Looking Back - Zingali & the Tick System's Removal

[happycomposer]

Hi all. I'm laying the groundwork for research on the different eras of drum corps and had a question regarding asymmetrical drill, the tick system, and George Zingali. While reading this, please keep in mind that I marched in the late 2010's, so I am still learning about the activity in the 1980's and its changes!

With these things in mind, I wanted to ask about Zingali's work and its influence. If I have my info correct, the tick system was fully removed before the 1984 season. Considering Zingali's work with 27th and the Cadets, were the tick system's "tear down" judging sheets changed to more appropriately judge the innovations of the activity, ie more complex drill? Did Zingali's work have a direct impact on the decision to make this change? If so, was the Cadets's 1983 show the nail in the coffin, so to speak?

I also recognize that Zingali isn't the ONLY innovator at this time - even in drill, I know people often cite 1980 SCV as an early instance of asymmetrical drill. And I'm sure that there were arrangers also pushing at the seams (any insight into music specifically would also be helpful!). I simply highlight him and his work because, in retrospect, he is highlighted as one of the most important innovators of the 80's through '91.

Another unrelated question - how did TEACHING at the Cadets change between 1983 and 1984, to reflect the changes in judging? Thanks everyone.

Edit: formatting

Edited April 10 by happycomposer

[Brian Tuma]

14 minutes ago, happycomposer said:

Hi all. I'm laying the groundwork for research on the different eras of drum corps and had a question regarding asymmetrical drill, the tick system, and George Zingali. While reading this, please keep in mind that I marched in the late 2010's, so I am still learning about the activity in the 1980's and its changes!

 

With these things in mind, I wanted to ask about Zingali's work and its influence. If I have my info correct, the tick system was fully removed before the 1984 season. Considering Zingali's work with 27th and the Cadets, were the tick system's "tear down" judging sheets changed to more appropriately judge the innovations of the activity, ie more complex drill? Did Zingali's work have a direct impact on the decision to make this change? If so, was the Cadets's 1983 show the nail in the coffin, so to speak?

 

I also recognize that Zingali isn't the ONLY innovator at this time - even in drill, I know people often cite 1980 SCV as an early instance of asymmetrical drill. And I'm sure that there were arrangers also pushing at the seams (any insight into music specifically would also be helpful!). I simply highlight him and his work because, in retrospect, he is highlighted as one of the most important innovators of the 80's through '91.

 

Another unrelated question - how did TEACHING at the Cadets change between 1983 and 1984, to reflect the changes in judging? Thanks everyone.

Great question. I’m looking forward to the responses. Don’t forget about the groundbreaking work he did with Star and Blue Knights! 

[pedalC]

Regarding asymmetrical drill, Pete Emmons introduced it in 70s with SCV. Great guy that is a wealth of drum corps history! If you're able to run into him on the road with BD, you could probably get a few minutes to sit down and discuss it with him. Good luck with the your research!

https://www.dci.org/static/pete-emmons-dci-hall-of-fame

[GUARDLING]

8 minutes ago, pedalC said:

Regarding asymmetrical drill, Pete Emmons introduced it in 70s with SCV. Great guy that is a wealth of drum corps history! If you're able to run into him on the road with BD, you could probably get a few minutes to sit down and discuss it with him. Good luck with the your research!

https://www.dci.org/static/pete-emmons-dci-hall-of-fame

Pete was also with Cadets in the early 70s

[BigW]

Pete would be a definite go-to guy. I have no idea how to reach out to Mel Stratton, but he'd also be another very knowledgeable person concerning the visual art in this period.

[LabMaster]

I might suggest that along with the perspectives from writers and designers, if you can, reach out to George Oliviero.  He can provide tremendous insight from a judging pov, throughout the evolution of the system changes, tics through today.  George O has close knowledge of Zingali as well,  and may have some inside bits to share on Zingalis development and influence on design as systems changed.

Edited April 10 by LabMaster

[supersop]

Any discussions on this topic that I've been party to around Saktig, May, Sully or Cadets alumni resulted basically like this:

 

The 1984 show was written based on tick system rules.  Full stop.

 

I'm not sure who pushed for the rules/judging changes that resulted in the buildup system of 1984, but the design of the show had nothing to do with it.  Zingali, Twiggs, Prime were writing what they wanted to write.  They were figuring out how to teach it on the fly.  Visually, I often heard from Sully that they would say, "Get from here to there ...... so and so looks great ...everyone do it that way."

 

Dot systems took time to figure out.  Crab step took time to figure out.  Dot books took time to figure out.  But not much time.  Reshape, Recurve, Subsets ... all were hands on and took many hours on the field to "figure it out".  Once it worked .... always do it that way ... now figure out how to get it in your dot book.  This was still happening at Cadets well into the 90's until Saktig took over and began charting the subsets.

 

I also hope you check into the many many changes to the sheets and number of judges/captions over the years.  The buildup system from 84 changed in 88 .. and many times after that.  Even during the tick system there was a specific year when there was a Build Up sub-caption (not sure the name of it) ..  this is before my time so I don't know the details ... but it was points awarded rather than taken away.  This leads me to believe that the judging system was constantly evolving toward a total build up system.

 

I hope this helps a bit.  Best of luck with your research.

[KVG_DC]

Interesting.  I had friends who marched with me in high school (ISSMA finalists every year MBA regional top tier competitor when we went and grand nationals finalist when we went)  We had dot book drill sheets and were taught to use the "two markers" from dot to dot my first year (85) as we got started. But after awhile the use of the markers was dropped.  I forget who wrote that drill.

We had Chops Czapinski as a drill writer my sophomore and junior years. We'd still start with the two markers and a dot book method but after DCI season was done, Chops came in person and we had a lot of "on the lot" changes to the drill we just sort of did via the "ok bring this line over here now, there. that. those are your new dots." 

By my senior year (88), we had a dot book for the drill (Greg Cesario wrote this drill, lots of solid forms that morphed into lines and back). we were told to leave the markers at home as we started learning the drill.  But also were drilled on a variety of basics of different ways to approach our dot rather than marching directly from dot to dot.  Lots more emphasis on intervals and who would be setting the arc of a line.  Then guiding off of that. it was an entirely new way to learn the drill for us and more intuitive. Prior to this year, we were largely known for our excellence in music and keeping our Marching and Maneuvering 'good enough' not to pull down our scores. This approach though was heavy on individual technique and movement and we quickly got noticed for our M/M scores then. We had new uniforms with white pants and a stripe down the leg rather than our 'brown pants that hide things...that even the stripe of sequins down the leg couldn't help.'   So moving to more exposed legs meant a lot more attention on person to person movement being clean.  There was a lot we did in basics block throughout the season for warm ups that was largely muscle memory building for foot movement, placement, and upper carriage adjustments that really made the viz pop in the end.  Greg was writing and instructing and Phantom Regiment in this time and we had judge tapes that noticed.

Some of the folks I marched with went on to march in corps after graduation with a fair few to Star for their best years. They described pretty much what supersop talks about with learning drill.  A lot of 'on the field' experimentation that was learnt and became body memory.  

[Jeff Ream]

my HS was mostly not competitive during my years, but i remember in the summer of 86 being taught how to do a dot book, with drill written by a guy who was in the corps i marched in, and actually marched with.

 

he just hated whenever we said the number 27

[cixelsyd]

Surprised no one has waded in to address the specific questions.

20 hours ago, happycomposer said:

With these things in mind, I wanted to ask about Zingali's work and its influence. If I have my info correct, the tick system was fully removed before the 1984 season.

Yes.  It started with the brass caption in 1982 and 1983, then percussion and visual followed in 1984.

Quote

Considering Zingali's work with 27th and the Cadets, were the tick system's "tear down" judging sheets changed to more appropriately judge the innovations of the activity, ie more complex drill?

I would expect a range of opinions on this... but to compile all that I have heard from testimony of the people involved, there were frustrations with the various limitations imposed on caption judges that pre-dated the innovations to which you refer. 

For instance, prior to the 1970s, the captions for bugles, drums and M&M were judged entirely in teardown mode.  Caption judges assessed "execution", looking for errors and almost entirely limited to deducting the same fraction of a point for each error.  There was little they could do to address the three qualitative aspects of errors - tolerance (the dividing line between error and successful execution), severity (how bad/obvious is the error), and duration (how long does the error persist, and how do performers recover).  Execution judges also could not consider the difficulty of what was being performed - only whether they perceived errors.  Results from one show to another could vary quite a bit from individual judges having different levels of tolerance to error.

Several changes were made during the 1970s to start addressing these concerns, but they primarily added "analysis", more judges to give credit for what was being performed.  Percussion also had a "degree of excellence" subcaption at one point.  But "execution" judging still had the same limitations.

The change from teardown to buildup enabled the "execution" judge to become a "performance" judge, free to make and quantify all the subjective assessments alluded to above.

All that said, I think there was another change that was at least equally important.  Prior to the 1970s, there was very little communication from judges to corps staffs.  This underwent a massive transformation, with post-show critiques and recorded commentary becoming standard practice by the 1980s.

Quote

I also recognize that Zingali isn't the ONLY innovator at this time - even in drill, I know people often cite 1980 SCV as an early instance of asymmetrical drill.

I prefer to call it "free-form" drill, as asymmetry was not a new thing at all.  Drills were only symmetric for a brief period in the 1970s.  Prior to that, the rules required you to start on one goal line and finish on the other.