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2019 Phantom Regiment


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17 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:

I will give you that for sure. He tries too hard sometimes. But at least he posts. This website is about dead. 

It's April with no breaking scandals.....and the way it gets here sometimes, no wonder people stay away.

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3 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

It's April with no breaking scandals.....and the way it gets here sometimes, no wonder people stay away.

This place is cordial. The only bad thing that happens is just when a thread starts to get juicy and ramped up, a buzz killing moderator comes in and closes it. 😏

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47 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:

This place is cordial. The only bad thing that happens is just when a thread starts to get juicy and ramped up, a buzz killing moderator comes in and closes it. 😏

Reminds me of a common interpretation of the Federal Reserve's job:  "To take away the punch bowl right when the party starts getting good."

The mods here are well-tuned-in to those here who are the hardest partiers.

(:97_raised_hand: sometimes guilty)

 

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1 hour ago, queenanne_1536 said:

Well, only you didn't prove the claim was demonstrably false.

1. Nearly all those corps have better arrangers than Regiment, obviously. And, those that may not have better arrangers on paper, are doing a better job at arranging. Even Music City's "Hallelujah" was better than anything Regiment has arranged since perhaps 2012. I'm not slamming Music City (even though it seems like it), but a corps like Regiment should be out-everythinging Music City. I have no faith that this year is going to be any better. Chances are FOEG will be another attempted failure at bringing a classic piece from the past back. Literally, any attempt since 2012 to resurrect a piece from the past has been a failure. I'm astoundingly baffled that they continually take this path. It doesn't take a genius to figure out it's not working. So it doesn't matter if you can present several successful shorter pieces arranged well by other corps, because Regiment isn't arranging anything well.

2. Musical and thematic development is subjective. I happen to agree with those who say corps are playing too many pieces in an 11 minute show, and there's little musical and thematic development. It's like Hooked on Classics. The Cavaliers source music last year consisted of 10 pieces. That's absurd. You cannot fully realize all those pieces in 11 minutes (you can't even fully realize 5 of them). You're comparing what corps are doing today to what corps are doing today. While I agree, all the pieces you have referenced were successful on the field, but when compared to the originals - not so much. When compared to the 80s, 90s and 2000s, there is little musical development in today's shows.

3. The problem isn't as much the length of the pieces being played as it is their arrangements. 30 seconds of horns and drums playing, 15 second drum break, 30 seconds of horns and drums playing, 15 second drum break - repeat, repeat, repeat. It's just boring. Some corps are obviously more successful with that formula - Regiment is not one of them.

4. Go back and listen to Regiment's opener from 1996 and tell me any number today that is given the time to develop like that. You won't be able to. I still regard that opener as one of the most astonishing moments on the field ever. It was stunningly beautiful and thrilling, and it was that way because it was given time to build. It was marvelous.

Compare those pieces to the originals. Compare those pieces to arrangements from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. The failure of thematic and musical development today comparatively is staggering, regardless if a piece was successful (by today's standards) or not. 

A) I absolutely proved the claim was demonstrably false. The claim was simply "Fire of Eternal Glory would not be given the time to develop as it did long, long ago." That was it. I put forward seven examples of ballads that were written to do just that from this season alone --- 3 of them in the top 5 --- so how would anyone have ground to stand on that FOEG wouldn't be given time to develop? 

B) I do understand what you're saying, queenanne, I really do. I've gone to war over this point a number of times on DCP forums, but "chop 'n' bop" arranging is largely a style of the late 00s/early 2010s that was 100% led by BD, experimented with for a few years by a number of other corps, and is now strictly limited to corps who don't realize that that trend has passed; i.e., Cavies' music books the last few seasons, and Phantom, with Blue Stars & Colts thrown in on occasion. Most corps have swung back to allowing their music book to let melodies fully develop, and don't use more than 3 - 5 pieces of source material in a show, which isn't particularly different than the 90s. Leading that trend is the Michael Klesch music books of Crown (don't forget, they were the "it" group with their full melodies during BD's reign of chop n bop), SCV, Bloo, and BK; all corps (well, not Crown at the moment) that have been putting out the shows that are viewed as "lit" by the Gen Zers coming up into the activity. I get the bemoaning of chop n bop, I really do, and I'm not faulting anyone for that....I'm a band director and a music arranger, and I want my students AND audiences to be hearing full melodies; my goal is never to create a new BD-esque tapestry of music woven together seamlessly from 10 different pieces of source material. I'm generally not thrilled by that either. My point is that outside of BD, that trend is largely passing --- it drives me nuts that both Cavies & Phantom seem to have locked onto that style as "current" when that is not AT ALL what judges & fans are by and large rewarding at the moment at any level of our activity. I'm beyond thrilled that Cavies are thriving for a lot of other reasons, great staff being the primary....but I truly believe a music book that gave it's source material time to be showcased properly would keep them even more competitive with the top, because that's what everyone at the top is doing besides BD (even BD let Natural Woman & Everything Must Change sparkle for a gloriously long amount of time, although I wouldn't call either arrangement particularly true to the original --- either way, they spent much more time letting their ballads develop into fan favorites than any of the ADD-esque snippets of music from Cavies' music books the last few years). 

Now, to your points:

1. I agree --- the arrangements of these other corps are flat out better. I don't believe I would be interested at ALL to hear FOEG through the prism of Phantom's current music books. I'm not arguing that at all....my only point was the FOEG would absolutely thrive in unaltered glory on a field in current years, because many pieces similar to it are doing just that and are fan favorites. I didn't necessarily mean with Phantom again (unfortunately), I just meant that there is still plenty of room for a fu;;y developed, start-to-finish ballad on the field today; in fact, it's still heavily rewarded by both judges & audiences. 

2. Again, I agree about the chop n bop style, but it's largely passed. I think it was viewed as the future when no other corps could compete with BD's new patchworks of music --- but recent seasons have proven that notion wrong. If you look at SCV, Crown, Bloo, BK, Crossmen, Cadets of this year (it's a bit early to know what their new style will be), The Academy, Troop, Music City, even (ugh) Scouts of the last two years....its really, really hard to take one seriously with the phrase "there is little musical development in today's shows"...that's just not true. It's a small minority of corps who, I will give you, tend to lack any satisfying musical development in their shows. 

3. Again, agreed, we just disagree on the spread of the infection. I still maintain it's limited within the last few years to a few corps and that the trend is passing. Also, I think it's worth pointing out that while it's not my favorite style, when BD's chop n bop style is effective (2017) is when they really DO end up creating this gorgeous new tapestry of music out of snippets & patchworks of source material, and that new tapestry ('17, '15), becomes as moving as allowing free-flowing source material would be. When it doesn't work as well, though ('18), it falls DRASTICALLY short of what full melodies from source music can do.

4. Agreed-ish. I too regard Phantom '96 as one of my favorite openers/musical moments in the pantheon of drum corps music books, and I wasn't even around for it. It's INCREDIBLE. But but but. My assertion is not that it couldn't happen today, but that it couldn't have happened in '96 either ---- it could only have happened with Phantom that year, the particular arranging style, and, most importantly, the ability of the corps to sell that very unconventional opener and keep the audience in the palms of their collective hands despite a slow, calculated build. You're correct that it would be hard to imagine anyone doing that nowadays, but it's also hard to imagine anyone else doing it at any time during the 90s, when fast-paced, ear-splitting openers were the norm. Hell, still are the norm. I imagine it was just as much of a risk in '96 to totally break from the expected opener mold in such a big way as it would be today. My only example of success is somewhat paralleled --- Academy's Unchained Melody closer in 2016. Slow, incredibly moving, barren, stripped down, and the exact opposite of what to expect at that moment in a show until a glorious payoff...but, again, I think it would have been just as impractical in the 90s to do that as now....The Academy took a big risk with that one, as did Phantom in '96, and both paid out in spades. The fact that neither one could easily have been done in a previous or future decade is irrelevant, because neither one could easily have been done in the decade in which they were produced, and that's underlined by the fact that pretty much no one tried to replicate either idea --- each were more lightning-in-a-bottle pulled off by specific corps and a specific group of alumni within those corps, as opposed to trends that came to fruition during a time period. Whereas the original point, Fire of Eternal Glory, is very much a trend that still stands strong today ---- the powerful, slow-building ballad that becomes a hallmark of a show.

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55 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

you don't have to give a piece full time to get value of it....the key is in the arrangement of it. Look at crown Finis....how many tunes in there? Some on top of each other? Yet it worked. And ###### well and helped propel them to the status they have remained in for the most part since....top 4. So giving a tune full breathing spade for the sake of full breathing space isn't always the best option. 

How it's designed, whatever approach taken is the key, and IMO, Phantom has been horrible with it the last few years. It's coming off as trying to be cool for the sake of cool as opposed to just being ###### good whatever approach they take. Maybe there's a reason the current arranger was the DM stabbed and not the one doing the stabbing.

Fair point. Finis was a great show. However, I would still argue Crown's hornline played more frequently in 2008 than hornlines played in 2018. As many pieces that were part of Finis, it worked. There was still development as a whole. It would be interesting to time how much their hornline (a majority of their hornline) played at the same time 2008 to 2018.

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1 hour ago, queenanne_1536 said:

Fair point. Finis was a great show. However, I would still argue Crown's hornline played more frequently in 2008 than hornlines played in 2018. As many pieces that were part of Finis, it worked. There was still development as a whole. It would be interesting to time how much their hornline (a majority of their hornline) played at the same time 2008 to 2018.

if you look at the sheets in any decade....show me where the amount of time they played is a check mark place. Oh, you can't cause it's not there. it's what you do and how you do it. Playing for the sake of playing doesn't get you repertoire credit anymore than running for the sake of running gets you demand credit in visual.

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16 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

if you look at the sheets in any decade....show me where the amount of time they played is a check mark place. Oh, you can't cause it's not there. it's what you do and how you do it. Playing for the sake of playing doesn't get you repertoire credit anymore than running for the sake of running gets you demand credit in visual.

ADHD drum and bugle corps decade.

 

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6 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

you don't have to give a piece full time to get value of it....the key is in the arrangement of it. Look at crown Finis....how many tunes in there? Some on top of each other? Yet it worked. And ###### well and helped propel them to the status they have remained in for the most part since....top 4. So giving a tune full breathing spade for the sake of full breathing space isn't always the best option. 

How it's designed, whatever approach taken is the key, and IMO, Phantom has been horrible with it the last few years. It's coming off as trying to be cool for the sake of cool as opposed to just being ###### good whatever approach they take. Maybe there's a reason the current arranger was the DM stabbed and not the one doing the stabbing.

Finis is my second least favorite Crown show of this century.

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6 hours ago, Jake W. said:

A) I absolutely proved the claim was demonstrably false. The claim was simply "Fire of Eternal Glory would not be given the time to develop as it did long, long ago." That was it. I put forward seven examples of ballads that were written to do just that from this season alone --- 3 of them in the top 5 --- so how would anyone have ground to stand on that FOEG wouldn't be given time to develop? 

Well, you sort of did--most of your examples were notably shorter than FOEG...but that's perhaps being too picky.

Perhaps a better point to make on the subject would be to note that you were able to one example in several different shows--whereas 93 FOEG was just one of multiple works in the same show that were allowed to fully develop--hell, they played "Death Hunt" in its entirety (again, Get. Off. My. Lawn.).

Crown's Finis is an outlier of sorts--it's something of a gimmick (let's see how many songs we can cram in), but Crown's arrangement makes it work. That seems to be Crown's superpower--to take goofy ideas and somehow make them work (Rach Star may be their...uh...crowning achievement in that regard).

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On 4/22/2019 at 4:32 PM, queenanne_1536 said:

I don't think people are being overly dramatic.

2012- 3rd

2013 - 6th

2014 - 7th

2015 - 7th

2016 - 8th

2017 - 9th

2018 - 11th

I would agree that Phantom Regiment is a 7th-ish place corps. And in 2019, I would kill for 7th place! They clearly aren't demonstrating they can do that.

I bemoaned the design direction the corps was taking from 2013-2015, but after listening to those shows in the last few days, they are BRILLIANT compared to 2016-2018. Good source music, solid arranging, and solid visuals. The trend in placement is just an indicator of bad design decisions all around. And pretty soon, I'll be saying "remember how solid the drill was in 2016 and how good the guard was in 2017, back when the corps was in the top 12?" 

Many of us have said for years that the students are outperforming what they're given. That's not commentary on design vs performance scores, but just generally that the students pull out all the stops and let their talent shine through. But soon enough (or perhaps already), that won't be the case. You finish in 9th and 11th in back-to-back years, and 2008 (or 2013, the last top six finish) is a distant memory. There could soon be a combination of "bad design" and "designing down to the talent level"...

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