Time to Revisit “Degree of Difficulty” – It’s a Game of Inches

Here we come around the clubhouse turn to Indy on Thursday! So proud of the men and the shows they are performing. First and foremost, we should all remember that.

And how cool was it to see them at Niagra Falls this morning, arm in arm, singing “Rainbow” in the presence of …well..a Rainbow?

Took a look at tonight’s caption sheets. Nothing truly alarming or surprising. But one thing that is interesting that goes all the way back to the beginning of the season when one of my first posts was about “Degree of Difficulty” .

As a reminder…each caption has two subcaptions…one for “Content” and one for “Execution” even though the words for those change caption to caption. ( thanks DCI for making it even harder to understand)

But the boiled down simplicity is this…”Content” is judged as the “if you did it perfectly this would be your score” score. “Execution” is judged as …”this is how well you’re doing what your trying to do” score. Hope that’s not confusing.

But it is kind of important with 6 days left to go.

Tonight…by the caption sheets we still have “headroom” to grow our score. Carolina Crown simply doesn’t. In some cases they were given scores higher for “Execution” than for “Content”. In other words, the judge is noting…” What you’re designed to do is really difficult and you’re killing it…but I’m not going to change the score of what you’re trying to do…”

The two areas tonight that this was most notable were Visual and Music.

Case 1 – Visual:

• Over the overall Visual Caption, Carolina Crown “overscored” the possible by 0.6 points. That means the judges gave them “more credit” than their repertoire commanded.

  In the same Visual Caption, we scored 0.6 BELOW the “possible”. Which means…at least in the eyes of these three judges, there is still “headroom” for our score to grow going into Indy.

  Case 2 – Music:
  

  Here again…Crown has virtually hit the “glass ceiling” with their “execution” score.

  And also here again…we have .500 points of growth recognized between “what we’re doing” and “what we want to do”.

  Does any of this many anything?

  Yes and no. It means we still have room to grow in the judges eyes. The problem is that the “judges” change every night. Though I will say…as we get into Indy, only the most experienced judges will be weighing in. That doesn’t mean anything good or bad for us…it means that they don’t carry a bias for a certain corps into Lucas Oil Stadium. Because if a bias was evident, they wouldn’t be on the panel.

  Sorry to bore you to death with math…but I love math…and I love Drum Corps…and math certainly applies.

  All of this said…let me leave you all tonight ( this morning) with a thought.

  So far our sons, this summer, have:
  – Put on their traditional Cavaliers “Greens” and honorably remembered Don Warren at his memorial service a couple of days prior to tour.
  – Taken a trek to California that the Cavaliers haven’t taken in years
  -Played a standstill concert for our brass manufacturer ( Yamaha) in Los Angeles
  – Played an outdoor concert in South Central LA that featured arguably the best trumpet player in the world ( Wayne Bergeron) , and also the work of a former Cavalier running an arts center right there in South Central LA. Also met Eric Whitacre as a walk-up to the Concert!
  – Marched a show in the ROSE BOWL
  -Had an amazing “free day” on the Santa Monica pier
  -Honored the family of Dayton Bryant at what would have been his home show in San Antonio with a rendition of “Rainbow” while Dayton’s family looked on and were loved on by the Cavaliers Family
  -Stood in a fraternal huddle at Niagra FREAKING Falls this morning and sang both “Rainbow” to a real rainbow…and the Corps song.

  In the end, I’m quite sure MY Cavalier will remember THOSE things, and not the numbers to a decimal point show by show.

  Numbers are fun. Numbers are for parents. Placements are for fans.

  The kids are in this for WAY MORE than numbers.

  ( All of that said…if we pulled off a miracle in Indy and medal…the first round of drinks ( for parents) is on ME! )

  Love you all…what a special family of people to be around.

  Touching down on Thursday!