Invader Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 If a corps isn't as clean as other corps, they will be scored accordingly. I assure you the Crossmen (or any other corps) are not being penalized for being too entertaining. The very concept is hilarious.And by the way, Cavies '04 is AWESOME!!! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You may wish corps would be scored accordingly based on how clean they are but the judging system doesn't have any checks and balances to insure that happens. I've been involved in the activity since 1954 and I can tell you that judges do not check their world views or per determined prejudical feelings about a corps or its program at the stadium gate. They are as human as you and I and that is the flaw in the judging system. Most of the time we would know in advance where our corps would finish at finals based on who was on the judging panel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einstein On The Beach Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 What's wrong with their choice of music? Too entertaining, right? Let's not have too much entertaining of fans at a drum corps show, okay. Cavies won with 007. You'll have to do better than thqt. Stand around a lot? I guess you haven't seen their show. You want to see standing around, look at 12th. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's really funny of you to say, since Phantom, SCV, Cadets, Bluecoats, Madison, Boston, Colts, Glassmen, etc etc are plenty entertaining and that their placing above Xmen. Why? Because they're cleaner and playing more demanding shows! This IS a competition you know. So, it doesn't have anything to do with entertainment value. We lost the value of entertainment years ago. It's what you do and how you do it that counts. Thank God we have corps that still try to entertain by offering us shows that we will enjoy and recognize...just don't count on them to necessarily be highly successful. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Cavies won it all last year with an entertaining show. Phantom is charging through with an AMAZING show this year, as are Bluecoats That being said, I do beleive the culteral elite of this activity laugh at the fact that the Crossmen are playing pop music this year. How many corps do I have to sit through to be entertained by the music? As a casual fan of drumcorps at this point in my life, I don't think I should need a degree in musicology to appriciate a show.Cadets, visually awsome and impressive, but I can't hum any part of the show on my way out of the stadium. Same goes for the Blue Knights and Mandarins ( I was at the West Chester show last night). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It never ceases to surprise me how people say that shows now are too complex and that you'd need to "have a degree" to understand them (whatever at that means, sheesh, music is music) but meanwhile universities and consevatories look down on drum corps. Ironic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bawker Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 (edited) It never ceases to surprise me how people say that shows now are too complex and that you'd need to "have a degree" to understand them (whatever at that means, sheesh, music is music) but meanwhile universities and consevatories look down on drum corps. Ironic. Very true. One thing that has changed though, is the way shows are presented staging and music wise. Star of Indiana could have written a virtual book for their 1993 show as a introduction to it, but chose to let the music and imagery to speak for that. Or, they also could have jam packed their percussion book with black paint all over the place, but instead, they played a musical, dynamic, clean book that still gets credit today. Therein lies a problem with some arranging. In order to tell a story, or communicate a effective emotion, you have to involve your audience...and get them to make the emotional investment with you. This, I feel, is where older drum corps shows (read: before 1996 or so) got it right. That's one of the biggest issues I have with "complexity". Some things are god-like on their own: think about it...Did SCV tinker with "'Adagio"? Would Phantom do such with "Elsa's"? There is too much of an attempt to pretty up music with the arrangers own rococo froth in some cases nowadays. That's what loses the crowd of "old schoolers" nowadays...not amps or narration, really. It's a simple thing, to be honest. :) That's why so many of the "old guard" like Phantom Regiment and Crossmen this year...they let the music tell the story, not hide it and let it become less important than the visual aspect. Edited August 6, 2005 by bawker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einstein On The Beach Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 I definitely agree that some shows lately can be a tad convoluted, and that's the fault of the designers. They want to push the envelope, what musician/artist doesn't? Sometimes they strike gold (Cavies 02), and sometimes it bombs and people hate it (BAC 04, BD this year) :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bawker Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 I definitely agree that some shows lately can be a tad convoluted, and that's the fault of the designers. They want to push the envelope, what musician/artist doesn't? Sometimes they strike gold (Cavies 02), and sometimes it bombs and people hate it (BAC 04, BD this year) :P Yeah, I'm all for pushing the envelope...don't get me wrong! It's just that there are a lot of shows that try to be more than they are. I know that it's important that we look to scratch beneath the surface with show concepts..I don't expect every corps to have shows like "AMERICAN SALUTE" and "WEST SIDE MALAGUENA". :P However, drum corps is drum corps. it's a simple, straightforward idiom. It can't neccessarily be "MAN IS A MOTE IN THE UNIVERSE" or "MY 5500 VARAIATIONS ON JAZZ AS CONCEPTUAL ART FORM" without a certain amount of navel-gazing that takes away from the product that we know. I think it can be done in a melodic, emotional manner though, while still drawing on that cerebal energy. It's fun sometimes to draw your own conclusions about what Sucoast Sound 1988 or Phantom 1996 meant to you in the context of the show. Surely, Phantom 96 was emotion packed, but there are the deeper issues of what the Shostakovich, flags and drill symbolized. Think about Star of Indiana 1991...there's religious imagery aplenty there, but you're left of the task of deciphering what it means by way of the colorguard and the score. When a show is termed "boring" or "inaccessable", people don't care about what you're playing...at all. You could play Band Today Etudes, or Mahler, or Three Blind Mice...just as long as you put your audience emotionally into the show. Think I knew what "Sensemaya" was in 1994? #### no! The difference is that I was pulled into it, and was made to care. The Madison Scouts of the mid-90's didn't have some secret recipe to make people throw babies...they just knew how to press those buttons. Same for the Cavaliers of the 00's, and the Blue Devils of the 80's. The way drum corps operates (the tried and true "skip to the good part" mentality) is a simple emotional "rise-fall-rise"...there's always a new crest coming in the next few seconds or minutes to take you somwehere, even if you don't like where you are at that moment. There's been a certain kind of movement to take that emotional context and frame it under the visual category rather than the musical lately...not really a bad thing, but removed from what a lot of us grew up on. It's a sticky wicket, no matter what with todays judging. Just my 2 scheckles. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimannc1 Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 I totally agree that both Glassmen and Crossmen have 2 of the most entertaining shows of the year. I don't buy into the fact that the choice of music is what is hurting Crossmen. It's pure performance of what they are doing. They are just not performing the show up to the other corps ahead of them. I must say they are vastly improved from the begining of the year when they had way too many ensemble tears that you couldn't enjoy the show. You can know sit back and enjoy what they are playing and tap your foot to it but it probably won't make finals. That's not a bad thing seeing as how strong the top 17 is this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_S Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 As a casual fan of drumcorps at this point in my life, I don't think I should need a degree in musicology to appriciate a show.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Since I appreciated every show I saw in Indy, and enjoyed nearly all of them, does that mean I should tell IU that they owe this psychology/philosophy grad a musicology degree? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 Since I appreciated every show I saw in Indy, and enjoyed nearly all of them, does that mean I should tell IU that they owe this psychology/philosophy grad a musicology degree? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes you should Matt! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einstein On The Beach Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 Since I appreciated every show I saw in Indy, and enjoyed nearly all of them, does that mean I should tell IU that they owe this psychology/philosophy grad a musicology degree? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't believe a musicology degree exists. Infact, I don't even think it's a word Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decompressed Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 I don't believe a musicology degree exists.Infact, I don't even think it's a word <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I studied MUSICOLOGY in graduate school at the University of North TExas....it is a degree! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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