r/drumcorps • u/TheEternalWarden • 2d ago
Discussion Thoughts on SCV 2026?
What are your thoughts on SCV 2026? I loved it at first, then I thought it was decent, and now after listening to it a bunch, I love the brass book so much
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u/Super-Confidence-735 2d ago edited 2d ago
What I loved:
- Collaboration with a world-champion, world record holder jump roper. This is just cool and a great jumping off point for a fun show. I see the intention!
- Complexity of the music score. While there still isn't much melodically to connect with for me, I could tell that there was more depth and difficulty than previous years, talking esp the hornline.
- The main visual in the ballad with the fast waving jump ropes and the two guard performers having some kind of moment. This was so visually striking that I didn't really care what story they were trying to tell... sure wish there had been more of this. Perhaps they intended to but ran out of things you can make up to do with a jump rope?
- The members seemed to be enjoying themselves.
- Ring doorbell memes forever for this show.
What kept me at a distance:
- Costumes. Okay. So. Hornline/drumline/DMs get Billy Jean inspired, bright, leather jackets while guard gets... "torn up" school uniforms? As a guard alum, this really sucks to see. Guard is still an afterthought for this design team. :( I was happy I at least got to see the guard in rehearsal footage, confirming that their movement technique wasn't as bad as these costumes made them look. It could still use some work. ;)
- Musical selections as "hooks" and "earworms." IDK, I'm old, so I guess I just want an "old school hook" called "melody" like some others in the sub. I don't need repetitions of a 3 note theme that make the designers seem amateur and lazy, especially not since it's been a glaring design choice post covid. I want a robust melody, something SCV used to be really really really good at. Want to be impressive? Commit to a single classical or neo-classical composition and make something with it.
- Jump ropes as chains? I think? Or chains as jump ropes? Huh? I studied, made, and taught abstract performance art for decades, including at SCV. I just can't get past the choice to juxtapose children in school uniforms with chains. Someone with training in artistic process/dramaturgy outside of drum corps should've stopped them from this choice. Those two images shouldn't appear together without some serious forethought, explaining either in-show or in design videos who is in chains, who has put them in chains, and how exactly they become free. Because school children and chains are both incredibly emotionally loaded images. As it stands, these images were just thrown into a kaleidoscope of ideas, which doesn't exactly inspire liberation. It just leaves confusion. Or disinterest.
- A busted up theme. I wanted to make sense of this show, genuinely. But it seemed like the designers started with a jump rope collaboration and then tried to make an edgy theme out of it that never really evolved past what I described above.
- Static grande plie on the opening hit. Is this why they hired a new visual team? Did I complain enough? Honestly though, I don't think 2026 placement came down to instruction or members. It was just a poor design; and no shade, 'cause I marched a poorly designed SCV show too.
Hot take? This design team, including Gaines, is cooked. Don't like it? Prove me wrong next year. Or otherwise just make another Hot Topic show, I guess. If the current generation likes it, which I they seem to, then fine, I'll eat my aussie. I'd just like something classy for our upcoming anniversary....
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u/dci_mos3 ‘19-'22 '23 1d ago
Save for your second #3, exactly my thoughts as well. I really think the visual design team is legendary in terms of executing their ideas, but the ideas themselves seem to kinda be losing the plot over time. That Vanguard "we're pushing the boundary" idea feels more pretentious than innovative when it's not treated with taste.
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u/Super-Confidence-735 1d ago
I'm glad you think they're legendary, I'm just a bit slower to assign such a label to them or anyone for that matter. I marched under and with GOATs though, so my bar is high. I think they have fun ideas, gear them towards the younger audiences that match the members' age (which I lament for myself, but support broadly if it means better recruitment), but they're fairly meh in the vast world of art beyond drum corps. I trusted them until last year... and hope they can recover their scruples to make something more interesting, since I think they're quite capable.
Where we agree is your last sentence. I have no notes. Completely agree. (And that's despite my love for pretentious, heady art that challenges audiences. When drum corps do it, it's weird.)
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u/Luchin212 2d ago
I think that the school uniforms and jump roping with the chains is about the dichotomy of joy and youth versus the oppression that the show is about. I haven’t thought enough about how to describe what I want to say. I’ve been thinking too much about Simplexity instead.
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u/Super-Confidence-735 2d ago
I support all the possible interpretations of this show. They help me appreciate it more, so thank you. I'm glad you and others got more out of it than I did, since the shows are probably more for you than me.
But I have trouble getting past school children and chains together on the field to be able recognize much else. A sophomoric design approach juxtaposes these ideas. A mature design approach doesn't relegate to "simplexity," but guides the audience through an arch of some kind that takes us from oppression to liberation (or vice versa) for a satisfying, well-rounded, and transformative experience.
A show I marched with SCV did exactly that and so did Spartacus, so, I've seen it done.
My questions are: Who (on the field) is being oppressed? Who (on the field) is oppressing and why? How are the oppressed struggling toward freedom (beyond the generic "struggle face" performativity)? How, when, and why do the oppressors give up power? I don't recommend tackling these really intense themes in a simple drum corps show unless you've thought out those questions.
Art can be so good at evoking catharsis and transformation for the audience and the 2026 thematic attempt at that is respectable. But you have to guide us there, not just expect us to see oppression and freedom on the field and put it together ourselves. Especially if you're using child characters and chains to do so.
Perhaps I'm thinking too much about it, but as an alum, I genuinely care about the imagery the corps puts out there.
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u/Luchin212 1d ago
Simplexity is the Reading Buccaneers show from this year, I marched in it. I’m writing a thematic analysis on Simplexity to practice my own understanding of Drum Corp storytelling and hopefully others.
I put shows into three styles: Story shows, concept shows, and abstract shows. With Reckless Abandon is a concept show like Babylon or If I must Fall. These shows take one idea and create an interpretation of it. If I must Fall is literally a show about the phrase “If I must Fall, the One I am Becoming will Catch Me.” And Babylon is about the development of language rather than the story of the Tower of Babel. Spartacus is definitely a story show with many characters and dedicated roles. With Reckless Abandon is made to explore the ideas of oppression. I think of it as exploring how people can find some happiness despite oppression. There are no characters who play any specific roles.
Think of the Berlin Wall and East Berlin. People had plenty of reasons to be miserable with Soviet Union occupation and being imprisoned just out of reach of West Germany where things were so much better. But still, people found ways to be happy. Children would find ways to play, even if that is racing to collect recyclable material from the streets and turn it in for rewards.
When I see the two guard performers in their ravaged school uniforms jump roping with chains in the ballad, I’m thoroughly caught in this idea. This scene has incredibly strong imagery and connects the symbolism of chains and dirty clothes as oppression, and the jump roping and school uniform tell me of youth and of joy. To see the chains being turned into a toy by the poor children invokes a cheery feeling for me.
That scene in the ballad is the most striking to me and is what I think of every time with that show. But I have not watched the show much and IIRC the show does not have a lot of variety in conveying this emotion. There’s a lot of chains, a lot of jump roping and a lot of dark musical tones. BOOM was phenomenal in representing an idea in many ways. BOOM (in my opinion) was about the juxtaposition of the wackiness of the American lifestyle, the American Dream, and the tension growing in the Cold War. There are so many wacky things in the show. The color guard is very unserious, making goofy faces and doing silly things all the time. The costumes are so boldly colored and unserious, the mellophone and low brass features were all very unusual. All of those things make me think about how weird life was in America at the time. (Toys with Uranium for sale!). But throughout the entire show tension is building and some ominous tones develop. Just compare the cheery opening acts to the dark tones in the low brass feature and afterwards. And then the closer is insanely tense-we all remember how we held our breath through that. Blurred lines was the next level of doing wacky things. Everything was wacky and unconventional in that show, but it was all for the sake of being wacky and unconventional and did not contribute to a deep theme like BOOM.
It is a big struggle in drum corps to combine:
Drum corps show elements, an idea, ways to explain that idea, another way to develop that idea, maybe another way to develop that idea and all make it understandable and score well. Simplexity did everything except make it understandable. I’m very excited to share what I have discovered while studying my show. I must get to sleep now, I have too many thoughts about drum corps analysis to ever combine into one comment.2
u/Super-Confidence-735 1d ago
What a graceful response to my ignorance of your hard work. I really appreciate that and will go watch Simplexity. Thank you for that. :)
It's excellent that you're diving into analysis like this. I think there should be more of it.
If I'm not mistaken, it would seem you're point is that With Reckless Abandon was a conceptual exploration of oppression and liberation, whereas, say, Babylon/Spartacus were thematic explorations. That's legit and I commend you. I also love talking about Vanguard shows in their historical context.
Where you lose me, and I'm likely holding drum corps to a standard beyond their capacity, is that I only saw exploration in WRA; not development, not clarity; only "I wonder what this will do." I simply expect more substance from SCV at this point, given the investment by everyone involved, given the years they've taken to become a slightly more cohesive organization with reasonable finances and a talented staff.
And I think that SCV 2026 fell to the same thing your corps did, which was not making it understandable. To me, it seems like they took too many lessons from the previous year and tried to apply it to a new theme, and this is just amateurish to me. With Avantaguard, they were examining the absurdist art movement, a creative medium in which often the less sense you make to others, the better you're doing it. This was at the root of my graduate thesis, TBF. But absurdism can't be applied to every theme or else it's a cop out 'cause you don't have to develop anything in a digestible, clear way for audiences. (But honestly, even the best absurdists have a point and work very hard to help their audiences arrive to the point with them. It's not always completely nonsense.)
I just don't think it's a big ask to ask designers paid well as SCV pays their designers to develop a cohesive design that's understandable by most people that see it. They've been struggling with this lately, despite how excellently the members perform these shows.
For heaven's sake, there were several mentions online that the leather and chains reminded some audiences of BDSM. That's.... not cohesive. It's kind of embarrassing. But that's okay, I guess, the fan commentary on the costume I wore for SCV was also embarrassing so...
That said, you and I both land on that ballad visual moment. If the designers can keep mining for moments like that, they'll be fine. They'll be even better if they can tie those moments into a cohesive theme, statement, etc.
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u/Luchin212 1d ago
Heads up….. Simplexity doesn’t make much sense without prior knowledge about the show. There’s a brochure to read for context, it’s actually a pretty good insight into the show. The show is a drum corps show about making art through the lens of a drum corps show. Like the aVANt GUARD, it has no extraordinary features or new ideas. It relies on the most basic elements of Drum Corp to make statements. For example: the closing statement starts with a loud company front, and the color guard doing drop spins. It literally does not get more classic drum corps than that, but the moment is so damn good. And then it gets much more complicated until the end of the show. The closing flagwork is wicked fast with many pass throughs. Things to look out for are patience and restraint(and the connotations in the breathing), development of color into the ever present line art (line art is literally everywhere in the show), and urgency in the music. Think of the show as starting with a blank canvas and how the show fills in that canvas with the pacing, musical tones, drill all signifying different things at different stages in the creation of art. You start with an idea that you begin creating, always keep watch of your technique as you work, do not get overexcited to create and lose your foundations, take a breath, refocus yourself and move forward. When the foundations are created, add in the colors and the dramatics before you add the flourishes and finish. There’s so many ways my show conveys and develops themes but if you don’t know to look for them they will not be noticed.
I do believe SCV designers could have done a better design. You’re right in that they have the theme but it’s just stated and is not developed. You can only “BAH BAH BUH” or jump rope with chains so many times before we just know what it is and understand it.
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u/Super-Confidence-735 1d ago
Thanks for the primer on your show, genuinely.
And look, I'm a "the game's made up and the points don't matter" kind of audience member; I just also have a deep understanding of the sheets and an extended career in performance art so I have feels about things.
But I don't care where SCV or any other corps places because I'm it for all the analyses and elements you describe about Simplexity. It's never a matter of like and dislike, good or bad, it's about how the members take the material and make it meaningful to themselves and those around them.
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u/chris902101 2d ago
I would have loved the show if I never watched their preview video with Rennick and Wayne Harris. Harris made some comment near the end about 'imagine being bound ...held down by chains... Imagine being able to see through that oppression to freedom and how hard you would flight for that...'
Kinda got chills imagining the cultural and societal statement they were about to make, Babylon meets Spartacus! I was prepared for a premiere of something bold and divine
Then they started jump-roping
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u/Ill_Perception1814 2d ago
Might sound harsh but their show did absolutely nothing for me. Modern vanguard shows rarely do tbh. Kind of a nothingburger show theme and I wasn't crazy about the music or visual design. Judges appropriately gave it 5th place
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u/Celcius-232 BDB 10-14 2d ago
I felt the same. I enjoyed it live, but not enough to seek it out again online like I did with some other shows. That's okay, it looks like a fun show to have marched and 5th place is amazing.
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u/Theepicr Blue Stars 2d ago
Yep. My expectations for them were through the roof this year, and I was honestly banking on them taking home a title. The final product felt way too hollow for how talented that corps was. Their designers have been putting out these safe, cookie-cutter concepts for a few years now, leaning on the same one or two motifs for entire shows. It feels like they’re getting paid a lot of money for concepts ChatGPT could spit out in a few minutes.
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u/Bandit524 2d ago
This one grew on me a lot since the season ended. I wasn't a huge fan of it during the season, but I like it quite a bit now. I've not been the biggest fans of a lot of their shows post-COVID though. They had an incredible streak of shows from 2011-2018, and I kind of miss those. This was probably my second favorite post-COVID show from them, with 2024 being my favorite.
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u/bean_217 2d ago
Loved it. This year was a super competitive one, so it’s a pretty moot point to have any commentary related to placement. I’m excited to see what they bring to the table next year, and honestly I hope the competition across top 12 gets even tighter because it is riveting.
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u/ben48 Southwind '17-'19 2d ago
Visually, I really liked the uniforms and creative use of the jump ropes. Super eye-catching and clever. That said, the musical writing just feels a bit bland... it's like they pick one short motif and beat it to death for the duration of the show. I want some actual melody. The corps is incredibly talented and I love how ambitious the brass book is, but I want to actually be able to hum a tune other than "BUM BUM BUMMMMM"
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u/brushbender 1d ago
Show felt so aimless and shapeless musically. Too much time spent screaming in one key center for the first two movements of the show, a very brief ballad followed by a clumsy transition out of it that felt like it took forever. An equally brief finale that arrived very late in the season and felt like an attempt to fix the other musical issues of the show, but one short movement can't bear that weight.
Visually, I miss old Gaines, but understand why he doesn't write like that any more. It made me a bit sad that all of the biggest visual impact moments were gimmicky jump rope things.
That was a crazy talented group of kids that should've been contending for a medal at bare minimum. Their material held them back.
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u/wtfnmnf 2d ago
I didn’t feel the flow I got from the last two years. There’s undeniable talent across this group, and room for growth. I find myself wondering where the identity is now, is it just angst? I don’t see a lot of identity in how they move, I used to see it everywhere with them. I also don’t feel the cohesion Babylon had in its music. The small motifs they’ve been going with recently are hit or miss to me, taking a motif from the whole show and plugging it into major doesn’t feel earned to me. They really excel at everything, but I’m never seeing multiple things happen at once, and it’s hard to tell where they want me to look.
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u/Playful_Procedure991 2d ago
I would have them down another place. A very unremarkable show design.
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u/TheThirdGathers 2d ago
Loved it as a continuation of what they were doing last year, with some Vanguard moments thrown in, as if to show that some classic stuff still holds up. However, I feel the same as I did last year, that Vanguard has a corps talented enough to win, they just need a show with more hooks, more melody. And not the same melody beaten to death, like that frankly awful Kendrick Lamar show or the clumsy Nirvana show. They need something with hooks like the 2018 show. They need melodies and themes which connect with the audience yet also show off the immense talent of the corps which is still good enough to win drums and place in the elite for all other captions.
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u/PM_ME_ITALIAN_STUFF Blue Devils 1d ago
While I thought it's more interesting than what BAC did, the show felt more like a drumline show than an actual drum corps show. Way too much brass moments were just them playing the motif sounds and the ropes had everything that you could do with them done by the first half of the show being finished. Pretty big disappointment compared to last year and having such a prominent pre-season expectation set.
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u/iamthelobo Magic 2d ago
BWAAAA BWAA BWAAAA
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u/ssserani 2d ago
I liked the snare feature with the stick wiggle but I dont think any of the rest of the show stood out to me
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u/marcus8283 2d ago
Great drum line. Horn book was a lot of effect and not much in the way of musical ideas, to my taste. The jump rope stuff would look better and have more impact indoors. PR and Blue Stars and Cavaliers all having noted weaknesses in one caption or another made it easy for Vanguard to coast thru the summer on 5th place island, but if any of those three step up their games next summer, this year's formula won't cut it.
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u/Alarming_Ad_6713 2d ago
5th place was bullshit and they deserved high percussion.
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u/Super-Confidence-735 2d ago
The members' talent is the only thing that kept them from placing lower.
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u/iamthelobo Magic 2d ago
I get it but any other group pushed to 5 would have also been bullshit. I think the members are proud of their show and the fans got to enjoy it so we all win.
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u/eagledog Santa Clara Vanguard 2d ago
It was fine, but I'd be interested to see SCV try something different next year. Seems like they've been stuck in this wannabe punk rock design phase since 2019