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Self indulgent shows


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15 minutes ago, craiga said:

Yeah, the quote about "Star of Massachusetts" does nothing to elevate the conversation.  And if anyone doesn't know the fundamental parable of David vs. Goliath I guess the conceptual cohesiveness would be elusive.  I know you've only had 2 posts but it does seem like somebody has already rubbed your rhubarb the wrong way. 

 

It was meant as a joke. The Crusaders helmets being a bit "Star of Indiana"- like for those who truly remember. 

But I do stand by my comment of lack of cohesiveness.  My point was early season last year, one could get a read on SCVs show - and it was an abstract idea.

That clarity is tough to find in many, many shows this year.

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5 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

i said that on here at the time and the Blue Crew faithful pounced like I was some idiot who didn't understand the Great Depression and the genius of the BD team.

Good for you. Honestly, when it came to that show, they were the clueless ones. 

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2 hours ago, Fran Haring said:

Good for you. Honestly, when it came to that show, they were the clueless ones. 

i'm firmly convinced they were chemically enhanced in design meetings

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/28/2019 at 4:31 PM, adman said:

It was meant as a joke. The Crusaders helmets being a bit "Star of Indiana"- like for those who truly remember. 

But I do stand by my comment of lack of cohesiveness.  My point was early season last year, one could get a read on SCVs show - and it was an abstract idea.

That clarity is tough to find in many, many shows this year.

So how was SCV in June last year?  Totally cohesive?  Or building to what we saw in August?  How will the shows you question be different (improved) and more cohesive in a months time?  I was thinking of another consideration but I’ll leave this here.

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On 6/25/2019 at 11:59 PM, Jeff Ream said:

BD 08-13 have been played the day i got the dvd's or cd's and pretty much never since. 14 to the present....yes, more please!!

Well, thank god they did 08-13 because those are among the few shows of that era that I listen to repeatedly. I love these shows and am glad they had the courage and talent to pull these shows  off, naysayers be ######!

 

Edited by jaylogan
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On 6/25/2019 at 7:38 PM, Fred Windish said:

adman makes an important observation. I'm an old guy, too. I've seen perhaps a thousand individual shows through the years. I have never enjoyed every production and certainly never will. However, watching the Zionsville event on Flo also gave me concern.  Designer self-indulgence is a good way to put this.

I saw complexity in movement and sound at the expense of audience engagement. For example, playing another composer's arrangement with twice the number of notes he/she required. Or, maybe, running all over the field more frantic than ever. Except for Madison Scouts, I think the rest took turns trotting the entire ensemble from one side of the field to another. It became so predictable, tedious, and boring. Like turning a kaleidoscope too quickly, not taking enough time to enjoy the patterns.

Serious lack of sustained melody. As soon as I thought I recognized something, it was gone! No confirmation. The requisite brass flourishes/flutters were far too frequent for my taste. But, if this is what scores . . . . .

Posters often write, " I guess I'll have to see it a few times before I start to get what they're doing."  Too bad much of the local audience in attendance will only view each corps' production once !   Never send them home confused.

 

 

 

 

 

This is largely the product of how DCI scores shows, and less the preferences of the design teams. But I do think it has gotten a lot better of late.

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On 6/27/2019 at 10:40 PM, adman said:

A lack of conceptual cohesiveness. 

Last year whether designers went for theme (e.g. Bluecoats "Session 44", Blue Devils "Dreams and Nighthawks") or went for a compositional approach (SCV), things "tied together" one way or another.  SCV's "Babylon" was one of greatest demonstrations of flow from top-to-bottom that I can remember. Whether you liked it or not is subjective, but from start to finish,  design, body movement, props, music, dynamics, solos and soli, even a modern dance-routine seemed to fit where it should within the context of the overall show design. What show can you remember that created such drama around an act of silence (the split second before horn snap)? It's because everything that lead up to that moment made sense.  I live in Los Angeles, saw SCV in their 3rd or 4th show of the year and told my drum corps nerd friends that it was one of the best I'd ever seen. I also said the same about Mandarins at that time. 

This year we have "The Bluecoats" an homage to the Beatles that has understandable music, but the design seems out of place. There's the Cavies doing "Wrong Side of the Tracks" in Gangs of New York Costuming and assorted props that seem out-of-place next to an incredibly dramatic and great music book.  The Crusaders have cool music and they're supposed to be talking about Goliath, but the corps is dressed like "Star of Massachusetts" and the design with props leads nowhere. Last year, at least you could understand the intent of all the "SOS"stuff.

I could keep going on an on, (and yes some corps have improved this year vs. last -  Phantom was a hot mess last year, and Madison was a hot hot mess, may even not so hot mess, and both designs this year are better) but on the main - getting a read on cohesiveness is difficult at best....

Just my opinion of course, but there you have it.

DCI is responsible for the way corps are creating shows. The qualifications for winning a medal drive how shows are designed, and now that includes adding a new ending around Nashville.

Because the season is now a series of shows that become known before you see it live (or never) corps now purposefully hold back design so as to have ways for judges to “Reward” improvements.

In General, I find that the best shows are the most cohesive and the shows at the top of the rankings are such shows. Corps will take liberties with source music as much as it serves their purposes.

If Bluecoats were “faithful” to the source music, the corps would have four members and no guard.

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Fwiw, self-indulgence has been a part of art for as long as man walked the earth. While I do miss the days of corps uniforms and complex marching, I am pleased that for the most part self indulgent shows largely get pushed down in the rankings nowadays. Specifically I am extremely glad and thankful that BD has moved away from what many consider extremely self indulgent concepts to far more accessible and “gettable” concepts. Their scores have hardly been harmed by the move.

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On June 26, 2019 at 3:03 PM, saxfreq1128 said:

This seems like a long way of saying that corps shouldn’t push or challenge us, nor ask us to expand our taste or ideas about the activity. Which means that the corps — which explicitly have educational missions — shouldn’t push, challenge, or expand their members. I can’t get with that. And I can’t get with treating this mission like it’s snobby or automatically navel-gazing. Art isn’t self-indulgent just because it asks you to leave your comfort zone or asks you to work a little to meet it where it is. Art is where we should feel SAFE leaving our comfort zones and challenging ourselves. That’s at the heart of being any kind of performer, and audiences are selling themselves short by not embracing that.

Some of the shows that came up here as “indulgent” or “esoteric” are so strange to me. A Rite of Spring show? Esoteric? In a music activity? I find that really disheartening; but if Stravinsky is what counts as esoteric nowadays then I’m gonna take the side of any corps that’s trying reverse that. 

This is the arts, man. Art can be, mean, sound like, look like so many things. Corps are trying to explore how much of that we can bring to the football field. They’re trying to diversify, keep things lively. Not every show or risk works, but never in the history of this activity has every show or risk worked. 

There’s a simple trick to enjoying contemporary drum corps. Stop worrying about what they aren’t doing and comparing it to the past, and try to think more about what they are doing, in the present. You guys see corps trying to self-indulgently stuff weird, abstract music into our ears; I see corps trying to expose their musicians to a new range of sounds that they can make with their instruments. You guys see people shuffling and running and not “marching and playing”; I see blossoming young performers proving their athleticism by basically doing High Intensity Interval Training between rounds of playing “Flight of the Bumblebee.” 

Some version of this criticism pops up every year, and it’s always a bummer, because it’s always about what drum corps isn’t, and never about what it is. 

THIS I love. :worthy:

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