take on this.  I am not saying that Crown should have been above Devils in overall scoring.  I am just pointing to those specific scores.  In my opinion, the brass books and performance levels were equivalent and since Crown attempted more they should not (in my opinion) have been under Devils in those specific captions.

Many of my friends are highly critical of the Blue Devils for doing less yet scoring more.  Some of them actually LOOK for where the Devils 'do less', even timing the amount of the park and play segments.  I try to look past the scores and just appreciate the incredible performances of all the corps.  My thanks to the original poster - this thread was interesting to read.

 

 

 

I don’t get that either, also don’t get all the credit given for individuals doing for lack of a better word, concurrent visual solos (multiple, visual characterizations). I think SCV should have been over BD merely because they are doing a more complete show so they should have gotten more credit but since they didn’t…

Congratulation BD on number 18 and an undefeated season, I hope that your finished product will be up to the level of your membership as they look to be one of the most talented BD corps ever.

This year’s BD show doesn’t hit me as chop and bop as some in the past, we have a long ballad that once they finish shaping, integrate the soloist vs the ensemble better, might be amongst the best, we’ll see.

I’m not opposed to chop and bop and when it works, BD 12 had the best musical book that year.

As to BD’s visual program this year, we’re still waiting…but for now, they do stand around a lot, skip, play a run, park

[SNModdison]

I have been thinking about, and discussing this with friends for years, (or at least part of this topic anyway), so I was looking forward to reading this thread. A few of the folks responding to this thread have again shown me why I'm not active on DCP any more; reading personal attacks and people being down-right nasty on here gets so disheartening. It's drum corps: a beautiful, unique activity that we are all a part of, and in that way we are a family. Why attack someone? So sad.

[Cappybara]

41 minutes ago, Stu said:

 

When there is a great marriage between comprehensible music composition and extraordinary visual design, where music is treated with just as much respect in terms of melody and phrasing as the visual, it is in those shows that I personal find the best creativity.  It takes a masterful design team to pull off both simultaneously.  And when one runs ramrod over the other, whether it is music driven or visual driven, that show not only cheats the audience but also cheats the performers.

 

How many current members have you talked to who have felt cheated by the music arranging of their respective corps? 

How many audience members? 

[MikeRapp]

29 minutes ago, Cappybara said:

How many current members have you talked to who have felt cheated by the music arranging of their respective corps? 

How many audience members? 

Also, this is a very, very difficult medium to excel in. Maybe the most challenging arts medium ever invented. Just because a corps fails to achieve perfection doesn't mean they aren't trying, and have just fallen short. Every show designer wants a seamless, artful, emotional show stopper. They all start out with the same basic goal (or most do). But it takes enormous ability, enormous MM talent, and a little good fortune to achieve greatness, and even then you don't ever achieve perfection.

To whatever degree the DCI members seek to reward "seamlessness" I don't know. That said, to say the audiences don't like what the corps are putting out now is just false. Yes there was a time when DCI appeared to be stuck in a creative rut, but now, sorry, I see the opposite. We have at least four world class corps that are within one point of winning a gold medal. We have three more that with some good fortune and show changes could win the bronze. And we will see amazing attendance all season long.

All things considered, I think DCI is doing a pretty decent job evolving this activity. Is there a lot of politics? You bet there is. But all things considered, things have been far worse in recent eras.

[Stu]

22 minutes ago, Cappybara said:

How many current members have you talked to who have felt cheated by the music arranging of their respective corps? 

How many audience members? 

Feeling cheated and being cheated are two different things. Whether you feel it or not, when one aspect of artistic design is ramrodded over another you are cheated.

[Cappybara]

7 minutes ago, Stu said:

Feeling cheated and being cheated are two different things. Whether you feel it or not, when one aspect of artistic design is ramrodded over another you are cheated.

I think the current members are getting a better music and ARTS education (after all, this activity has always been about the arts) than they ever have before. 

To say they are being cheated is borderline irresponsible imo. 

[MikeRapp]

2 hours ago, cfirwin3 said:

Such a long-standing discussion here.  It's been going on since... Well, a long time.

Without jumping too deep into the pond... I'll just stick my toe in and say that it seems as if the premise of the question assumes that orchestration and voicing decisions in arranging aren't really important or complicated.  It seems to put all of the heavy weight on thematic organization and transitions.

Those BD arrangements are well written (piecing together unrelated material in a way that works and still preserves the themes, with occasional integration is not simply a matter of "cutting and pasting").

As for how well people receive it in performance with visuals...  BD is a popular corps for the attributes that they have and in spite of criticism.  There's no reason for them to do anything differently.  I'm a big fan... and I wouldn't want to see them trying to be more like some other group.

To be fair, there were aspects of Ink that I felt were very poorly "cut and pasted" together. Sometimes BD does try too hard to make an entirely unique compositional statement. I do tend to prefer the way Crown and Bluecoats approach show design — in general — but that's not to say they are better or worse than BD. Just a different approach. 

[MikeRapp]

14 minutes ago, Stu said:

Feeling cheated and being cheated are two different things. Whether you feel it or not, when one aspect of artistic design is ramrodded over another you are cheated.

Well, one aspect of artistic design is required to put any show on the field. Not every corps does it the same. If you don't like how Cadets or BD do show designs, march with Bluecoats, Crossmen or Academy. 

No one is sentencing these kids to a corps beyond their choice. You are acting as if the kids are being taken advantage of, and I guarantee you virtually none of them feel that way at the end of a summer.