A history of DCI judging and scoring, and the movement away from music emphasis

[IllianaLancerContra]

14 hours ago, Slingerland said:

The inmates who run the asylum. 

 

But some inmates run it more than other inmates. 

[BigW]

2 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

But some inmates run it more than other inmates. 

The Peruvian Prison model? 

[Jeff Ream]

7 hours ago, BigW said:

Indeed. A case study could be the whole DCA "communication" semi-subcaption. I asked people involved that I respect that should have been able to give me a clear answer to me about the caption that weren't really able to. They obviously needed to interpret what the sam scratch it meant since they were having to put numbers in the box.

 

From my observation, and this is my personal impression- it just ended up being a parroting of the actual what/how main caption numbers, or an average of the two. Last season- and the last season it will ever be used-(for which I believe Jeff is thankful, myself as well) judges finally seemed to have a better understanding of what the intent was and the numbers finally began to have some actual independence from the main section of the caption.

 

What do I think, and mind you, this is what I think for what it's worth:

1: it was a well-meaning but not a great attempt to try and come up with some kind of an excuse to give Effect more weight and try and give some kind of nod to the audience.

2: I also think it was an attempt by some competitors in particular that figured that their pandering to the audience was their specialty, that they had a monopoly on it...and that the "Blue Team" (emphasis the DCA Blue team) didn't have a clue and that this would easily reel them in. This was a pretty huge mistake on their parts. The Blue Team folks don't live in a bubble, they're not fools, and they can read the sheets and the rubrics. They made adjustments and pretty much won Communication while it existed. It reminds me of when the Electronics rules in DCI were developed and voted in, The Bluecoats pretty much said, "We didn't vote for this, but we're not going to sit back and not do it. We're going in whole hog, we'll figure it out and do it better than everyone else." Certain groups who hoped to get that "unfair advantage" (1$ to Mark Donohue) got knocked on their bohintis/Badonkadonkas (1$ to Tiny Tina)

 

7 hours ago, BigW said:

Indeed. A case study could be the whole DCA "communication" semi-subcaption. I asked people involved that I respect that should have been able to give me a clear answer to me about the caption that weren't really able to. They obviously needed to interpret what the sam scratch it meant since they were having to put numbers in the box.

 

From my observation, and this is my personal impression- it just ended up being a parroting of the actual what/how main caption numbers, or an average of the two. Last season- and the last season it will ever be used-(for which I believe Jeff is thankful, myself as well) judges finally seemed to have a better understanding of what the intent was and the numbers finally began to have some actual independence from the main section of the caption.

 

What do I think, and mind you, this is what I think for what it's worth:

1: it was a well-meaning but not a great attempt to try and come up with some kind of an excuse to give Effect more weight and try and give some kind of nod to the audience.

2: I also think it was an attempt by some competitors in particular that figured that their pandering to the audience was their specialty, that they had a monopoly on it...and that the "Blue Team" (emphasis the DCA Blue team) didn't have a clue and that this would easily reel them in. This was a pretty huge mistake on their parts. The Blue Team folks don't live in a bubble, they're not fools, and they can read the sheets and the rubrics. They made adjustments and pretty much won Communication while it existed. It reminds me of when the Electronics rules in DCI were developed and voted in, The Bluecoats pretty much said, "We didn't vote for this, but we're not going to sit back and not do it. We're going in whole hog, we'll figure it out and do it better than everyone else." Certain groups who hoped to get that "unfair advantage" (1$ to Mark Donohue) got knocked on their bohintis/Badonkadonkas (1$ to Tiny Tina)

i have used this example before, and hopefully the days where it comes up are soon gone.

 

i sat right in front of the judges at Readings second home show several years ago. you could hear the judges. and one GE judge was raving about how the "audience' was getting into the corps performance as it related to the communication sheet.

 

the crowd wasn't doing jack ####. yes home town homerism was in effect most of the night 9 but 2 corps in particular got great reactions)....but not this corps. and this sheet called the show. and the "audience" wasn't pleased, because the corps that did communicate lost. 

and oh man, the results the next weekend were explosive when things shifted in terms of placement. After that i reached out to someone and got an actual copy of the sheet. it was pure GE speak. All of it. and audience as mentioned applied to the judge, not the fans as all PR stated when explaining the change.

 

in the history of stupid sheets for judges to use, this is the tops. and it came at the expense of field visual which led to serious sloppiness that was noticeable upstairs, but couldn't really be addressed because thats nt what the upstairs sheets were designed to address.

[Jeff Ream]

3 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

Apparently a couple of big-name visual gurus. 

and voted on and approved by all member corps with voting rights. and at times the membership does speak up. if not the percussion judge would be in the box

[Jeff Ream]

30 minutes ago, BigW said:

The Peruvian Prison model? 

no more like Bostons Animal Farm. Funny thing...that was a statement towards the whole G7 mess. and now who's a power broker?

[Terri Schehr]

2 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

no more like Bostons Animal Farm. Funny thing...that was a statement towards the whole G7 mess. and now who's a power broker?

[BigW]

4 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

 

i have used this example before, and hopefully the days where it comes up are soon gone.

 

i sat right in front of the judges at Readings second home show several years ago. you could hear the judges. and one GE judge was raving about how the "audience' was getting into the corps performance as it related to the communication sheet.

 

the crowd wasn't doing jack ####. yes home town homerism was in effect most of the night 9 but 2 corps in particular got great reactions)....but not this corps. and this sheet called the show. and the "audience" wasn't pleased, because the corps that did communicate lost. 

and oh man, the results the next weekend were explosive when things shifted in terms of placement. After that i reached out to someone and got an actual copy of the sheet. it was pure GE speak. All of it. and audience as mentioned applied to the judge, not the fans as all PR stated when explaining the change.

 

in the history of stupid sheets for judges to use, this is the tops. and it came at the expense of field visual which led to serious sloppiness that was noticeable upstairs, but couldn't really be addressed because thats nt what the upstairs sheets were designed to address.

The "home town homerism" was so bad it left me demoralized after the last DCA show I went to. I plan on trying to go to the season end show because Crown et al will be present. I need to snag tickets when available. Hope I'm not too late. I had a Much better time at Dover where the audience:

-stayed for everyone

-appreciated everyone

-and everything was complete- maybe not well polished in some cases, but enjoyable and watchable. 

 

Off topic, I really, really liked Spartans. Well, maybe it is on topic- Their music wasn't normal fare, but it was wonderfully arranged, performed, and all made sense phrasally and went from one idea to another without feeling like one had ADHD.

[Keith Hall]

The Corps staff go to DCI Meetings and propose judging changes. The corps vote on those changes. WHY visual is more important than Music? I don't know

[BigW]

20 hours ago, Keith Hall said:

The Corps staff go to DCI Meetings and propose judging changes. The corps vote on those changes. WHY visual is more important than Music? I don't know

It could be that it was felt that it needed to be more balanced. The thing is the top teams will always read the sheets regardless and still succeed. 

 

There's another effect maxim that came to mind: Do you hear what you see? Do you see what you hear? Just something to also think about. A great show has both go hand in hand. When there's dissonance...

[denverjohn]

45 minutes ago, BigW said:

It could be that it was felt that it needed to be more balanced. The thing is the top teams will always read the sheets regardless and still succeed. 

 

There's another effect maxim that came to mind: Do you hear what you see? Do you see what you hear? Just something to also think about. A great show has both go hand in hand. When there's dissonance...

Too often when I hear something great and turn my head to see who is producing what I hear, all I see is a speaker box on the 35 yard line.