Are You Going to PASIC?

Have you been to PASIC? If you haven’t, you’re missing out on a goldmine of percussion education. There is simply no other place where we as teachers, directors, and performers can get so much information from one place over the course of a few days.

Have you noticed how large in scope marching percussion has become? Nothing is off limits anymore. We employ every style of music using well known and not so well known instruments from the nooks and crannies of the world. What’s a Doumbek? What’s a didgeridoo? How do you play these instruments correctly?

Call me a purest but I believe that as percussion educators we have a responsibility to our art to play instruments as they were made to be played. You can’t break the rules until you know what the rules are.

As writers and arrangers, are we writing as drummers or musicians? Do we understand what voice leading is? Do we consult the rules of counterpoint to keep from laying too many voices? Do we understand the age old rules of harmony and the balance of chord tones? These are composition 101 concepts and any arranger who doesn’t have knowledge of the basics is setting themselves up for a tough season in the eyes of a judge who needs a clear picture of your product while being played in a high school gym.

Why am I bringing these issues up? Because these are topics that I have heard addressed at the Percussion Arts Society International Conference. PASIC for short. Not only were they addressed, they were addressed by some of the giants of our field. Hearing a class on technique by Gifford Howarth isn’t something we want to miss.

Anybody who has asked my opinion has heard one of my soapboxes. I’m very happy that the marching percussion activity has encompassed so many styles, genres, and techniques. Still, though, there seems to be a sense of compartmentalization especially by those young or inexperienced directors who are hoping to simply get a show on the floor.

Young directors, take some time out of your schedule and step out of the marching percussion world. I’ve found percussion education in some of the most outrageous places. A percussion convention is a great place to start. We know that you have a lot of work to do at home with your kids and working hard to learn but sometimes the best place to learn is somewhere else. PASIC would be perfect.

PASIC 2009 is in Indianapolis during the week of BOA. That’s a busy week for many but the Percussive Arts Society has worked hard over the past couple of years to make their events much more pageantry arts friendly. This is not an event to miss. You can find more information about PASIC at: http://www.pasic.org/ThisYear.cfm

TRAINING – VOCABULARY & EXPRESSION

So, on to the topics at hand. In an ideal world where you have tons of time, money and rehearsal space (LOL) you would provide your students with a full conditioning of their bodies. Let’s begin by clarifying the difference between training and warm ups. Training teaches and heightens the body to handle responsibilities beyond the normal pedestrian type of movement and establishes the techniques needed to achieve the vocabulary. Warm up gets the blood moving, the muscles responding and SHOULD reinforce technique. It is never as effective unless the TRAINING has established those techniques.

Realistically, most groups only have the time to teach their students those “task specific” techniques that will be an integral part of their show. Don’t forget that the body WILL have a direct bearing on the efficiency of the equipment and the ability of the performers to project those qualities that inspire “communication” with the audience and the judges.

VOCABULARY BY CLASS

Several years ago we printed a vocabulary list that typified each class. Not wanting to limit groups, it was removed from the Manual. However, I honestly think it might be helpful to reacquaint ourselves with those models. Everybody has a few students who can do those isolated high-level tricks/moves and that levels the playing field in that regard. However, the balance of the guard (if in the proper class) will be typical of those skills shown below. While you should ALWAYS create your vocabulary based on the students’ skills, this might serve to bring us to a common ground and help you in proper classification as well as achievement of your goals.

For Younger Class A guards, Basic Equipment Vocabulary will include:

o Spins
o Tosses
o Carving/extensions
o Beginning multi-planal work
o Some layering on movement
o Expressive Dynamic efforts mostly involving time & weight

Basic Movement Vocabulary will include:

o Traveling (walking, running)
o Simple jumps, hops, leaps
o Single dance turns
o Simple moves into the ground
o Postural and gestural shaping
o Basic drill/staging responsibilities
o Dynamic effort qualities mostly involving time and weight
o Some movement or shaping layered with Equipment.
o Use of isolated body parts.

As your students grow and you’re A guard is more experienced, you will introduce them to some intermediate skills moving to the point where they prepare for Open Class. These skills will include:

o Layering & longer phrases
o Broader range of expressive dynamics
o Broader drill/staging responsibilities
o Larger kinetic space
o More variety in releases & catches
o More variety in travel, jumps, turns, etc.

THE OPEN CLASS VOCABULARY – As you move into the Open class, your students should be capable of doing not only those moves above, but also new ones.
The Intermediate Equipment Vocabulary will include (in addition to Basic moves)

o Variations of Spins
o Tosses – more variety
o Carving/extensions – longer phrases
o Some hand to hand and hand changes
o Moderate multi-planal work
o A good level of layering on movement
o Some work from different parts of the equipment.
o Expressive dynamic efforts – a fuller range
o Broader range of tempo/meter/rhythm
o Some ambidexterity
o Longer phrasing in general.

Intermediate Movement Vocabulary will include (in addition to Basic moves)
o Traveling (variations in speed, and traveling moves)
o Jumps, jump turns, grand jetes
o Varied turns, chaines, piques
o Varied moves into the ground
o Balance moves – turns on l leg, attitudes
o Postural and gestural shaping
o Moderate drill/staging responsibilities
o Broader understanding of dynamic efforts
o Movement/shaping layered with equipment.
o Larger kinetic range
As your students advance toward that move to World Class, it is common to see the following:
o Greater layering & longer phrases
o Broader understanding of expressive dynamics
o Broader drill/staging responsibilities
o Some weight sharing (partnering)
o More tempo/meter/rhythm challenge

Soooooo, once you’ve established the vocabulary, you are now ready to train and establish the techniques for these specific tasks.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE EXPRESSIVE EFFORT QUALITIES?????

Obviously you write your vocabulary to the music which will guide you in terms of speed, phrase length, punctuated moments, time signatures and such things as density and weight. Notice that they include several of the expressive efforts you hear judges reference (space, time, weight, flow) and hopefully this will help to dispel the question of just how and why you should teach those qualities. If you take care in how you illustrate those qualities within the music, you will have a head start toward knowing what to reinforce expressively. OK, so some of you are no doubt asking why we just don’t call that part of your vocabulary musicality. Here’s the answer, we don’t want the judges to be focusing on interpretive choices because that’s subjective. We do want them to see and credit those expressive efforts as the important components they are. My reference to music, is ONLY to give you an easy reference tool toward understanding, teaching and reinforcing those qualities. ABOVE ALL ELSE, teach your kids to BREATHE!!!!! Absence of breath constricts all movement.

Sorry this “epistle” is so long, but it was important to get it all covered in one letter. Let me know if you have questions. I’ve enjoyed listening to the music many of you have sent me and loved chatting about your show ideas. I’m impressed that there seems to be a bit more creativity happening out there!!!!

Best regards,
Shirlee Whitcomb
Director of Color Guard Development

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Hogs vs. Horns

So there I was at the Morrow County fair. I bet if I asked everybody I know, I would only find a few people who know that Morrow County exists. It does, in fact, and their county fair is quite large. The reason I was there, you ask? I was at the hog show.

My father in law is a farmer and also raises champion hogs. I had not gone to a hog show and was excited to accompany him. We arrived at the fair and walked around for a while before entering the arena. It’s not an arena like you’re thinking of. It’s a small area with bleachers that are a towering 10 rows high in a building about the size of a normal sized gym.

In it, the smell of animals, a lot of dirt, mud, and manure, and people all around the place dressed exactly as you would imagine cheering loudly as each of the heats took place.

I have to explain to you how this works. There are different divisions and each division has multiple numbers of heats where there are about 10 pigs in each heat.. There is one judge who stands in the ring as each child shows their pig. The top 5 are picked from the original 10 and they show their pig again.

The judge places them in order awarding the #1 through #5 pig in that heat. At the end, all of the winners are brought back for one more showing where the #`1 pig is award out of all of them. In this case, the division we saw had more than 100 pigs!

It was a slice of America that I had not seen until that night. At first glance, it was a different kind of place with a different kind of people who seemed to be interested in different things than myself or most people I know.

That’s only the beginning of the story. The real story came on the car ride home. It was almost an hour back to my father in law’s house and that’s when the questions started. I asked him every question I could think of and what I found out is that I know much more about the hog show than I thought. See if any of this sounds familiar to you.

Adults cannot show pigs. It has to be kids. While the adults give guidance and coaching, in the end, it’s the child who has to raise the pig, show the pig, and have enough presence in the ring to get the judge’s attention.

In order to do well, you have to know what the judges want and that changes each year. You have to be a student of the judging process and of the individual judges.

Winning a hog show is all abut details. I saw the kids spraying the pigs to give them a little extra shine, brushing them and handling them to keep them in the judge’s site line. The pig that won was shown by a “cute as a button” little girl who was clean, smiled the whole time, and even had a small towel in her back pocket that matched her outfit. It made her stand out in the sea of kids who didn’t bother to put on a clean shirt. The win is in the details.

Nothing is more important than the fundamentals. Tens of thousands of dollars are sometimes put in to finding the right breeding pair so that all of the parts of the hog can be made perfect. Nothing else matters if the work isn’t put in to the fundamentals.

Can you find any similarities in hogs and pageantry arts? The similarities were glaring to me. While the world of hogs was foreign to me, the world of pageantry arts is just as unfamiliar to many others but the rules are the same. Be a student of what you do and if you want to do well, know what it takes to be successful.

You want to know what was the most striking to me about that night? My father in law said that after every show those who didn’t win blame the judges, the system, and everybody else when often, the failure that night was theirs. I’ve been guilty of this attitude when I was on the losing end of the show.

Two different worlds, but the rules are the same. I don’t think I’ll be raising hogs any time soon but I’ve met too many people who believe that everything we have to learn is within our pagaentry arts field. If you ask the greatest directors in our field, I bet they will have stories similiar to mine where they learned a huge amount about their field from an unlikely source. They had their eyes, ears, and minds open. We’re never too old or too good to learn something new.

Written by Tim Parker

Are You a MEPA Member Yet?

MEPA is currently accepting applications for membership or guest unit performances for the 2010 competitive season. Click here to be taken to the memberhsip form.

Welcome to Our Newly Designed Website

The Mid East Performance Association is constantly evolving and much of that evolution comes from listening. Listening to our judges, our audience, our performers, directors, and circuits throughout the nation. If you were to ask me what I find to be the most interesting and exciting part of our activity, it’s the evolution that we see each year. What we learned last year will be yesterday’s news this year. This evolution makes our activity dynamic but as a circuit, it can be difficult and costly to keep up with this evolution without asking our members to pay dues that cause a strain on their budget.

The new MEPA website was designed with you in mind. You, the new director, wanted more educational articles so we created an area that we’re calling the Education Corner where we will regularly post articles that will help both the new and experienced director as they continue to evolve. Send us your topic requests, or even better, if you would like to write an article that would be a benefit to all of us, we would love to post it.

I’ve also included an area called The President’s Blog. Your MEPA board of directors works harder than you know. They are constantly thinking of new ways to make your circuit a little better than it was by keeping up with our constantly evoloving activity. I will keep you informed and give you insight in to what we’re talking about that would be of interest to you.

While there are many more features on the new site that you will learn about as the 2010 season comes at us, let me tell you of one more. One of the top requests that I’ve heard is that you want scores online quickly. I’m personally taking the lead on designing a scoring system that will allow us to post scores nearly in real time. When our units learn their score, so can you. This will not be unveiled until December but it’s in the works.

Finally, I would invite you to continue to give us feedback. Take a look around and let me know what you think. The summer has produced a lot of exiting news to share with you for the 2010 season. I will be sharing this with you in the near future.  Have you completed your 2010 MEPA membership application?  Click here to do that right now.

I hope you like our new site!

Tim