Field judges restricted to front sideline in 2019

[rmurrey74]

6 hours ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

Sigh. I knew this would come up.

Irrelevant.

It's not whether it was the tic system, or the build-up system that replaced it.

Okay? Let me say that again: THIS IS NOT ABOUT TICKS OR NO-TICKS

(letting that sink in . . . . 1 . . . . 2 . . . . 3. . . . . 4 . . . . 5)

Allright? Can we lave that behind now, please?

The actual POINT is what motivates a 19-year-old who has sticks, ambition, and dreams. What motivates him or her to spend $5,000 to participate in DCI is the challenge to play ungodly difficult stuff as clean as snot, and to do it under pressure circumstances that no other activity provides -- namely, in front of highly skilled judges who will watch your every diddle (whether that judge employs a tear-down system or build-up system is BESIDE THE POINT). And which, when the test is successfully passed, certifies him or her as among the top marching percussionists On The Planet. Which is a certifiable big deal to 19 years olds with sticks, and is the reason why this activity exists: to provide an avenue to pursue excellence to those inclined toward music/dance performance.

Don't get me wrong: Drummers love the show, they love the crowds, they love helping their corps achieve success, they love everything about the drum-corps experience. They're all about team success.

But that isn't what motivated them to buy a plane ticket to their first audition. It isn't what motivated them to add 30 minutes to their practice session. It isn't what drives them to play their ever-lovin' practice pads every freakin' minute of the day, driving their friends, bandmates, teachers and parents to distraction.

No. What motivates them to such ends is the challenge to excellence, the ne plus ultra of field percussion that only DCI has provided -- to nail it the most demanding, harshest evaluation environment ever devised for the idiom. There is no drug like it.

The question going forward is whether DCI will continue to provide drummers with such a high bar.

 

 

These same kids do WGI with a judge 30 yards away trying to hear them play through an amplified front ensemble and multiple speakers.  I definitely agree with you, put drum judges on the floor at WGI!!

[Stu]

6 hours ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

 

-- namely, in front of highly skilled judges who will watch your every diddle.....

 

By that you actually mean watch how clean and musical you and your line can exicuit that cheeseburger-flounderflam-chutrachunk-kettlecorn.... Off the Left!!!

[GUARDLING]

1 hour ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

I believe that if the judging does not reward fine-grained rigor, complexity etc. because it can't get close enough to read the same, then there will be no reason to provide that challenge to the players. Designers will be placed in a point of tension: write for score? Or write for the members who actually are the paying customers and who want the most rigor they can accomplish?

Oh, they'll be challenged. But will they be challenged to the same degree that DCI has always challenged percussionists? And if not, will it be enough of a challenge to persuade these kids to pay 5 large for an experience that is not quite as high on the mountaintop of field drumming that it was before the rule change?

 

Fair enough; all too often talk of drum adjudication wanders off into an irrelevant discussion of whether tear-down or build-up is the more valid. My point here is that, regardless of the adjudication approach, drum kids in DCI are paying for the experience of holding themselves up against the toughest standards in the idiom. They're not interested in a watered-down experience.

I think you underestimate MMs as well as staff and what they may consider a great experience  Also IF kids aren't satisfied with the experience then they won't do it. I vaguely remember the same argument many times through drum corps history.,Either way, I guess that will be up to them. So I guess we will see in the near future.

[Stu]

1 minute ago, GUARDLING said:

I think you underestimate MMs as well as staff and what they may consider a great experience  Also IF kids aren't satisfied with the experience then they won't do it. I vaguely remember the same argument many times through drum corps history.,Either way, I guess that will be up to them. So I guess we will see in the near future.

There will still be a large number of those who audition and want to perform, not doubt. But it will be those with a vastly different interest than playing the drum itself at the highest most musically complex level attanible to the human hands. The new breed will be more interested in maxing out the motion, the staging, the visual, while playng some notes..... Which, if memory serves, is what you Guardling and others in your camp deem as the only real reason to continue the progression of this art form. You have posted many times that It is now All About The Visual. And I am sure that many youth will audition as time goes on who also have that same mindset.

[mingusmonk]

34 minutes ago, rmurrey74 said:

These same kids do WGI with a judge 30 yards away trying to hear them play through an amplified front ensemble and multiple speakers.  I definitely agree with you, put drum judges on the floor at WGI!!

Is this sarcasm or seriousness?

[GUARDLING]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

There will still be a large number of those who audition and want to perform, not doubt. But it will be those with a vastly different interest than playing the drum itself at the highest most musically complex level attanible to the human hands. The new breed will be more interested in maxing out the motion, the staging, the visual, while playng some notes..... Which, if memory serves, is what you Guardling and others in your camp deem as the only real reason to continue the progression of this art form. You have posted many times that It is now All About The Visual. And I am sure that many youth will audition as time goes on who also have that same mindset.

I think you overstate exactly what I have said many times in the past BUT moving forward. I do remember when guard judges were moved a distance and even the argument as to why then are we still doing difficult things that are not seen from a distance.  I didn't change that factor at all. 

AS far as percussion all I can say is several years back when I was involved with drummers, ( WGI )the last thing they wanted was all the window dressing that was starting to be presented in their activity. It was a fight all the way. THAT has changed drastically now with today's members( like you say ) ( at least in my experience ) but has not changed the level in which they are taught and play. I have had to deal with...and I mean deal with..lol. Drum staff that insists on high quality and challenging their members and has presented 2 gold medals and multiple WC finals, so I also have learned ( as I always knew ) balance is the formula.

[Stu]

7 hours ago, GUARDLING said:

I think you overstate exactly what I have said many times in the past BUT moving forward. I do remember when guard judges were moved a distance and even the argument as to why then are we still doing difficult things that are not seen from a distance.  I didn't change that factor at all. 

AS far as percussion all I can say is several years back when I was involved with drummers, ( WGI )the last thing they wanted was all the window dressing that was starting to be presented in their activity. It was a fight all the way. THAT has changed drastically now with today's members( like you say ) ( at least in my experience ) but has not changed the level in which they are taught and play. I have had to deal with...and I mean deal with..lol. Drum staff that insists on high quality and challenging their members and has presented 2 gold medals and multiple WC finals, so I also have learned ( as I always knew ) balance is the formula.

Oh how I wish I had the time and energy to go back and dig up the verbal sparing that you and I engaged in; because nope, it is not an overstatement that you adamantly entrenched yourself in the (It Is 'All' About The Visual) diatribe.  Anyway...

In the 'past': Drummers auditioned for the top dogs in DCI to play the ever increasing hybrid complexity in their hands. They liked the movement, but Loved the musical complexity. And the youth who desired that aspect gravitated to DCI. This gained momentum in the nineties and continued until just recently.

In the 'present': those same breed, both in players and/or writers/instructors, are balking hard at the forced drop in musical complexity in order to increase complexity in visual movement. Also there is a new breed arriving who really do enjoy the shift to more and more visual. Up until this year a balance has been struck.

Now for the 'future': The field judge elimination will likely, and I think most drummers will agree, will likely continue the path of less and less complex music in the hands while there will be more and more visual complexity. Why? Because as said earlier, the farther away the more it becomes about rhythmic clarity not rhythmic complexity. As for the guard analogy: While drummers really do not get guard stuff, guard members also really do not understand why cheese-flam-inverts morphing into slurred swiss-kicks are so very very very desirable. But, as the future progresses, those who desire the music first will likely be replaced by those who desire the visual movement first. It may be a slow hard transition, but the old will fade and the new will replace.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Stu

[MikeD]

3 hours ago, BigW said:

Old Jim Prime Sr. story:

Show in the old NEPA circuit, Belvederes et al IIRC. Every hornline got zeroed out, early season. Jimmer tells the Brass Caption head they had the best hornline of the day. Caption head responds, "But... we all got zeroes!" Jimmer doesn't bat an eyelash, responds "You had the BEST zero of the day!" 

 

My drum instructor, George Tuthill, told us a simil.ar story about a show he judged with Gerry  Shelmer in the late 60's. It was a show with top NJ corps of the day like the Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights, St Lucy's Cadets, Audobon Bon Bons, Garfield Cadets (before George taught there), Hawthorne Muchachos, etc...George had BS first, with something like a 5 in drumming, back when they were getting 17's., while Gerry had given them an 8 or something  Bobby Thompson from BS came into the judge meeting very angry...and started yelling at George for giving him a 5, and George said something like "What are you complaining about? I had you first! go talk to Gerry; he had you second to St Lucy's."

[BigW]

3 hours ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

I believe that if the judging does not reward fine-grained rigor, complexity etc. because it can't get close enough to read the same, then there will be no reason to provide that challenge to the players. Designers will be placed in a point of tension: write for score? Or write for the members who actually are the paying customers and who want the most rigor they can accomplish?

Oh, they'll be challenged. But will they be challenged to the same degree that DCI has always challenged percussionists? And if not, will it be enough of a challenge to persuade these kids to pay 5 large for an experience that is not quite as high on the mountaintop of field drumming that it was before the rule change?

 

Fair enough; all too often talk of drum adjudication wanders off into an irrelevant discussion of whether tear-down or build-up is the more valid. My point here is that, regardless of the adjudication approach, drum kids in DCI are paying for the experience of holding themselves up against the toughest standards in the idiom. They're not interested in a watered-down experience.

I think, there are different standards and writing that will be created in response. I hope and also believe that it will be challenging and hold up to whatever atoms are going to be split. Mulling over it I think musicality/integration to program might be more valued than before. Take something away, go where you can do great things and earn numbers and challenge the performer.

[Jeff Ream]

4 hours ago, rmurrey74 said:

These same kids do WGI with a judge 30 yards away trying to hear them play through an amplified front ensemble and multiple speakers.  I definitely agree with you, put drum judges on the floor at WGI!!

totally different environment when you're in a far smaller venue without 70 brass added to the equation.