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March 21, 2007

The Other Side of the Critique Table

Sometimes, we take for granted things in our lives. Things that just seem to be a part of the every day norm we forget that enriches our experiences in life. In the marching world, we compete at contests and hope to take home the prize, but we sometimes forget about the process that takes place on those contest days. We are concerned about the number, but take for granted the process of how that number is conceived. Stay with me here.

It's like a car: you get in it every day and turn the key. You never think about the hundreds of parts working in conjunction to make that happen, only when the car doesn't start do we take notice.

The same thing seems to happen with judges, we know they are there, but only concern ourselves with the process of how they came up with the number when things don't go our way. Questions come up like, "how could they put Band X over us?" or "were they even watching our show?". Even worse, feeling slightly offended at the critique table when you ask a judge about your show and they ask for you to remind them what your show was about, or some other clue about your group to help jog their memory. "Why are they asking that?!?! Wasn't our show the most unique one on the field today?"

I will be honest, I've had these ideas run through my head over the years in some way, shape or form. I knew judging was hard, but I had no idea how hard until I judged my first contest a couple of weeks ago. I now have a new found respect for the judging community because it is hard work and requires a lot of responsibility from an individual. Not only do you have to watch a show, you have to 1) run a tape 2) take notes and 3) come up with numbers that accurately reflect a group's performance. Not only that, at the end of the performances, you go into a room where people ask for your thoughts about specific details of their show; a show you may have seen three hours and 20 bands ago.

That's a lot of stuff to keep up with throughout the day. So during this WGI season, the upcoming Summer and throughout the Fall, have a little patience with the guys and gals across from you at the critique table. It's harder than it looks.

Posted by Ryan on 10:08 PM

March 07, 2007

Video Vault: Star 93

By far, one of the greatest drumlines ever. This home movie was just added to YouTube, check it out:

Posted by Ryan on 01:46 AM