Checking in a decade later

[Lance]

in fairness to the OP because I think it's important to read their whole post, a lot of the examples people sarcastically brought up in the first few responses are just little motifs from songs, which actually goes right with what the OP was saying.  moon river is an exception to that, and there have been a lot of corps over the past 10 years who have paid more than lip service to great songs.  

[KVG_DC]

I'm of two minds on it.  Either approach can be extremely entertaining if done well.   I mean I loved The Academy taking the  time to unspool Unchained Melody in its entirety for us.  At the same time, Thrower's arrangements for Kinetic Noise and The Bluecoats were so masterful in how they put familiar bits together and over each other to make an entirely different experience.

At the same time, I'm remembering that Madison show of a series of 8 bars of every Don Ellis tune and how it just didn't work.  And also, I know I'm in the minority on this, but Moon River isn't doing it for me.  It starts out with that incredible solo then not long after the corps full enters I'm losing the line of it and waiting for it to be over.  

[drumcorpsfever]

Whew. That’s a lot to read and big take. Personally, I’ll go with what BD does on the field. As is BD, so is DCI. 

[C.Holland]

5 hours ago, mfrontz said:

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.

 

 

Except that the BD show is written to be a 19.9. The braintrust of Chandler, Ryan, and Holly have figured out staging, choreography, prop moves, prop usage, guard integration, how the corps gets from segment to segment, and all the other scribbles that play to the sheets because  they’ll have the talent to pull it off, so their possible achievement (performance) of the material (design) can go to fully 19.9.   As Jeff stated visual “layered demand” is added to all the other captions, but music is not. 

 

the other corps who will write shows and “figure out what to add later” are writing the shows to be an 16, 17, or 18.  Which the current system does not allow much out performance of content.  If your content is written to be deemed a 16, you can’t earn a 19 even if you perform it perfectly. The system does not allow for this. 

thus design drives everything else.  It either sets your members up for success, or caps their ability to “achieve”. 

they also have more leeway with a show written to 19.9. More ability to fail on “attempted achievement”.  Therein lies why you win from a design desk. And not your performers. 

 

[Jeff Ream]

34 minutes ago, C.Holland said:

Except that the BD show is written to be a 19.9. The braintrust of Chandler, Ryan, and Holly have figured out staging, choreography, prop moves, prop usage, guard integration, how the corps gets from segment to segment, and all the other scribbles that play to the sheets because  they’ll have the talent to pull it off, so their possible achievement (performance) of the material (design) can go to fully 19.9.   As Jeff stated visual “layered demand” is added to all the other captions, but music is not. 

 

the other corps who will write shows and “figure out what to add later” are writing the shows to be an 16, 17, or 18.  Which the current system does not allow much out performance of content.  If your content is written to be deemed a 16, you can’t earn a 19 even if you perform it perfectly. The system does not allow for this. 

thus design drives everything else.  It either sets your members up for success, or caps their ability to “achieve”. 

they also have more leeway with a show written to 19.9. More ability to fail on “attempted achievement”.  Therein lies why you win from a design desk. And not your performers. 

 

20...they figure they'll see Chumley finals week.

 

but...when you have the same design team together for so long...that continuity is hard to beat. 

[C.Holland]

Just now, Jeff Ream said:

20...they figure they'll see Chumley finals week.

 

but...when you have the same design team together for so long...that continuity is hard to beat. 

It’s the ability to think ahead, and coordinate.  Which so many try to do, and “we’ll add body work here” but haven’t thought about it until it’s July, so you get poop squat after varied poop squat. That doesn’t help the narrative. That team is 1. Really f’n good at their own design components 2. Great at collaborating with each other and C. Treated well enough so that they don’t leave.   The talent just has to show up and the numbers are already higher than everyone else’s because of the design work. Design intent is already considered through the show. 
 

The last 10% is talent performance. 

[Jeff Ream]

5 minutes ago, C.Holland said:

It’s the ability to think ahead, and coordinate.  Which so many try to do, and “we’ll add body work here” but haven’t thought about it until it’s July, so you get poop squat after varied poop squat. That doesn’t help the narrative. That team is 1. Really f’n good at their own design components 2. Great at collaborating with each other and C. Treated well enough so that they don’t leave.   The talent just has to show up and the numbers are already higher than everyone else’s because of the design work. Design intent is already considered through the show. 
 

The last 10% is talent performance. 

D...schedule. they usually do fewer shows than everyone else. more rest time, and more time at rehearsals to deep dive on the cleaning and detailing. Remember the last several seasons they have come out strong and slowly but surely added touches and nuances...but nothing that was truly a major rewrite or a whole new ending visual and music. i wonder creating all these brand new endings worked on for weeks how much time deep cleaning the rest of the show is lost?

[C.Holland]

2 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

D...schedule. they usually do fewer shows than everyone else. more rest time, and more time at rehearsals to deep dive on the cleaning and detailing. Remember the last several seasons they have come out strong and slowly but surely added touches and nuances...but nothing that was truly a major rewrite or a whole new ending visual and music. i wonder creating all these brand new endings worked on for weeks how much time deep cleaning the rest of the show is lost?

If you design it right the first time, you don’t need to redesign it.  I’m sure there’s a plan B in case of emergency, but frankly, it’s not needed. 
 

but again. The success is from sept. Not august. 

[FTNK]

14 hours ago, mfrontz said:

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.

 

 

Not to hijack but the war was won by the heroic sacrifice of millions of people by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Edited July 26, 2022 by FTNK

[Old Corps Guy]

The "Song" statement hit home for me this weekend. I finally convinced my wife to watch all of San Antonio with me. For those of you that know me, you know she is not a big "drum corps" fan. It takes a lot to get her to watch one corps, much less, an entire competition.

So, we get to the final few performing corps and she makes the comment that she doesn't recognize any songs.  What makes that even more interesting is that BAC is playing the song we had for our first dance at our wedding.  I had to show her the melody in "What a Wonderful World" and she struggled to hear it.

One positive for her was the "Effect" in "Benedictus" by Crown.  While she didn't know the piece, the effect was something that she appreciated. I consider this "the moment" for this year.