montoya
Junior Member
The Shoemmelier
Posts: 16
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Post by montoya on Dec 7, 2019 13:13:47 GMT -6
Welcome to another segment of Sketchbook called Matchbook where Jen Barton and I set the band world on fire with our hot takes! You may remember Jen Barton and me from the highest-rated drum corps & fashion related show on FloMarching, Taking the Field. Or the wonderfully entertaining 4th episode of Sketchbook found here on Anchor & wherever you listen to your podcasts. Today we are rethinking the Bands of America Grand National Championship experience! Matchbook, w/Jen Barton: Rethinking the Grand Nationals Experience |
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Post by paddy on Dec 8, 2019 11:17:06 GMT -6
I listened to this, but didn’t have a pen and paper to write this all done. Can you give a quick recap of your schedule/scoring rework?
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Post by LeanderMomma on Dec 8, 2019 13:02:07 GMT -6
I’ve started listening a time or two to these broadcasts, but they’re so long I just can’t sit and give it that much time. Maybe over the break.
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Post by principalagent on Dec 8, 2019 18:59:53 GMT -6
I’ve started listening a time or two to these broadcasts, but they’re so long I just can’t sit and give it that much time. Maybe over the break. Podcasts are perfect for doing while you’re on a walk or cooking or cleaning! Much more convenient than just sitting around with it. And you can always increase the speed through apps or your phone to 1.25 or 1.5. Might help make them quicker to get through  |
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Post by paddy on Dec 9, 2019 14:33:18 GMT -6
Ok, I listened again and tried to take some notes. I am sure I will butcher some of this and flat miss some other bits. Basic Premise - 1A and 2A bands (except MC and Tarpon) aren't good enough to compete with 3A and 4A bands and thus are not being afforded a great Grand Nationals experience. 2 basic solutions in this podcast. #1. Split Grand Nationals in to a 2 tiered competition with a Gold Division (3A and 4A bands) and a Silver Division (1A and 2A bands) - Prelims for Silver Division Thursday (over the last 4 years this is ~48 bands on average)
- Silver Division Finals Friday Night (top 12 from Prelims, but there was some discussion of making this a bit bigger) and use this to crown National Champions for 1A and 2A
- Top 6 from Finals Participate in Gold Division Semi-Finals
- Gold Division Prelims Friday (over the last 4 years this is ~50 on average)
- 24 move to Semi-Finals with 6 Silver Division Finalists
- Top 14 regardless of class to Finals
- Still allow fro 1A and 2A exhibition if Silver Division bands don’t make Finals
#2. Dump the entire school size classification and move to WGI classification with 3 classes (Scholastic, Open and World) - Schools select class based on skillset/resources with oversight from organization and judges
- Only Open and World eligible for Semi-finals and Finals
- Add a day on Wednesday for Scholastic class with prelims and finals on one day
- Thursday, Friday, Saturday schedules are similar to current but later starts/earlier finishes because you no longer have scholastic class bands in the mix.
- Require participation at a regional to be eligible to attend Grand Nats (with some reasonable exceptions like Mililani coming from Hawaii)
- Increase emphasis on Super Regionals as a proving ground for which class you are in (I am saying this poorly, but can't word it well)
Snarky add - After going back and listening to some past podcasts, it seems like much of this was driven by the desire to get Center Grove in to semi-finals and a general misunderstanding of the role of class reps and how/why they qualified. Center Grove wasn't left out of semi-finals so the 54th place band could get in as a class rep. |
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Post by LeanderMomma on Dec 9, 2019 22:25:28 GMT -6
I’ve started listening a time or two to these broadcasts, but they’re so long I just can’t sit and give it that much time. Maybe over the break. Podcasts are perfect for doing while you’re on a walk or cooking or cleaning! Much more convenient than just sitting around with it. And you can always increase the speed through apps or your phone to 1.25 or 1.5. Might help make them quicker to get through This is true. I usually listen to the DanPodCast when I do my long run on Mondays so I could surely listen to these as I make my hour to 1.5 hour runs. Thanks for the idea! |
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Post by paddy on Dec 14, 2019 23:26:43 GMT -6
I don’t know why people continue to futz around with the “Elimination Game” when we could discuss something somewhat interesting, but here we are.
I realize most people here only give 2 craps about big and popular names and big bands, but this podcast is actually pretty interesting.
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Post by Samuel Culper on Dec 14, 2019 23:57:13 GMT -6
I don’t know why people continue to futz around with the “Elimination Game” when we could discuss something somewhat interesting, but here we are. I realize most people here only give 2 craps about big and popular names and big bands, but this podcast is actually pretty interesting. Does the existence of the Elimination somehow prevent other conversations? |
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Post by paddy on Dec 16, 2019 12:13:29 GMT -6
I don’t know why people continue to futz around with the “Elimination Game” when we could discuss something somewhat interesting, but here we are. I realize most people here only give 2 craps about big and popular names and big bands, but this podcast is actually pretty interesting. Does the existence of the Elimination somehow prevent other conversations? Apparently it does. |
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Post by hewhowaits on Dec 16, 2019 20:55:17 GMT -6
Does the existence of the Elimination somehow prevent other conversations? Apparently it does. Or maybe nobody cares enough about this topic to converse any further. |
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Post by paddy on Dec 16, 2019 22:27:01 GMT -6
Or maybe nobody cares enough about this topic to converse any further. Maybe so. Too bad for me I guess. I appreciate when folks are willing to provide some fresh content (though long form podcast is a tough medium). And I (oddly) like thought experiments like the one proposed by them. I was hoping for some conversation, but alas it won’t happen. |
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Post by LeanderMomma on Dec 16, 2019 23:10:01 GMT -6
Or maybe nobody cares enough about this topic to converse any further. Maybe so. Too bad for me I guess. I appreciate when folks are willing to provide some fresh content (though long form podcast is a tough medium). And I (oddly) like thought experiments like the one proposed by them. I was hoping for some conversation, but alas it won’t happen. I’m still trying to find time to listen. But I will! |
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Post by thewho on Dec 17, 2019 6:41:26 GMT -6
Or maybe nobody cares enough about this topic to converse any further. Maybe so. Too bad for me I guess. I appreciate when folks are willing to provide some fresh content (though long form podcast is a tough medium). And I (oddly) like thought experiments like the one proposed by them. I was hoping for some conversation, but alas it won’t happen. I'm trying to get some time in, but it's a little difficult for me in general not being a podcast person. However, I did see that post you made. Briefly, I think the former has some grounds and the latter should be tossed immediately. WGI makes all their classes work because there's an implicit cap on size while band seemingly doesn't have any at the moment. It's very tough to accurately measure skill level within a class when the classification doesn't account for the band size accurately. I made a post sometime ago about this in the old BOA forums with the gist being exactly that. |
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Post by paddy on Dec 18, 2019 9:09:20 GMT -6
Maybe so. Too bad for me I guess. I appreciate when folks are willing to provide some fresh content (though long form podcast is a tough medium). And I (oddly) like thought experiments like the one proposed by them. I was hoping for some conversation, but alas it won’t happen. I'm trying to get some time in, but it's a little difficult for me in general not being a podcast person. However, I did see that post you made. Briefly, I think the former has some grounds and the latter should be tossed immediately. WGI makes all their classes work because there's an implicit cap on size while band seemingly doesn't have any at the moment. It's very tough to accurately measure skill level within a class when the classification doesn't account for the band size accurately. I made a post sometime ago about this in the old BOA forums with the gist being exactly that. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the WGI style classifications. I understand what they are doing on idea 1, but it opens up a question for me if there is an underlying issue in the judging rubric or methodology when bigger seems to drive better scores. Particularly when you start to compare band size to visual and GE scores. |
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Post by thewho on Dec 18, 2019 21:04:06 GMT -6
I'm trying to get some time in, but it's a little difficult for me in general not being a podcast person. However, I did see that post you made. Briefly, I think the former has some grounds and the latter should be tossed immediately. WGI makes all their classes work because there's an implicit cap on size while band seemingly doesn't have any at the moment. It's very tough to accurately measure skill level within a class when the classification doesn't account for the band size accurately. I made a post sometime ago about this in the old BOA forums with the gist being exactly that. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the WGI style classifications. I understand what they are doing on idea 1, but it opens up a question for me if there is an underlying issue in the judging rubric or methodology when bigger seems to drive better scores. Particularly when you start to compare band size to visual and GE scores. Exactly. WGI is as even as it could possibly get in terms of performing group size. Marching band is far from that and has to be accounted for in its scoring system somehow, whether by school size or band size. I have to say, reviewing the Silver/Gold idea, that's actually a great proposal for competition format for me. Having a separate finals evening for the A/2A band would lead to a much more even judging overall. I think it's also much more fair in getting the right bands to the actual semi-finals. Some brief concerns for that: - I don't know whether it would be fair to have that change without considering the mileage travel time of some of these bands. Tarpon Springs, for example, would highly, highly prefer Friday evening over being forced to perform on Thursday.
- Take the example of Tarpon Springs, again, and account for the possible performances- Silver Prelims, Silver Finals, Semi-finals, Finals. That's 4 performances across 3 consecutive days. Bands can handle 2 consecutive days, but I question whether pushing bands to perform that much is conducive to their mission. Not to mention how generally unfair it'd be to have no rehearsal days.
- Following up on the 2A debate, there are clearly several that are far too good to beyond the typical Silver classification (as in, would be 100% in contention for finals). Should these bands opt out of the Silver classification and finals, would it be fair to completely exclude them from 2A contention?
I think the best thing BOA can do at this point is to just put their foot down and just say a minimum of 4 bands from all classes make finals. No more guaranteeing 2 per judging panel or anything like that. 4 highest scores in the class advances as class qualifiers, if those bands aren't among the top 22 or next 8. There were some very deserving bands over the years that got screwed despite being significantly better than class qualifiers in some cases simply because they were on the wrong judging panel (Greendale, Adair County, etc.). |
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Post by paddy on Dec 18, 2019 22:15:54 GMT -6
Not going to quote as it is getting to be a wall of unnecessary text...
To your point about Tarpon Springs: this is what launched them from the Silver/Gold idea to the WGI classification idea. The discussion basically followed the idea that a school like Tarpon Springs would prefer to compete in the Gold class, and probably should compete in Gold. They were coming to Grand Nats to compete for a medal not just try to make semis and should be allowed to do that. One of them said there were others in that boat and should BOA police that to insure someone competes in the right class.
To the idea that you just take the top 4 scores under the current system as an improvement...
That would cut down on the number of bands in semis as a number of years the top 4 in AA make semis on score. You would basically have a a top 22 and 8 and 4 A class reps. I’m not sure that follows with the mission either.
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