Paraphrased Thoughts on "Judging" from a newly minted 5-year Age Out

[Jeff Ream]

3 hours ago, MikeD said:

Don't let Jeff read this! We have had our differences on lots of things in the past. On this one, we tend to agree.

we have agreed a lot the last few years...mainly on this and how Dallas won't improve while Jerry Jones is alive

[Jeff Ream]

15 minutes ago, BigW said:

 

 

The thing is, you have to look at it, respect it, and appreciate it for the era it was developed and created. It was that way for various reasons. The bugles weren't great to play on. They didn't have composite materials to construct percussion instruments from. The best were the best given all of those issues and how they dealt with them. 

exactly! i have recordings back to the 40's, and i'll listen...they were great THEN. drum corps has been changing since day 2. i have read old letters to the editors complaining about contras and timbales being added in the early 60's. taking away OTL in the 70's, and for as many people loved Bayonne in 76, quite a few thought they were satan in yellow raincoats.

 

I was born in 1969, and i first remember hearing an older alumni ##### about changes around 1974. and they still ##### today. I don't love every change. I don't love everything done today, but I didn't love everything down in other eras either.

[Mello Dude]

11 hours ago, greg_orangecounty said:

RIGHT!!??  And while wearing black oxford dress shoes too!

I'm surprised I can still walk. 

 

OR high horse riding boots...ya a lot of sweat and destroyed feet.

 

[cixelsyd]

20 hours ago, BigW said:

Also, when one listens to brass sections from the tick era, I can't help but notice the 'blockiness' of the performance/stilted phrasing/chopped off at the root releases/compromised musicality... why? To avoid ticks. and any questions or doubts about cleanliness.

Mmm... partly so.  But that style went away as the 1970s progressed, during the tick era.

There were several other factors in play.  Three other pertinent changes to the judging system occurred in the early 1970s.  Two of them totally changed the balance between teardown and buildup judging - the analysis subcaptions, and the 30-point general effect allotment.  Prior to that, the most prized junior corps championship (VFW) was 90% teardown, with no analysis subcaptions and only 10 points allotted to GE.  (The third judging change was abandoning the "cadence" caption and associated requirement for all corps to maintain the same constant tempo of 128-132 beats per minute whenever on the move.  That made the whole activity sound blocky and stilted.)

Also, corps in the 1970s began to enjoy the luxury of having members with prior musical experience, thanks to the corps-style marching band trend.  Corps could use written music with all its nuances, instead of teaching parts by rote.

The 1970s also saw mandatory high leg lift and elbow contact fade away.  So much easier to play softly with quality when the horn is not being knocked off your face.

[Boss Anova]

28 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

Mmm... partly so.  But that style went away as the 1970s progressed, during the tick era.

There were several other factors in play.  Three other pertinent changes to the judging system occurred in the early 1970s.  Two of them totally changed the balance between teardown and buildup judging - the analysis subcaptions, and the 30-point general effect allotment.  Prior to that, the most prized junior corps championship (VFW) was 90% teardown, with no analysis subcaptions and only 10 points allotted to GE.  (The third judging change was abandoning the "cadence" caption and associated requirement for all corps to maintain the same constant tempo of 128-132 beats per minute whenever on the move.  That made the whole activity sound blocky and stilted.)

Also, corps in the 1970s began to enjoy the luxury of having members with prior musical experience, thanks to the corps-style marching band trend.  Corps could use written music with all its nuances, instead of teaching parts by rote.

The 1970s also saw mandatory high leg lift and elbow contact fade away.  So much easier to play softly with quality when the horn is not being knocked off your face.

The biggest change in captions was the GE captions . If we look at how GE was defined in the ore DCI eras we can actually read the what GE  caption was supposed to be at least 50% based upon . Rightly or wrongly , the audience “ effect “ GE judges were to heavily factor in . We know this , as we   canread program books from shows back in the day ( that I still have ) that explain the judging captions , and they all include “ audience response “ as an important component of the General Effect ( GE ) caption.

However , for historical context , the DCI caption that was completely rewritten in the early DCI years , essentially was completely written by one Judge , then submitted to DCI Judge community for approval ( which it was ) then submitted to the Corps for consideration, and the Corps approved it . 
    This GE caption over the years since has been modified since then , but only very slightly . It is still fundamentally the same GE interpretation as written back in 1974 . The GE caption was written with the fundamental understanding that the GE judge can not properly gauge how a corps show performance effects others , only themselves . The new caption was to diminish local show fan bias in the GE caption , and was to give more credence to demand performed well and new creativity shown as well as excellence in performance execution . So the audience , no longer was primarily how these future shows would be written in order to gain the most build up points on the sheets in order to maximize one’s scores among the judges . 

 

 

 

 

[keystone3ply]

Watch "Hard Knocks" this season  & witness Jerry Jones' "micromanagement" style.  

https://www.hbo.com/hard-knocks

[greg_orangecounty]

21 hours ago, BigW said:

They were somewhat blocky. Two of these period charts, I've listened to fairly recently. Don't forget the Mahler from the Optimists, which I also listed to. For its day, very innovative and groundbreaking, especially on the visual side... I played a piston-rotor horn for 4 of my six seasons... I know the game in period. I listen to a lot of the period things and realize listening now that they were quite good for the period, but could have been so far more musical but were hedged and constricted because the style demanded cleanliness and clear cleanliness first, musicality second. By 1979, BD, Phantom, others, were trying hard to knock on the door. But they still had certain things held under restraint of the system.

As for Channel One... Directly compare 1976 to 1986. One major difference is clear, the far, far better two valve Kings over whatever piston-rotors BD played on then. Then listen to the dynamics, timbre... the stylistic interpretation of the chart. All noticeably better within that 10 year span. Look at the visual package (though I do have some picky things there that because BD could blow white heat, they could get away with), the more musical and less military guard work. It's absolutely no coincidence things got that radically improved in that 10 year span being coincident with the change in how things were judged. It's no knock on the '76 corps. They were clearly what it took to win and be the champions at that time. Ground started to be broken. Things started inching towards a point where ticks weren't as accurate a reflection of the realities and where the arrangers and designers wanted to take things to.

 

Two things allowed George Zingali to turn himself loose. He discussed this at length in a 1984 clinic I was lucky to attend.

 

One: The Cadets gave him total artistic freedom to take things in the direction he wanted. That was not the case previously. If folks want to argue that... That's what I heard, that's what he said. Sorry if that steps on any toes. I'd deliver sworn testimony on it.

Two: The changes in evaluation also gave him the opportunity to take things in the direction he really wanted to go. It began to become worth it to take certain risks because they could be recognized and credited. You could afford to be less conservative.

 

I do like corps from all eras. There was a dynamite Baritone solo somewhere of Larry Scott playing the "Student Prince" online in the mid-50's. Considering he had to work around a G/D bugle, wow.

 

Listened to old Rockets, Sun, Cabs stuff from the 60's, I can go on. Early 70's Argonne recently.

 

The thing is, you have to look at it, respect it, and appreciate it for the era it was developed and created. It was that way for various reasons. The bugles weren't great to play on. They didn't have composite materials to construct percussion instruments from. The best were the best given all of those issues and how they dealt with them. 

Thank you, BigW.  i enjoyed reading your response/post. 👍

[MikeD]

11 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Mmm... partly so.  But that style went away as the 1970s progressed, during the tick era.

There were several other factors in play.  Three other pertinent changes to the judging system occurred in the early 1970s.  Two of them totally changed the balance between teardown and buildup judging - the analysis subcaptions, and the 30-point general effect allotment.  Prior to that, the most prized junior corps championship (VFW) was 90% teardown, with no analysis subcaptions and only 10 points allotted to GE.  (The third judging change was abandoning the "cadence" caption and associated requirement for all corps to maintain the same constant tempo of 128-132 beats per minute whenever on the move.  That made the whole activity sound blocky and stilted.)

Also, corps in the 1970s began to enjoy the luxury of having members with prior musical experience, thanks to the corps-style marching band trend.  Corps could use written music with all its nuances, instead of teaching parts by rote.

The 1970s also saw mandatory high leg lift and elbow contact fade away.  So much easier to play softly with quality when the horn is not being knocked off your face.

Don Angelica pushed for a 30-point GE caption back in the 60's. 

Actually, even near the end of the VFW era, GE on the World Open sheets and CYO Nats was a total of 30 points.

Prior to the Analysis captions, the execution sheets had a number of points allocated to 'Difficulty'. If my memory serves, at the 1971 VFW Nats, Drumming Execution was 17 points for tics and 3 points for Difficulty, but don't hold me to those number breakdowns...just a rapidly fading memory!

Thank goodness Cadence was eliminated. Also, Inspection was a 10-point caption on VFW sheets.  

All of those changes you quite properly noted went into the change in judging concepts, as those who decided these things (staffs, directors, judges, etc) realized that the progress being made in all areas, M&M, Brass and Percussion, made tics a lousy way to evaluate performance in those areas. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by MikeD

[Jeff Ream]

10 hours ago, keystone3ply said:

Watch "Hard Knocks" this season  & witness Jerry Jones' "micromanagement" style.  

https://www.hbo.com/hard-knocks

no i cancelled HBO when i heard they were going to be involved. as a Dallas fan i need less jerry in my life

[greg_orangecounty]

On 8/19/2021 at 9:19 PM, Jeff Ream said:

wrong. scoring systems mattered because A) corps write the sheets and B) these corps had staff that mastered them

Corps always wrote to the sheets since the days you could get a tic for missing a button on your cadet, that's not my argument.  I'm saying score sheets and "staff that mastered" did matter, but its management, parental support, and revenue streams that corps lived and died by.  If not, the Kingsmen and countless other corps would still be around.

I don't think of myself as an oracle of Drum Corps, but I was there during that period and know what I saw and lived.