Do Me A Favor...

[Danpod]

The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. With that being said, I'd like to offer up a little marching arts opinion piece for you all. The following comments are my very own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of our staff or their personal secretaries. Apparently, we were allowed personal secretaries. Attention fail on my part. If you can't follow the format on this one, I suggest you start taking a multi-vitamin. They make them in Gummy form now! Delish...

 

Do Me A Favor, Bands of America...

Revise the judging system. 60% for General Effect is too much. After careful thought, I've realized that too many points are being given away by people who are sitting too far from the action. Believe me when I say that I understand that marching band is more an art form now. However, I don't really understand why Music and Visual Performance get the least amount of points.

 

There are music programs dying all across the United States because school administrators are too darn stupid to realize that music performance has a dramatic impact in student's lives. I guess music makes the schools the least amount of money for them so why even put up with it? Shouldn't Bands of America show the programs who compete in their organization that it's not all about how the show is perceived in the Press Box? The memories and outstanding performances are made on the field and the fact that the field-level sheets are so heavily outweighed makes me feel like those particular performances are trivialized.

 

I have championed the Bands of America judging system for a very long time. I just feel like there should be a little refresher every now and then.

 

By the way, any judging system that used the term "Auxiliary" should hand out timpani drums on those body harnesses used in the 1970s.

 

Do Me A Favor, people who walk up and down aisles during shows...

Cut it out! After calculated research, the Bean Counters here at our Headquarters have determined that the majority of people who interrupt shows by stomping up and down the steps are people who have zero affiliation with the show actually being performed. In other words, you guys aren't running to your seats because you are missing your kid's/friend's show. You are running to your seat because your hot dog is getting cold.

 

Folks, it's rude. I'm sorry. If you get to do that, then I get to run in to your classroom or office building during your presentation with a cell phone in one hand and a huge pile of nachos in the other. If your program is running a contest, do everyone in the audience a big solid and pick two or three students to be full-time ushers. Give them a free shirt, let them eat a few hamburgers on the house, and I promise that the crowd will greatly appreciate it.

 

Do Me A Favor, DCI....

Please consider my following rule proposal: Any World Class corps who was beaten by an Open Class corps at World Championships must now move down a class. This is Marching Music's Major League, right? Truth be told, I threw a giant party with ice cream cake when I found out that DCI Quarterfinals was going to be a virtual "all-skate" between every corps. It was a fantastic idea because it exposed a lot of fans to shows that they normally wouldn't really pay much attention to. However, I knew that it was going to cause a huge problem when some Open Class corps would rise up and kick the crap out of some World Class corps.

 

What do you do now? Do you keep the Quarterfinals format the same next year or do you wimp out because you offended some of the lower-tier World Class competition? Pioneer, Jersey Surf, Cascades, Mandarins, and Teal Sound were all out-scored by an Open Class corps at World Championships. I know we all say that it's not about the competition, but Good Lord, that has to hurt a little. The thing that gets me is that this isn't like College Football where a school like Appalachian State can beat the University of Michigan on a given Saturday. What happened at Quarterfinals/Semifinals would have taken place at any time. There has to be some restructuring done.

 

Do Me A Favor, members of the drumline...

Your stick tricks and body poses are awesome. However, if the actual playing isn't clear, what is the point? I know there's a way to combine the education of crazy stick trickery and tasty beats. I wish it were done more often.

 

Am I the only one who thinks the movie Drumline set the marching activity back twenty years? I can't stand that movie!! What sucks is that the entire Country thinks that is exactly what goes down at marching contests. Cadillacs on the field, fireworks, a lot of bad sounds and high-stepping. Oh yeah, if there's a tie, we let the drumlines decide who is going to win????? What?!?!?!? If that tie-breaker was an accepted procedure, I'd be really interested to see what Tarpon Springs H.S. would do in that situation.

 

Yo, let's put some druuuuuuuuuuuuums in it! I don't need to learn to read notes! Just play loud! I really hope that people didn't watch that movie and suddenly want to become Music Educators because if they did, a whole generation of bad playing would have been bred.

 

 

 

I'm done for now. Feel free to discuss below. If you've enjoyed what you have read, I'm Daniel Valdez. If not, I'm Penn and Teller.

[Xenon]

Bravo!

 

Absolutely brilliant points! I absolutely agree 100+% except for one single tiny part.... Pioneer deserves to be World Class no matter what specifically because they cater to the youngest corps members who want to do a full World Class tour but don't have quite yet have the chops to be in a semi-finalist corps.

[Danpod]

  Xenon said:

Bravo!

 

Absolutely brilliant points! I absolutely agree 100+% except for one single tiny part.... Pioneer deserves to be World Class no matter what specifically because they cater to the youngest corps members who want to do a full World Class tour but don't have quite yet have the chops to be in a semi-finalist corps.

 

Pioneer is in a Catch-22 kind of situation. They are consistently at the bottom of World Class. However, they have no qualms about giving pretty much anyone a chance to be a part of the corps, including folks who may not even know a brass instrument that well. I think this is why DCI looks more at the financial stability of a corps when considering them for World Class. They don't want to alienate organizations with "lower quality" talent. Then again, this whole Quarterfinals thing kind of sent some mixed messages.

[mrwood69]

:/

Edited November 4, 2011 by mrwood69

[silvsoc3]

It's like you read my mind. I completely agree with every topic. It sadly seems that marching shows are losing their technical skills, music skills, and all around marching skills. Most of the bands I see that score highly are ones that either have giant props, huge sound systems, or a random distracting show within a show. Don't get me wrong, these are huge parts of the "evolution" of marching band, but it is annoying at times to see a band with sloppy marching masked by "auto-tuned" music, placing higher than a band with great marching, but no props or color guard to distract the audience. I am fine with a general effect category, but it should not be the main aspect of judging. Too many good bands slip through the cracks because of that.

[drummerjoe]

  Danpod said:

Am I the only one who thinks the movie Drumline set the marching activity back twenty years? I can't stand that movie!! What sucks is that the entire Country thinks that is exactly what goes down at marching contests. Cadillacs on the field, fireworks, a lot of bad sounds and high-stepping. Oh yeah, if there's a tie, we let the drumlines decide who is going to win????? What?!?!?!? If that tie-breaker was an accepted procedure, I'd be really interested to see what Tarpon Springs H.S. would do in that situation.

 

Well it's mostly a joke among drumlines (Except Reagan HS in Austin, that's study material there haha).

Edited November 4, 2011 by drummerjoe

[DawnedEclipse]

I LOVE this post. Truly making me feel a little more secure that actual people feel the same as I, a senior in high school, do. I feel as if BOA is a prime place, however, for the general effect potency to shine through. Granted 60% is kinda crazy, but i feel as if a 10 percent reduction would be the best of both worlds. The fact of the matter is that no show is a show that will take 5th at BOA San Antonio, then walk over and get 5th at UIL 5a state, mainly because shows cannot be altered toward both UIL and BOA. The distinction between the two, in my opinion, is a great one, that offers many opportunities to some unsuspecting bands. But UIL state should be every year...... just sayin. BAND SHOULD GET MORE MONEY!!!!! And drumline has turned into nothing but over glorified jocks who think their "beats" are "mad sick" and demand the attention of all. I feel like the only thing these kids should be working on now though is trying to get the sticks out of their rear ends, because their heads are stuck too far up.

[NewMexicoBandsman]

  silvsoc3 said:

It's like you read my mind. I completely agree with every topic. It sadly seems that marching shows are losing their technical skills, music skills, and all around marching skills. Most of the bands I see that score highly are ones that either have giant props, huge sound systems, or a random distracting show within a show. Don't get me wrong, these are huge parts of the "evolution" of marching band, but it is annoying at times to see a band with sloppy marching masked by "auto-tuned" music, placing higher than a band with great marching, but no props or color guard to distract the audience. I am fine with a general effect category, but it should not be the main aspect of judging. Too many good bands slip through the cracks because of that.

 

I agree that bands sometimes slip through the cracks in the BOA system, and I would also like to see a much smaller GE category, but I do have to say that most of the bands I see that score highly in the BOA system, combine these theatrical and/or interesting elements to a show that is fantastically marched and played. As for marching shows losing their technical skills, I disagree with that completely. I think that if execution has suffered any in the past 20 years or so, it's only because difficulty has shot up dramatically, not because additional elements let them get away with it.

[borchnork]

Every time I see a drumline do fancy stick moves now, I think back to this topic lol.

[Iheartband]

  DawnedEclipse said:

I LOVE this post. Truly making me feel a little more secure that actual people feel the same as I, a senior in high school, do. I feel as if BOA is a prime place, however, for the general effect potency to shine through. Granted 60% is kinda crazy, but i feel as if a 10 percent reduction would be the best of both worlds. The fact of the matter is that no show is a show that will take 5th at BOA San Antonio, then walk over and get 5th at UIL 5a state, mainly because shows cannot be altered toward both UIL and BOA. The distinction between the two, in my opinion, is a great one, that offers many opportunities to some unsuspecting bands. But UIL state should be every year...... just sayin. BAND SHOULD GET MORE MONEY!!!!! And drumline has turned into nothing but over glorified jocks who think their "beats" are "mad sick" and demand the attention of all. I feel like the only thing these kids should be working on now though is trying to get the sticks out of their rear ends, because their heads are stuck too far up.

 

 

2010 Season.... Marcus was 1st at BOA SA, 1st at UIL. Bell was 2nd at BOA SA, 2nd at UIL. Bowie was 3rd at BOA SA, tied for 3rd at UIL. Hebron was 6th at BOA SA, 7th at UIL....still pretty close.

[DawnedEclipse]

  Iheartband said:

2010 Season.... Marcus was 1st at BOA SA, 1st at UIL. Bell was 2nd at BOA SA, 2nd at UIL. Bowie was 3rd at BOA SA, tied for 3rd at UIL. Hebron was 6th at BOA SA, 7th at UIL....still pretty close.

 

 

 

I meant that in a lower then top 3 way, If you're the best band in texas, you're the best and no competitions gonna change that. But the difference between 7th and 6th is huge to the bands. It may not seem that way but many a time have I been dissapointed by ONE spot. Taking 10th instead of 9th, 4th instead of 3rd etc.