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North Canton, OH - Saturday, June 22, 2019


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2 hours ago, craiga said:

A few thoughts on the Bluecoats:

I love this show musically.  Perhaps it is my age (59) but I can identify with 95% of what they are playing, and they play it very well.  They will absolutely be one of my favorite corps from this year to listen to in the car in the future.  Having said that, I think there may be an area of vulnerably for them visually.  For the third year in a row, the visual design seems very compressed due to all the props, and most of their movement seems like running follow the leader 2 across up, over, and down the ramps..then into hold sets.    Is it effective? Yes.  Does it compare with the visual complexity of Crown and Boston (each of whom have over 190 drill sets this year)?  That is debateable, I suppose.  Now, I am a designer and I get the fact that there is no place on the sheets for a set count....lol.  But BLOO is already maxing this caption out with an excellent performance level. I wonder as Crown and Boston get cleaner, if the GE numbers might change. 

Bluecoats also have 190+ sets.

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As I said, it is open for debate.  JurassicLancer I believe you about the number of drill sets.  It just doesn't seem like it to me.  Again..just a reaction.

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5 hours ago, c mor said:

Stu So, what would you use to score corps that would allow any corps to win any night?  That sounds impossible.

Please remember what we're talking about here. General effect design, not something like intonation. With intonation you can measure that scientifically with an oscilloscope. However, General effect design is an artistic terminology, it must be evaluated through opinion not science. Therein lies the rub.

And if you want consistency in competition, all the judges need to be trained with the same interpretation of General affect design. It matters not what the interpretation is, multiple interpretations can be correct, it is afterall art; but it does matter that the interpretation is consistent throughout all judges. Otherwise the competetive results would be all higgly-piggly.

Which leads to what happens to a corps after the first few shows. They are placed into a ranking range early on, and the rest of the judging throughout the season has to be consistent. Therefore, a form of slotting after the season starts is inevitable. There is no way around it in observational scored and ranked competitions like DCI.

So, I am not saying DCI can be an objective sport like MlB where any corps can win on any given night. I am just saying that if ya want consistent intetpritation of what is good artistic design in DCI, slotting from early on will begin.

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1 hour ago, Stu said:

I never said any corps was denied placement. Here is what I said:

A) The words on the GE rubric sheets do set peramiters, but they are far from being objective criteria. Math equations written on a sheet are objective, descriptors of what constitutes general effect design are not.

B) The words on the GE sheets are interpreted by the judges who are trained in that particular interpretation.

C) The judges then observe live performances and apply their training to the best of their ability.

D) The end result of scoring and ranking is therefore Subjective not Objective. Opinion not Fact. No corps has ever been denied a placement. They are placed in accordance to their ranking range. A range that is set early on for each corps, and reinforced by like minded subjective observation throughout the rest of the season.

The sheets do have quantitative sets in 5 boxes.  Quantitative (and qualitative) comparison IS a mathematical process... It just isn't finite (and it doesn't need to be... which leads us to the true definition and practice of slotting that I have brought up before and will explain again).

To your point about training... how are the judges trained?  Do they receive the same training?  What observable elements constitute the standard of training? Do they report consistent to their training (exhibiting inter-rater reliability)?

Once a regimen of training is determined and disseminated... then the system becomes quantifiable and therefore objective to a predetermined standard that the judges and design teams are both aware of.  Nobody is saying that it is ALL objective, or that the GE elements of the sheet are even half objective...  The point is that the whole is not exclusively subjective... not even by half.  The technical categories are quite objective due to the quantifiable (by both quantity and quality -which is still a variation of quantity, in most cases) observations of comparative complexity, difficulty and execution (they have it or they don't, they do it or they don't).

If you don't assert that a corps is denied placement in the end due to adjudication at the beginning, then there is not adjudicative slotting (caused and controlled by the judging system) in the sense of immobility (which is how most people view the term... including yourself with your Phantom Regiment analogy).  The cause and control of mobility is quantifiable and entirely in the hands of the corps themselves (specifically the design teams and the talent).

In adjudication, the word 'slotting' (a word that they wouldn't actually use) is about comparison placement and numbers management on a given night.  Like one of those nights when a winning drumcorps pulls a slightly lower number (yes, do to the subjectivity of the finite numbers within box categories... often caused by an earlier than normal show time), thereby causing all of the lower placing corps to receive compressed scores.  This can also cause inflated winning scores.  The judge is thinking "Based on comparison with my previous scores for corps X... corps Y must 'slot' on one side or the other, receiving a comparable score to that slot with room for other slots.  Sometimes this can manifest in very tight scores, where the quantifiable observations require a corps to be placed between two groups that are already close to each other.  I made this point at the onset of the discussion.

I'm not sure, but I think you may have moved your goalposts considerably from where you started.  However, you make a big unsubstantiated leap from your points A-C to D in that you state the presence of A) rubric parameters, B) interpretive training, C) trained performance observation = D) Subjective NOT Objective adjudication.  The terms of A-C are not supportive of subjectivity in that they designate norms and strive to hold adjudication to those norms.  It may not be mathematical in the sense that you are most comfortable with, but the designation of a norm is a mathematical designation of 'fixed point' by which comparisons can then be made and analyzed.

I think I have exhausted all of my points on this.

But since you remarked that you have never said (and presumably wouldn't say) that "any corps was denied placement"... I'm glad that we agree that the judges do not systemically designate unfair positions based on early scores... a.k.a. 'slotting' 👍

Edited by cfirwin3
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1 hour ago, Jurassic Lancer said:

Bluecoats also have 190+ sets.

I just caught the SCV show.  I think this comparison is being overly presumed without evidence.  Bloo is moving plenty (and like so many other contenders, they will be moving a lot more as they go on).

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12 hours ago, phd-student-TTU said:

IMHO, their music book ranges somewhere between elevator music and a college marching band halftime show. 

There isn't a college band ANYWHERE that could touch Bloo's music book!  And if I found an elevator playing music like  this I would spend a lot of time going up and down.

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Just now, oldbandguy said:

There isn't a college band ANYWHERE that could touch Bloo's music book!  And if I found an elevator playing music like  this I would spend a lot of time going up and down.

If not for the media posting guidelines, that notion that you are addressing would be easy to dispel with a single 10 second clip (just a small sampling).  College bands can't (by inherent limitation) touch any of these drumcorps books.

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3 hours ago, cfirwin3 said:

The sheets do have quantitative sets in 5 boxes.  Quantitative (and qualitative) comparison IS a mathematical process... It just isn't finite (and it doesn't need to be... which leads us to the true definition and practice of slotting that I have brought up before and will explain again).

To your point about training... how are the judges trained?  Do they receive the same training?  What observable elements constitute the standard of training? Do they report consistent to their training (exhibiting inter-rater reliability)?

Once a regimen of training is determined and disseminated... then the system becomes quantifiable and therefore objective to a predetermined standard that the judges and design teams are both aware of.  Nobody is saying that it is ALL objective, or that the GE elements of the sheet are even half objective...  The point is that the whole is not exclusively subjective... not even by half.  The technical categories are quite objective due to the quantifiable (by both quantity and quality -which is still a variation of quantity, in most cases) observations of comparative complexity, difficulty and execution (they have it or they don't, they do it or they don't).

If you don't assert that a corps is denied placement in the end due to adjudication at the beginning, then there is not adjudicative slotting (caused and controlled by the judging system) in the sense of immobility (which is how most people view the term... including yourself with your Phantom Regiment analogy).  The cause and control of mobility is quantifiable and entirely in the hands of the corps themselves (specifically the design teams and the talent).

In adjudication, the word 'slotting' (a word that they wouldn't actually use) is about comparison placement and numbers management on a given night.  Like one of those nights when a winning drumcorps pulls a slightly lower number (yes, do to the subjectivity of the finite numbers within box categories... often caused by an earlier than normal show time), thereby causing all of the lower placing corps to receive compressed scores.  This can also cause inflated winning scores.  The judge is thinking "Based on comparison with my previous scores for corps X... corps Y must 'slot' on one side or the other, receiving a comparable score to that slot with room for other slots.  Sometimes this can manifest in very tight scores, where the quantifiable observations require a corps to be placed between two groups that are already close to each other.  I made this point at the onset of the discussion.

I'm not sure, but I think you may have moved your goalposts considerably from where you started.  However, you make a big unsubstantiated leap from your points A-C to D in that you state the presence of A) rubric parameters, B) interpretive training, C) trained performance observation = D) Subjective NOT Objective adjudication.  The terms of A-C are not supportive of subjectivity in that they designate norms and strive to hold adjudication to those norms.  It may not be mathematical in the sense that you are most comfortable with, but the designation of a norm is a mathematical designation of 'fixed point' by which comparisons can then be made and analyzed.

I think I have exhausted all of my points on this.

But since you remarked that you have never said (and presumably wouldn't say) that "any corps was denied placement"... I'm glad that we agree that the judges do not systemically designate unfair positions based on early scores... a.k.a. 'slotting' 👍

Sure the GE sheets have boxes, descriptors within the boxes, scoring ranges within each box. There is a way to quantify. I never claimed otherwise. However...

I have worked in a machine shop evaluating camshaft and crankshaft bearing surfaces, and adjudicated marching arts competitions in the caption of General Effect.

Both situations had spec sheets. One had mathematical tolerences like, "up to 0.003 inch wear gets bearing A, 0.003 up to 0.006 inch wear gets bearing B", in which I used a micrometer for measument. The other had 5 boxes with discriptors like, "Conveys design well in most instances, some communication does not translate, energy is apparent throughout most of the performance" and a range of scores for each box; and I observed the ensemble utilizing the interpretation in which I had been trained.

While each did have set parameters on their respective sheets as well as box criteria, one was objective and the other subjective. Take a guess which was which.

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1 hour ago, Stu said:

Sure the GE sheets have boxes, descriptors within the boxes, scoring ranges within each box. There is a way to quantify. I never claimed otherwise. However...

I have worked in a machine shop evaluating camshaft and crankshaft bearing surfaces, and adjudicated marching arts competitions in the caption of General Effect.

Both situations had spec sheets. One had mathematical tolerences like, "up to 0.003 inch wear gets bearing A, 0.003 up to 0.006 inch wear gets bearing B", in which I used a micrometer for measument. The other had 5 boxes with discriptors like, "Conveys design well in most instances, some communication does not translate, energy is apparent throughout most of the performance" and a range of scores for each box; and I observed the ensemble utilizing the interpretation in which I had been trained.

While each did have set parameters on their respective sheets as well as box criteria, one was objective and the other subjective. Take a guess which was which.

Objectivity is not defined by finite math.

Define "Objective"

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