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Evolution in Guard Judging?


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17 minutes ago, xandandl said:

As someone who was instrumental at both the ground floor beginnings of DCI and then WGI and as someone who has a long history with several gold ring champions of each, it's been my opinion that the DCI guard sheets and judging is woefully lacking since it's beginning. As guard now comprises almost as much as one third of all mms of any finalist corps, having only one judge for a guard score seems not right.  As the equipment demands, movement demands, dance and other non-traditional personalities of what makes modern drum corps guard usual, one opinion does not seem fair to the mms, the ultimate scores and placements, and to approaches which a unit may vary from what is done in WGI competition. In fact, the current structure is quite limiting to what a guard could do apart from WGI competition.

An interesting point, but would you also add multiple judges for brass and percussion?   Those sections also make up large percentages of membership and have multiple demands.  At first glance multiple guard judges sounds like a great idea.  I agree that the demand and responsibilities of the guard as increased but again the same can be said for brass and percussion.  Does performing high speed drill maneuvers or body work while playing a technical passage get taken into account on the brass or percussion sheets? I’m all for more judges but how many is too many, and how many of these skills, be it brass, percussion, or guard overlap on the GE and Visual captions

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14 minutes ago, alextiger said:

An interesting point, but would you also add multiple judges for brass and percussion?   Those sections also make up large percentages of membership and have multiple demands.  At first glance multiple guard judges sounds like a great idea.  I agree that the demand and responsibilities of the guard as increased but again the same can be said for brass and percussion.  Does performing high speed drill maneuvers or body work while playing a technical passage get taken into account on the brass or percussion sheets? I’m all for more judges but how many is too many, and how many of these skills, be it brass, percussion, or guard overlap on the GE and Visual captions

Most GE1 and many VP judges have guard backgrounds.  I see no need to increase the number of guard judges (although I would love to see the sheet rewritten to more closely parallel the other "performance" captions (in essence a melding of the WGI EQ and MVMT sheets).  As it stands, the sheet gives WAY too much latitude to the guard judge.  Making it a "WHAT and HOW" sheet would keep them focused on the performers and their excellence.  

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1 hour ago, karuna said:

Most GE1 and many VP judges have guard backgrounds.  I see no need to increase the number of guard judges (although I would love to see the sheet rewritten to more closely parallel the other "performance" captions (in essence a melding of the WGI EQ and MVMT sheets).  As it stands, the sheet gives WAY too much latitude to the guard judge.  Making it a "WHAT and HOW" sheet would keep them focused on the performers and their excellence.  

Additional judge and performance clarifications would provide better leveling. 

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My idea of a Guard judge in DCI is equivalent to an Equipment judge? The History of DCI and its Tic System would mean that the Cleanliness of the guard was paramount to its success. And this is an area that Movement is not as valued.

I agree with most that either the sheets need to be updated to take into account all facets of the guard idiom, or that a separate Movement Judge be introduced that not only judges the guard in movement but perhaps the Corps proper as well..

A movement judge would have valued the efforts of Vanguard for example that had new frontiers for what a hornline member are capable of doing in movement.. And perhaps would have changed the placements.. 

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16 hours ago, karuna said:

Most GE1 and many VP judges have guard backgrounds.  I see no need to increase the number of guard judges (although I would love to see the sheet rewritten to more closely parallel the other "performance" captions (in essence a melding of the WGI EQ and MVMT sheets).  As it stands, the sheet gives WAY too much latitude to the guard judge.  Making it a "WHAT and HOW" sheet would keep them focused on the performers and their excellence.  

Change your first word "Most" to "Many" and I'd be more agreeable to accept your other statements, especially that which I have enboldened. Get rid of referencing WGI altogether; drum corps is a different animal, not WGI in summertime. It needs to be evaluated on its own plane, its own horizon, and its own possibilities not merely mimicking what's down indoors on basketball courts.

Edited by xandandl
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5 hours ago, xandandl said:

Change your first word "Most" to "Many" and I'd be more agreeable to accept your other statements, especially that which I have enboldened. Get rid of referencing WGI altogether; drum corps is a different animal, not WGI in summertime. It needs to be evaluated on its own plane, its own horizon, and its own possibilities not merely mimicking what's down indoors on basketball courts.

The WGI Equipment and Movement sheets are well written and very focused.  I have no problem stealing their intellectual property!  As for Most/Many perhaps I would have agreed in the past.  But as I look at the list today,  I lean towards most (which of course simply implies more than half).  

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8 hours ago, xandandl said:

Change your first word "Most" to "Many" and I'd be more agreeable to accept your other statements, especially that which I have enboldened. Get rid of referencing WGI altogether; drum corps is a different animal, not WGI in summertime. It needs to be evaluated on its own plane, its own horizon, and its own possibilities not merely mimicking what's down indoors on basketball courts.

I love and agree with your last two sentences. I will say this though; BC color guard was so insanely good it was not funny. Their book was difficult, they were clean as pure water, and the relentless drive of their entire show was insane. I had visual (and visible) orgasms watching their show.  The guard had to be aliens from a different galaxy!

Edited by deftguy
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There's definitely been some kind of shift in judging. BD was absolutely dominant until 2016.. which makes a streak of four years they haven't won guard. I'm wondering if their tendency to perform all of their features without moving underneath them is a fad that is on the way out. 

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On 8/14/2019 at 9:31 AM, kkrepps said:

It was so close, and for a moment I thought the BD guard might win...but then Boston cut a head. 

Toss rifles and heads, not hair.

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On 8/14/2019 at 8:16 PM, alextiger said:

An interesting point, but would you also add multiple judges for brass and percussion?   Those sections also make up large percentages of membership and have multiple demands.  At first glance multiple guard judges sounds like a great idea.  I agree that the demand and responsibilities of the guard as increased but again the same can be said for brass and percussion.  Does performing high speed drill maneuvers or body work while playing a technical passage get taken into account on the brass or percussion sheets? I’m all for more judges but how many is too many, and how many of these skills, be it brass, percussion, or guard overlap on the GE and Visual captions

Brass has other judges who evaluate part of what they do. No one judge determines all. Brass execution, Musical analysis plus the GE. Similar with percussion. Guard only has one, plus the GE. 

I believe for Finals week, there should be two judges for each caption. Add scores and divide by 2. Extra cost, yes. But in light of all the time and effort put forth by the combined mms of all the corps for the entire season, no one judge should have the power to determine (or disrupt) the judging process by sinking a corps or raising another to the moon.

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