Checking in a decade later

[scheherazadesghost]

39 minutes ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

The rest is just not messing up the instruction.

Side note:

Many still can't manage this part. Too much bullying and too many injuries. That's on the instructors.

[FTNK]

It's just marching band. It's kids running around and playing with, more often than not, bad sound. And really "dumbed down" arrangements of music, to fit some designers' idea. Always has been, always will be.

[jjeffeory]

17 hours ago, MGCpimpOtimp said:

Yeah, no more "songs", the corps that won played Moon river, corps that got second "What a wonderful world", and the corps that got 3rd played one of the most popular songs of the last decade. I much prefer corps to expose me to NEW music, rather than be marching band karaoke of the same old songs. Do we REALLY need another marching band cover of "sounds of silence"? I actually think corps are playing more "current"' music than anytime since about the 70s, but it's maybe music the older folks aren't familiar with. Heck, Madison is playing some tunes made popular by tick tock.

You missed the point entirely. It's not what is being played, it's HOW it's being played.

The music being played has been deconstructed and reconstructed into something that has a resemblance to the original. Some corps do that better than other corps. The lower placing corps' design teams are sometimes horrible at it, and it often turns into densely written and unrecognizable garbage. Again, not the performers fault.  Playing new music isn't the problem. It's the deconstruction, sampling, and mashing up of things into new things that arguably create effect (or not).  That's ALL design.

[jjeffeory]

8 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

This right here. And good designers know this. Good designers know how to use the tools at their disposal to make shows that don't leave MMs feeling like cogs in a wheel. If they aren't actively doing this in the design process, they're kinda monsters...

cracks knuckles Licensing doesn't have to be hard. If designers can't find music that (1) appeals to a mass audience and (2) can easily be licensed, then they aren't looking hard enough or in the right places. That's the drum corps bubble if you will; not enough designers with experience outside of the activity. I've found music I wanted to use for youth choreography projects and called up headliner groups for rights. Depending on the artist, some are ecstatic to have their music used (AND further marketed) for educational
use. Screw the artists who don't act that way and move on.

drumcat, we marched in nearly the same era! ❤️ As someone who marched Orawa by Worschek Kilar (spelling anyone?), Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korskov, and Shostakovitch/Russian Christmas Music, I'm all for your point about themed music v musical themes. Those were a very different approach than SC's Finding Nirvana this year. I too, was always about the music and SC delivered in the years I marched as far as I'm concerned.

In the case of Orawa in 2003, it was perfect synergy. My understanding is that someone brought Orawa (was it Murray?) to the table, they fell in love, and the composer actually paid THEM what ended up being a few cents for them to use HIS music. THAT'S what I'm talking about... when you look beyond the easy, flashy solutions, some powerful serendipity can present itself. SC was so good at that around the time I marched and Pathways was ultimately a more fun show to march because of the close attention designers had to matching a complex, minimalist musical composition with a simple visual concept. 😘

 

And I'd argue that's only done when a corps in the top ten decides to forgo scoring achievements in order to push the envelope. My house is known for doing this at times both internally and by the fans. We don't play to the sheets consistently because it's our thing to constantly experiment. (We're not perfect at this, I'm speaking more towards the ideal I have of SC... not that we always do this!)

That said, there are plenty of other corps that push the status quo. I just wish they'd drop the other shoe already. So much innovation is just waiting to be tapped if corps could let go of scoring a little try new things. Or hell, go back and experiment with legacy designs that worked. Anything but rehashing what worked the last time you got a medal.

Most MMs don't medal anyway so why are we holding that up as our standard STILL??

You're awesome!

[jaylogan]

7 minutes ago, jjeffeory said:

You missed the point entirely. It's not what is being played, it's HOW it's being played.

The music being played has been deconstructed and reconstructed into something that has a resemblance to the original. Some corps do that better than other corps. The lower placing corps' design teams are sometimes horrible at it, and it often turns into densely written and unrecognizable garbage. Again, not the performers fault.  Playing new music isn't the problem. It's the deconstruction, sampling, and mashing up of things into new things that arguably create effect (or not).  That's ALL design.

Of course, that’s completely up to interpretation. There will be people who appreciate the repackaging and repurposing of songs (especially in recent culture where new songs have been created out of existing songs) and also those who find repeating the same-old same-old stale and boring.

Just because some people from a certain perspective of thinking feels some way doesn’t mean that they’re  the final arbiter of all that is decent in musical composition.

Edited July 25, 2022 by jaylogan

[jjeffeory]

Just now, jaylogan said:

Of course, that’s completely up to interpretation. There will be people who appreciate the repackaging and repurposing of songs (especially in recent culture where new songs I’ve been created out of existing songs) and also those who find repeating the same-old same-old stale and boring.

Just because some people from a certain perspective of thinking feels some way doesn’t mean that pare the final arbiter of all that is decent in musical composition.

I agree. You're right 100%.

...in the real world, there are so many people "repackaging" songs that the cream rises to the top. There's a lot of crap interpretations, but then there are some gems.  In our little world, we only have 30 some groups trying to do that... Much of it is going to be crap, and then you get a nugget of quality ever so often. IMHO, it doesn't happen every year. I don't think it happened this year.  We'll get a winner, but that's not the same as getting quality design.

[gak27]

8 hours ago, craiga said:

I don't understand the concept of drum corps not doing popular music...I think there has been more popular music on the field in the last three competitive seasons than there were in the entire decade of the 90s.

But, who says the music needs to be recognizable?  I joined Boston at the end of 1979 as a non-music major.  If it wasn't for drum corps, I would have never been exposed to things like the The Planets, West Side Story, Spanish Fantasy, Rocky Point Holiday,  the works of Pat Metheny, etc.  And for the record,  my most favorite (non BAC) drum corps show of all time is 1987 SCV.  I had never heard a piece called Russian Christmas Music before, and if it wasn't for drum corps, at 62 years old I still wouldn't. 

I have zero issues with drum corps programming.. .and I am a card carrying dinosaur.

 

4 minutes ago, jjeffeory said:

You missed the point entirely. It's not what is being played, it's HOW it's being played.

The music being played has been deconstructed and reconstructed into something that has a resemblance to the original. Some corps do that better than other corps. The lower placing corps' design teams are sometimes horrible at it, and it often turns into densely written and unrecognizable garbage. Again, not the performers fault.  Playing new music isn't the problem. It's the deconstruction, sampling, and mashing up of things into new things that arguably create effect (or not).  That's ALL design.

From many excellent posts on this thread I chose these two to quote since they both reference a viewpoint regarding how music has changed in drum corps that closely match mine.  I highlighted the section in Craiga's post because I, too, would have never heard many of those pieces if not for drum corps (59 years old here).  Jjeffeory's post points to the "how" that frequently undermines the recognizability / accessibility / "earworminess" of much of today's drum corps musical offerings.  Craiga's reference to 1987 SCV is a classic example:  their version of Russian Christmas Music was just over 3 minutes long, with almost continual playing by the horn line.  Except for the occasional ballad, who does that these days?  And without at least one battery/front ensemble break?

[mfrontz]

6 hours ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

Truth. You win in November. You win in January. Design + recruiting = placement. The rest is just not messing up the instruction.

And yet...

I read a lot of WWII history. Historians nowadays will point to logistics, industrial output, population, etc. and say, in effect, that the war with won by America  the very moment Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Foregone conclusion.

But it took a heck of a lot of people who believed that it was up to them, personally, to contribute to winning that war, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, for the United States to defeat Japan in World War II.

The frontline participants have their place In the story still. Maybe it's just part of the picture, but it's in the picture nonetheless. Seems true in drum corps too. The kids have to do the work and perform. Yes, they're the most talented, but they still have to do it. 

And it does matter what they do. You can't tell me that if BD's drumline isn't nails on finals night 2019 that we're not talking about the defending champion Bluecoats. It's something that's planned for in October but has to happen on the second Saturday of August.

 

 

[jjeffeory]

2 minutes ago, mfrontz said:

And it does matter what they do. You can't tell me that if BD's drumline isn't nails on finals night 2019 that we're not talking about the defending champion Bluecoats. It's something that's planned for in October but has to happen on the second Saturday of August.

 

 

 

...and yet, almost no design team can design well enough to score as well as BD's design. I contend that there are 5 or six corps who, depending on the year, who have performers that can perform and clean their shows as well as any of the other corps, but it is the design that makes it so that even the cleanest of performances aren't going to push them over the design that the judges typically reward.

The only exceptions to this are the individual performance captions such as brass and percussion.  Guard bleeds into everything else too much. It is the tide that raises all the other captions. It's just a fact.

[Tenoris4Jazz]

7 hours ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

Truth. You win in November. You win in January. Design + recruiting = placement. The rest is just not messing up the instruction.

Okay, here's a thought:  have every WC corps perform the EXACT SAME SHOW!  Drill and all.  Whoever gets judged performing it the best wins.  That renders the design off the scoresheet and allows the judging to be about what the MM's do and not the staff.  The staff judging and awards could be done in choosing which show they all perform.