Bluecoats 2018-LETS GO BLOO

[queenanne_1536]

3 hours ago, Ghost said:

In the case of Boston, starting at 3 points behind, as close as 1.6 back, and currently 2.6 back, to me, is chipping away.  Any stone statue that's fairly large was not built in several weeks.  Boston has time to keep gaining on the corps scoring higher than them, as do all corps.  Whether corps have the shows, talent, and staff to get real close or pass corps ahead of themselves is another story.

It's not chipping away to me. Since the first show, the average spread between Bloo and BAC is 2.52 points. So I don't see any chipping away with a 3.0 difference the first time they met to the 2.65 difference the last time they met. 0.35 is nothing these days. Looks to me that the show with the 1.6 spread is the anomaly, not the others. We may see them chipping away in the upcoming weeks, who knows, but it's not happened thus far.

[oldbandguy]

Pretty cool that the band Thank You Scientist paid a visit to the Bluecoats yesterday since the corps was in their neck of the woods.  Most of you will remember that Bloo used music from the band in their show last year and Thank You Scientist actually came to Spring Training at Denison to do a private concert for the corps.  

Bloo also says they "have something pretty neat in the works that we are very excited about..." involving Thank You Scientist.   Stay tuned!

TYS even brought the band's mascot MAX (the band dog) to get see the many friends he made when he visited Bloo last year.

 

[xandandl]

Just a shout out to some very classy and respectful half dozen Bloo mms. Last night at the Cadets' contest, an elderly Cadets alum stood from his wheel chair and stood at attention as the Cadets hornline played the corps hymn. As the man exited the stadium at the end of the night, the Bloo mms went over to him and thanked him for how he inspired them.  I was impressed as I watched this interchange as the elder Cadet kidded them whether this was one of those infamous lot brawls from his day. No, these mms were doing it right. I felt honored to witness all this. Kudos Bloo.

[N.E. Brigand]

It's a little strange to play a song titled "The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" that features a singer but leave out the lyrics that explain the title.

Edit: I was half-wrong. The dry cleaner is mentioned. Des Moines is not.

Edited July 7, 2018 by N.E. Brigand

[N.E. Brigand]

Which leads to my point: enunciation.

Here are the lyrics as used in Bluecoats' show; the bold indicates lyrics that aren't coming through very clearly, with notes in italics and brackets:

 

"I'm down to a roll of dimes

I'm stalking the slot that's hot  [sounds like "I'm stoking the slope that's hope" -- no that doesn't make any sense, which is my point]

I keep hearing bells all around me

Jingling in the lucky jackpots  [sounds like "Jingling" without the "in"]

They keep you tantalized

They keep you reaching for your wallet

Here in fools' paradise!

 

He got three oranges

Three lemons  [unintelligible, but guessable from context]

Three cherries

Three plums

I'm losing my taste for fruit  [unintelligible]

Watching the dry cleaner do it

Like Midas in a polyester suit

It's all luck!  [sounds like "Heat's"]

It's just luck!

You get a little lucky and you make a little money!

 

[scat singing] 

It's all luck!

It's just luck!

 

I went through a roll of dimes.

[scat singing]

It's just luck!"

 

I'm just noting this as you might point out any element you'd like to see improved; I'm sure they'll work on this as the season progresses.

[pudding]

I think you're missing the point of their usage of the vocalist. She's not intended to be "singing a song", as it were; rather, she's contributing the timbre of her voice to the soundscape. The exact lines that you pinpoint as unclear are in fact being presented stylistically correctly: in the original Joni Mitchell, those exact lines are also somewhat muddy and unclear, as an artifact of the vocal style. 

In most cases where vocals have been used in DCI, it's because they wanted the lyrical aspect that a vocalist can provide, which a mellohpone or flugelhorn cannot. This, of course, has led to the many, many discussions and arguments about balance, appropriateness, and whether vocalists "belong" in the activity. An overarching reaction that I have observed to the Bluecoats this year is that, unlike most if not all previous efforts at incorporating a vocalist, most fans seems to enjoy their usage, even those who had previously decried the decision with other corps. Moreover, it is not just Bluecoats fans that are saying this. I think that this is because, unlike nearly every previous attempt at using a vocalist, they are not focusing on the lyrics; they are focusing on the timbre and stylistic contribution. No matter how good a brass soloist is, they will never be able to convincingly emulate Joni Mitchell's scat singing. So they bring in this enormously talented young woman, who can emulate that style, but they don't overbalance it, or make it the centerpiece of the show (for longer than necessary to let the audience know that she's there). There are many times where she's singing, but her words are obscured by the brass choir; her voice, however, still contributes to the sound, and nothing is lost because the focus is not on her words, but the holistic sound of the entire corps, including her. 

The words are incredibly unimportant; even in the original song, the "dry cleaner from Des Moines" could be replaced with "electrician from Baton Rouge" or "milkman from Birmingham". The point is that the narrator is gambling somewhere, and not doing well, but this other character seemingly can't lose; basically, the idea is to stylistically present the idea of a gambling den, in an old jazz style a la Sinatra with his Luck be a Lady. Even more to the point of the drum corps adaptation, the specific style being presented doesn't matter at all, but rather the fact that the song is focusing on presenting a style at all, rather than telling a story through its words. Because of this, it's possible to incorporate a vocalist without having the entire corps play second fiddle to her lyrics, which I feel was the biggest complaint about vocalists in general.

[Jim Schehr]

12 minutes ago, pudding said:

Because of this, it's possible to incorporate a vocalist without having the entire corps play second fiddle to her lyrics, which I feel was the biggest complaint about vocalists in general.

Exactly 

[Terri Schehr]

That’s all I got. 

Edited July 7, 2018 by Terri Schehr

[Cappybara]

It’s really a testament to this Bluecoats design team that every other implementation of live vocals sounds amateurish (especially some of the corps that used vocals last year, not gonna name any names) in comparison. I really think if singing is going to be incorporated in DCI, it should be in this style. The voice should be treated like just another instrument rather than a mouthpiece to tell the story. Doing the latter is just lazy story-building in my opinion (except for specific circumstances such as Cadets 2014 where I think it was done well)

[pudding]

I thought that Crown 2013 used vocals quite well, although I'm also a huge fan of Einstein on the Beach, so the bits that might have sounded like out-of-place narration to an unfamiliar listener made perfect sense to me.