3 SHADES OF BLUE and friends Denver, Co

[crownisking]

7 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

Well,  I guess you're right.  But it doesn't really matter.  I bet there's not one kid from Fort Mill in that corps.  

They're still the cleanest corps. 

I'm not so sure about that. The town's two high schools Fort Mill HS and Nation Ford HS have at least twenty state championships between the two of them. I know for sure that one of the tenors from two years ago was from FM. Not sure about this year. 

[MikeRapp]

5 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

A few thoughts.

I hadn't heard about that bit with the sticks. It sounds cool. That sort of information should be disseminated more to the fans.

On the other hand: do the drums sound any different when they do that? And if not, is it a difference without a point?

But beyond all that: maybe what Bluecoats really need to work on is their conversations with the judges? It seems like PR is pretty important!

And I don't mean that to sound derogatory. I work for a performing arts company. We need people to buy tickets to our shows. I have seen plenty of great shows that couldn't draw a crowd and plenty of mediocre shows that sold like crazy. And likewise more than one occasion where the critics (closest thing in many arts to DCI judges) panned the former and praised the latter. Conveying just the right information beforehand to the audience and the judge is key.

The drum sticks point was made in one of the BD360 videos, as well as others. This stuck out to me because there was a marching member who specifically stated they had "more demand" because they were performing multiple drumming styles, often at the same time. I found it interesting, but also kind of suspicious, that this detail was in the video, for the purpose of conveying that the show has  "higher demand."

Again, these are the things BD does repeatedly, to raise the potential technical repertoire and perceived difficulty of their show. The crowd is of course clueless about this stuff. And I'm not saying this is wrong, or that it is wrong to convey these details to the judging community for the purpose of educating them about the show. But this is what BD does as a part of their show design process. And that is why I made my original statement a few hundred posts back, that I don't understand drum corps judging.

[JKT90]

3 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

The drum sticks point was made in one of the BD360 videos, as well as others. This stuck out to me because there was a marching member who specifically stated they had "more demand" because they were performing multiple drumming styles, often at the same time. I found it interesting, but also kind of suspicious, that this detail was in the video, for the purpose of conveying that the show has  "higher demand."

Again, these are the things BD does repeatedly, to raise the potential technical repertoire and perceived difficulty of their show. The crowd is of course clueless about this stuff. And I'm not saying this is wrong, or that it is wrong to convey these details to the judging community for the purpose of educating them about the show. But this is what BD does as a part of their show design process. And that is why I made my original statement a few hundred posts back, that I don't understand drum corps judging.

As someone who has marched tenors and snare, changing the grip is not a big deal, especially at this level.

[Minimaster]

Is anybody going to talk about the lack of simultaneous responsibility in BD's show?

Just watch the brass, they do 1 minute of marching and playing at the same time (mostly slow/halftime).

There is literally nothing there...

[MikeRapp]

14 minutes ago, JKT90 said:

As someone who has marched tenors and snare, changing the grip is not a big deal, especially at this level.

Well, Scott Chandler made it out to be superhuman difficult. I wouldnt have a clue, I wasn't a drummer.

[JKT90]

Just now, MikeRapp said:

Well, Scott Chandler made it out to be superhuman difficult. I wouldnt have a clue, I wasn't a drummer.

It's a different set of muscles used between match and traditional grip...but they aren't ramming notes either...it's quite easy to switch grips, especially for the short amount of time they are playing that segment. 

[MikeRapp]

7 minutes ago, Minimaster said:

Is anybody going to talk about the lack of simultaneous responsibility in BD's show?

Just watch the brass, they do 1 minute of marching and playing at the same time (mostly slow/halftime).

There is literally nothing there...

Again, this is what I was talking about when I said I didn't understand drum corps judging. I wasn't being snarky, I was stating a fact. I realize there is a technical aspect to the judging sheets that fans don't get, won't see, and probably wouldn't care about if they did see. 

Given the nature of the activity, I find it even more amazing that Bluecoats won the gold last year. But I am asking, was that show harder than this one from a technical standpoint? Or is this BD show that much tougher than last year's show?

To my eyes, Metamorph isn't as challenging as SCV or Bluecoats. And it's not as compelling as last year's theme.

Edited July 16, 2017 by MikeRapp

[saxfreq1128]

6 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Well, yes, sort of. But I was responding to the claim that BD has the best performers. If they did last year, then they would have won one or more of the performance caption awards. As I'm sure you know, that didn't happen. Admittedly that's based on a three-night average.

http://www.dci.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=33500&ATCLID=211129395 

Now I suppose there's an argument to be made that corps should be thought of as like decathlon athletes, who don't need to be first in any one of their sub-events to be best overall.

And I wouldn't deny that BD almost always has the best performers.

I'm not sure you can measure it that way... 

An Olympic relay team can be composed of the best individual runners in the world. That doesn't mean the team fosters an environment—psychologically, or in terms of training—that gets the best out of each teammate. It's about the learning environment. Of course, having the best runners in the world is an advantage, either way. But the psychology of team dynamics is complicated! 

To your point, though, the fact that BD usually wins has definitely encouraged people to assume they've got the most talent, and I'm with you, that's not automatically true. 

[saxfreq1128]

29 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

The drum sticks point was made in one of the BD360 videos, as well as others. This stuck out to me because there was a marching member who specifically stated they had "more demand" because they were performing multiple drumming styles, often at the same time. I found it interesting, but also kind of suspicious, that this detail was in the video, for the purpose of conveying that the show has  "higher demand."

Again, these are the things BD does repeatedly, to raise the potential technical repertoire and perceived difficulty of their show. The crowd is of course clueless about this stuff. And I'm not saying this is wrong, or that it is wrong to convey these details to the judging community for the purpose of educating them about the show. But this is what BD does as a part of their show design process. And that is why I made my original statement a few hundred posts back, that I don't understand drum corps judging.

I was never under the impression that those videos were for judges... If you're explaining demand, aren't you really talking to the audience? 

[MikeRapp]

2 minutes ago, saxfreq1128 said:

I was never under the impression that those videos were for judges... If you're explaining demand, aren't you really talking to the audience? 

I don't know who the videos are made for, but I would guess they are for anyone who watches them. Which, I would have to assume, include judges and everyone in DCI and the marching arts leadership. I would watch anything I could were I a judge.

BD360 is an amazing series. I wish everyon had the resources do to a series like that.