0389: "Keeping Time"

[Belial]

Ahem.

As per the shiny happy global announcements at the top of the page (that you have all read because you're all decent, rule-abiding people who *don't* exist solely to give me a migraine) posting links to things specifically designed to fuck with your computer will get you banned. No warning. No appeal. Don't do it. It's not funny.

The offending posts have been deleted, the offending user(s) have been devoured by ravenous lizards. That is all.

[suzi]

I might've missed the odd entry in my readings of the last four pages of discussion, but...

Does anyone else actively try not to walk in step or music or with other people? It drives me crazy -- I MUST be following my own rhythms. I've been like this at least since I was eight years old, when I would walk back and forth in the bowling alley from the lanes to the arcade machines, trying as hard as possible not to be on beat.

Well, not on the downbeat, at least. Sometimes I do funky offbeats. Sometimes.

[ModerateClasshole]

Registered just because of this comic, as Randall now owes me a new keyboard.
Never thought I'd see anyone point out my bad marching band habits.
This comic, and the rick roll, was quite possibly the biggest nerdgasm I've had since I saw the Cal State 8-bit halftime show.

(Edit: Someone will probably make some sort of comment about "collision", and I'm about to go to bed local time, so: My personal best is trombone-on-trombone, full-on bell contact with a full-speed 180 contact... while wearing braces. I'm not sure how you can beat that, for sheer concentrated impact with a band instrument. I was out of commission for two days, which, all things considered, probably wasn't that bad. Braces + trombone was already a bit masochistic...)

I hear you, Jerf. Always kept a roll of that silicone wax stuff in my case along with the mouthpiece. Though my best collusion, however, was during a practice when the trombone section was idle while they worked some kinks out with the flag corps next to us. (In 100 degree temps, any rest break is cherished.) Someone goosed me from behind with a slide. I jumped so hard, that I hopped directly into the path of one of the flag girls doing a full 360 spin. Caught me in the side of the head, and placed a nice large dent in my bell.

[jacjac10]

Just as an aside for the drum corps folks: Where do you get your quality recordings of DCI music? I've found some of it on iTunes, oddly enough, but other than that, you kinda have to scrounge it.

DCI.org has copies of every VHS/DVD for every single year. I'm going to get dad a copy of his years next gift-giving holiday, as our copies are tapes of tapes of tapes... They used to have a cool mix-and-match sort of thing where you could pick whatever corp from whatever year and put it on a mixed DVD, but I don't know if that's still going on.

[MrSomeone]

Epic Rickroll.

[brbeaird]

I don't think I'll ever lose the in-step habit along with the random drumming of my hands.

I played snare/tenors in high school and then marched cymbals in a winter drumline (Music City Mystique) in college a few years ago. Have several friends who marched corps like Southwind and Bluecoats.

Also -- epic rickroll.

[khmer]

I'm appalled that no one has pointed this out: The flags on the downward-facing 1/8 notes are pointed the wrong direction.

This is not the first time this has happened: http://www.xkcd.com/359/

Whoops! I think that's a bug in the notation software I used, the output from which xkcd transcribed for the comic.

Out of curiosity, what notation software? I want to avoid it (or at least bug the developers about it).

It's called Señor Staff. Look at that little sombrero on the downstem eighth note! Look at that adorable GPLv2 / Artistic License!

I would have used Finale, but stealing software is wrong.

[LauraSakura]

To the people wondering "Hey, how do marching bands handle non-even time signitures?", the answer is, mostly they don't. Most stuff I've ever played, or heard played, is generally metrically simple.

My highschool did money by Pink Floyd... 7/8 ^_^ As long as there are the right number of measures it ends up working out.

[AvalonXQ]

My two front teeth were shattered by a collision between my marching baritone in "horns up" position and the back of a mellophone player's head.
That was 10 years ago. I went to the dentist yesterday; we're trying to find some more permanent way to replace them. The "bonding" they used keeps chipping.

[lowbart]

Wait, so the song in the comic is actually Never Gonna Give You Up? I thought that was just a standard rickroll.

</stupid question>

[aaron]

Wait, so the song in the comic is actually Never Gonna Give You Up? I thought that was just a standard rickroll.

</stupid question>

the notation dictates a few of the opening measures of never gonna give you up, in turn rickrolling everyone who thought it was going to be something else.

[eolanys]

Post deleted.

[ironiridis]

Did anybody notice that he has a balcony with the sole purpose of allowing him to pause music and trip people? That is the best balcony ever!

I like how this comic makes it appear like every department/grocery store has a godlike alter(...)

While by no means universal, this is not an uncommon arrangement in larger grocery and variety stores.

My immediate reaction was how he must have used a portal to get up there, and the vertical thing in front of him is a little button.

[lihan161051]

What do band kids do to stuff that is in 5/4?

That should be enough to break their hearts if not their legs.

Why stop there? Break out the math rock.

Always been a fan of 7/8 (3-2-2 or 2-2-3, either one) myself. Anyone who can mark time to that, much less march, earns my respect.

(Sadly, the marching band I was in in high school has slid pretty far from its standard of performance when I was in it. When I pass the practice field now, I have to restrain myself from stopping and shouting at them to straighten up their alignment and spacing .. geez ..)

[lihan161051]

Did anybody notice that he has a balcony with the sole purpose of allowing him to pause music and trip people? That is the best balcony ever!

Also provides a handy target for the middle finger when one is tripped. Sort of a win-win ..

[J Spade]

That's me, alright.

I have no unique footstep unless I'm alone, anymore. And I go slightly insane if the music is in 3.

[Kudos]

I'm sorry to say but the first thing I though of was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRfQwTQK-0M

[Plague]

Wait, so the song in the comic is actually Never Gonna Give You Up? I thought that was just a standard rickroll.

</stupid question>

the notation dictates a few of the opening measures of never gonna give you up, in turn rickrolling everyone who thought it was going to be something else.

I'm so glad I didn't go and check for it myself.

That is possibly the most awesome thing Randall's ever done... besides xkcd, of course.

[Aperfectring]

I quite often walk in step in any of the many methods:
1. With people.
2. With music I am listening to.
3. With whatever song is stuck in my head.

With #1, I don't always end up on the same foot, but I cannot, no matter how hard I try, get out of step with them once I notice.

With #2 or #3, If the song is just the wrong speed to walk normal, double, or half time to, I tend to start walking in triplets to it...

The most difficult thing that I ever had to march was half-note triplets in Bluecoats '99. We eventually changed it to very legato quarter note triplets because people kept getting confused.

5 years HS marching band (grades 8-12).
2 years drum corps: 1 in a div. III, and one in Bluecoats.
5 years Big Ten marching band (Purdue). This is the only thing which prevents me from walking roll-step everywhere.

[faunablues]

I was in marching band, and gladly lost the left-foot-first tendency, but I still tend to walk in time to whomever I'm with. It kind of annoys me actually, and I try to get "off beat," but it never works for more than a few seconds.

One of the songs we did in our band was "America" from West Side Story. It's in 6/8, and for some parts of the song we stepped: left (1,2,3) and right (4,5,6). But the conductor (crazy, like most of them), had us step for every beat in parts (and that's a fast song). It was actually hard not to step to the rhythm (syncopated) rather than the downbeat.

I'm avoiding finding out if I still walk in time; I don't have an iPod.

[BrianZ]

Speaking of epic collisions, I fortunately don't have any permanent injuries from mine, but here goes...

My freshman year of high school, we did a "Wizard of Oz" themed show in marching band. That's been 8 or 9 years now, so I don't remember a lot of it, but I was marching alto sax, and in the part of the show when the tornado hits, everyone broke from their set and had some certain number of beats to run around willy-nilly, waving their hands in the air and yelling about a twister (this was during a pit/drumline solo if I recall correctly). For most sections the most difficult part about this was getting to the next set exactly on time, so that the first set dissolved into chaos, and then the next set appeared to just "snap" out of a crowd of people. For the saxophones, however, the difficult part was that the set we "dissolved" from had us on the left 15 yard-line, and the set we were supposed to "snap" into had us on the right 15 yard-line. The end result was that we had to break into a dead run straight through the middle of this randomly milling crowd to get to our next set. Obviously, we racked up a number of minor collisions throughout the season, but the best was some sax-on-sax action as follows:

I was the tallest guy in the band, at 6'8", and it so happened that the shortest guy in the band, at about 4'11", also played alto sax. So, one day in full band practice, as we're sprinting to our set, and short dude is about 2 strides ahead of me, and I'm quickly gaining, he realizes that he's run past his set. Naturally, he slams on the brakes, does a 180, and leans to start running back the opposite direction. Of course, this maneuver took about the same time it took me to make those 2 strides, and resulted in this guy making a perfect up-ending leg tackle, clipping my legs right out from under me. I went up, and landed on my face/horn a couple yards downfield, digging up a pretty nice divot with my sax in the process. To this day, I find bits of dead grass in my case. I don't think I'll ever get rid of all of it.

[LauraSakura]

collisions? Well... this is kind of a collision... My high school, the drum majors twirled big heavy maces. Well... one game it was quite windy and one of the drum majors threw up his mace in a high spin like always, but the wind was blowing it right toward the girl who was one of the field conductors. He dove at her to push her out of the way, so that it hit her in the shoulder and not the head. It was pretty epic.. she didn't really get hurt but it could have been a lot worse. Everyone in the stands gasped at the same time. At the time, I didn't even know what had happened, since I stood in front of them, facing the audience (For my junior and senior years, I did not actually march, I stood in front and played bass guitar. We were a show band, and for a lot of our music, the bass really added a lot). So I didn't know what happened until i saw the video later... i spent the entire show wondering why everyone had gasped, but I somehow resisted the urge to look behind me. ) Ah, I rambled a lot... but I tend to do that when talking about high school band lol. I'm currently on drum line at my college's band... but it's a small college and the band is definitely much less superior than my high school band... kinda disheartening.

[Vaelin]

What do band kids do to stuff that is in 5/4?

That should be enough to break their hearts if not their legs.

Why stop there? Break out the math rock.

Always been a fan of 7/8 (3-2-2 or 2-2-3, either one) myself. Anyone who can mark time to that, much less march, earns my respect.

(Sadly, the marching band I was in in high school has slid pretty far from its standard of performance when I was in it. When I pass the practice field now, I have to restrain myself from stopping and shouting at them to straighten up their alignment and spacing .. geez ..)

I don't understand why everyone thinks that it's difficult to dance anything but a waltz...

Back when I was in high school, we marched to and performed pieces in 7/8, 5/8, 5/4... etc... then again, I never had trouble dancing swing or tango either...

It's all about the phrasing of the music. If you know the music, then you can step to it without much trouble. I'll agree, if someone turns on the metronome and says "march 7/8" it takes a little bit of concentration the first time, (2-2-3 is my default as most of the 7/8 pieces I played had that beat, just take a slower step on the 'pick-up' beat at the end of the measure...) but it's not too tough.

Now, add a piece of music you've been playing in 7/8 and it's cake because you've already been tapping your foot to whatever the beat of the music is.

I still think 5/8 looks funny... it's like the entire band has a limp. 7/8 is off enough that you don't really notice.

[suena]

I'm actually in an indoor guard and we're marching a song that's in 7/4 (To Victory from 300). it's not too difficult, we just stutter step (on 3-4), though we made a few drummers spend a day teaching us how to do so without looking like epileptics.

as for stepping in time. we'd get lines of bandos in the hallways (we could squeeze 6 people across in a pinch) walking in step and chitchatting. most of the time you didn't even notice it and when you did you laughed and kept going. the worst kids were the ones who had friends in marching band but weren't in marching band and they would do all sorts of hops, skips and jumps to try to get out of step with you. 'Course that never lasted longer than a few seconds.

[rrwoods]

Just thought I'd toss in that runners do the same thing. Put three or four runners together in a group and you'll find that their feet often come down at the same time.

[Mercat]

If they were in a marching band and haven't learnt how to correct falling out of sync, they deserve it.

Haha, I tend to agree.

SW: Completely understandable. I'm only obsessive over Cadets because my first show ever was the 05 finals (they were near where I live), and Cadets happened to win (and I really liked their show). Also, since Cadets is kind of the only World Class corps in the Northeast now (except Crusaders, but they practice mainly in Florida, wtf?!), I kind of have to like them, as they're the only World Class corps I'll probably end up being able to march (hopefully?).

You know, there's a lot of bad blood between the Cadets and many corps, at least in my experiences (Bluecoats 2003).

Actually, it seemed like most corps had alliances/disagreements with various other corps. I know we had a strong dislike for the Cadets (mainly just YEA), the Cavaliers, SCV and BAC.

Oh, and Magic of Orlando when they were still around...but no one gave them much credit that year.


And then we had corps we liked...Madison Scouts, BD (got a chance to hang out with their contra line after the San Antonio show, they got down on their knees and sang to our guard after retreat), etc., etc.

There was never a hatred (except in the case of BAC), and it seemed to be part of the territory.

Anyway, go! Try out for Cadets and enjoy the hell out of it! How many years you have left?

It's interesting because I think corps kids tend to stick together, but at the same time each person has their own tastes and I think that develops into the sort-of rivalries. I guess we (SW) didn't really get along with Cap Reg, but obviously that sentiment wasn't really possible last summer, especially after they let us use their food truck because ours broke at San Antonio.

Personally, I was raised as a Madison kid (dad, uncle, good family friends all marched there), so it was really funny to see the little rivalry going on last summer. For SW/Scouts it's sort of a "family joke" kind of rivalry... hard to explain. But it's fun. =)

I think the fact that I've been raised on drum corps my whole life is the reason I'm not a big fan of Cadets and stuff. I mean, I totally respect them for all the stuff they do, it's pretty BA. But at the same time, a lot of it seems too showy and competitive for my tastes, and not really entertaining. =/ But, um, just my opinion/tastes, I'm not looking to cause trouble or anything. Finding people who even have heard of drum corps is tough enough! =D



Mm, remembered another good collision: My senior year of high school we had a pretty cool drill where the brass folded into the drumline and then they both fanned back out. On the first run I ran into all four bass drums and it took about a dozen runs to figure out how it would work. My instructor sent me the java file to see how our drill writer had accounted for the problem... but he hadn't. In the drill, I just magically passed through all four bass drums! It was kind of crazy.

[zahlman]

One of the songs we did in our band was "America" from West Side Story. It's in 6/8, and for some parts of the song we stepped: left (1,2,3) and right (4,5,6). But the conductor (crazy, like most of them), had us step for every beat in parts (and that's a fast song). It was actually hard not to step to the rhythm (syncopated) rather than the downbeat.

Er, that isn't syncopation, it's hemiola; and I would have expected it to be notated in 12/8 because of the repeated pattern of it... :/ But yes, stepping for every beat on that would be an incredibly fast "march".

[ejg930]

(Edit: Someone will probably make some sort of comment about "collision", and I'm about to go to bed local time, so: My personal best is trombone-on-trombone, full-on bell contact with a full-speed 180 contact... while wearing braces. I'm not sure how you can beat that, for sheer concentrated impact with a band instrument. I was out of commission for two days, which, all things considered, probably wasn't that bad. Braces + trombone was already a bit masochistic...)

Best collision: seven trombone pileup. hell yeah. It was RIDICULOUS. (And also the reason, I'm guessing, that my high school stopped marching trombones, even though it wasn't us.)

During one of our shows, our drum section leader's hat fell over her face... she tripped and fell, and the drumline kept coming... they ALL FELL on top of her, drums and all - it was HILARIOUS

[a386]

This hobby is related to another fun one. Going to a Music Major hang out and playing just "shave and a hair cut" on the piano, leaving off the "two bits" part. Inevitably this will drive one of them crazy enough that they will come to the piano and finish it off.

i know this is a quote from way long ago, i know. but my friend has a clock, this happened to me just last night. the clock plays westminster chimes on the hour, like many clocks, but you know how that song is divided into four bits? it starts, on the quarter hour, playing one of those bits. (eg: E C D G). Then it'll add a bit on the half hour, another bit at 45, and finally play the whole tune on the hour. so we're sitting there and im unaware the clock does this, and it strikes i think 8:45. I'm treated to "E C D G ... G D E C. E D C G ..." that's all. no .. it stops and then it doesn't resolve. i was so uncomfortable. you can't go play a clock, i shouted "BAAH BAAH BAAH BAAAAH" but it didn't help. it helped a little. i hate that clock.

[rrwoods]

This hobby is related to another fun one. Going to a Music Major hang out and playing just "shave and a hair cut" on the piano, leaving off the "two bits" part. Inevitably this will drive one of them crazy enough that they will come to the piano and finish it off.

i know this is a quote from way long ago, i know. but my friend has a clock, this happened to me just last night. the clock plays westminster chimes on the hour, like many clocks, but you know how that song is divided into four bits? it starts, on the quarter hour, playing one of those bits. (eg: E C D G). Then it'll add a bit on the half hour, another bit at 45, and finally play the whole tune on the hour. so we're sitting there and im unaware the clock does this, and it strikes i think 8:45. I'm treated to "E C D G ... G D E C. E D C G ..." that's all. no .. it stops and then it doesn't resolve. i was so uncomfortable. you can't go play a clock, i shouted "BAAH BAAH BAAH BAAAAH" but it didn't help. it helped a little. i hate that clock.

How funny is it that it's impossible to think of that tune as being in G? Then it would resolve just fine. But I know what you mean; my parents had one of those clocks for a long time too. Bothered the crap out of me.

[thebandit]

This hobby is related to another fun one. Going to a Music Major hang out and playing just "shave and a hair cut" on the piano, leaving off the "two bits" part. Inevitably this will drive one of them crazy enough that they will come to the piano and finish it off.

i know this is a quote from way long ago, i know. but my friend has a clock, this happened to me just last night. the clock plays westminster chimes on the hour, like many clocks, but you know how that song is divided into four bits? it starts, on the quarter hour, playing one of those bits. (eg: E C D G). Then it'll add a bit on the half hour, another bit at 45, and finally play the whole tune on the hour. so we're sitting there and im unaware the clock does this, and it strikes i think 8:45. I'm treated to "E C D G ... G D E C. E D C G ..." that's all. no .. it stops and then it doesn't resolve. i was so uncomfortable. you can't go play a clock, i shouted "BAAH BAAH BAAH BAAAAH" but it didn't help. it helped a little. i hate that clock.

The bell tower here does the same thing, only it goes E C D G, G D E (weird fucking chord with a B flat) and every time I hear that I want to cringe or scream. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE IT OMINOUS!

[Mercat]

During one of our shows, our drum section leader's hat fell over her face... she tripped and fell, and the drumline kept coming... they ALL FELL on top of her, drums and all - it was HILARIOUS

Ooh, that sounds expensive. There are some good drumline clashes in winter, too. My freshman year we went to a big regional in Nashville, and though the day started out hot and sunny, we also got rain and snow. Everyone had to fold their tarps outside on the tennis courts, and it had just started to rain/snow when we were folding ours. When we came back on for finals, there were definitely several instances where people fell or almost fell. I was in the pit up front so I didn't see any, but apparently one of the cymbal players fell and bounced on his cymbals and got back up right in time.

[Hulyen]

So this is the comic that got me to register for the foums. (Yes, I introduced myself in the appropriate thread first!) Even after being out of band for years, I STILL always find myself walking in tempo to whatever I'm listening to. Which can get awkward with some of the music I tend to listen to....there are a few minidiscs that I have to leave off of my rotation when I'm walking anywhere, because either it's too slow to walk/too fast to doubletime or just has an odd enough tempo and time changes so that I look extremely odd in the process. I also tend to have a natural rollstep, but I had that even before marching band. It's handy when you're carrying something that needs to be kept level!

[The Hyphenator]

I might've missed the odd entry in my readings of the last four pages of discussion, but...

Does anyone else actively try not to walk in step or music or with other people? It drives me crazy -- I MUST be following my own rhythms. I've been like this at least since I was eight years old, when I would walk back and forth in the bowling alley from the lanes to the arcade machines, trying as hard as possible not to be on beat.

Well, not on the downbeat, at least. Sometimes I do funky offbeats. Sometimes.

HELL YES. I do this all the time. It's awesome to finally meet someone else who does this.

[SWGlassPit]

It's interesting because I think corps kids tend to stick together, but at the same time each person has their own tastes and I think that develops into the sort-of rivalries. I guess we (SW) didn't really get along with Cap Reg, but obviously that sentiment wasn't really possible last summer, especially after they let us use their food truck because ours broke at San Antonio.

I can tell you where the "bad blood" between CR and SW came from---I was there when it started. In 02, we were neck and neck all season, then one night, in our infinite wisdom, my bus (the drum bus) decided to moon one of their buses as it passed us on the highway. As it turns out, it was their staff bus. They beat us the next night and we never caught back up, missing semifinals by 0.05 that year. They tried to improve things the next year, arranging some post-show socials between us a couple times in 03, but we never got to be real buddy-buddy. After that, I don't really know how the relationship went, as I moved on to glassmen. But yeah, a little history lesson for you

[scarletmanuka]

The bell tower here does the same thing, only it goes E C D G, G D E (weird fucking chord with a B flat) and every time I hear that I want to cringe or scream. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE IT OMINOUS!

WANT.

[igorski]

argh, rickrolled by my local news team! Rick Astley was born up here in north west England and the news folks did 10 mins on the who rickrolling thing.. rickrolled by tv.. whats the world coming too

[Random832]

i know this is a quote from way long ago, i know. but my friend has a clock, this happened to me just last night. the clock plays westminster chimes on the hour, like many clocks, but you know how that song is divided into four bits? it starts, on the quarter hour, playing one of those bits. (eg: E C D G). Then it'll add a bit on the half hour, another bit at 45, and finally play the whole tune on the hour. so we're sitting there and im unaware the clock does this, and it strikes i think 8:45. I'm treated to "E C D G ... G D E C. E D C G ..." that's all. no .. it stops and then it doesn't resolve. i was so uncomfortable. you can't go play a clock, i shouted "BAAH BAAH BAAH BAAAAH" but it didn't help. it helped a little. i hate that clock.

Well, actually, it's divided into four parts of unequal size - one of two bars, one of four bars, one of six bars, and one of eight bars.

E D C G
C E D G, C D E C
E C D G, G D E C, E D C G
C E D G, C D E C, E C D G, G D E C

The "C D E C" - sometimes "C E D C" instead, is considered "malformed" because it lacks a G.

This post brought to you by Wikipedia.

[Tyris and Cortle]

[snip] Does anyone else actively try not to walk in step or music or with other people? It drives me crazy -- I MUST be following my own rhythms. [snip]

HELL YES. I do this all the time. [snip]

Likewise. Notice a pattern? PATTERN MUST CHANGE. Leaving it alone is unacceptable.

Although... that in itself is a pattern... uh-oh, paradox time.
*voop*

[podbaydoor]

This hobby is related to another fun one. Going to a Music Major hang out and playing just "shave and a hair cut" on the piano, leaving off the "two bits" part. Inevitably this will drive one of them crazy enough that they will come to the piano and finish it off.

i know this is a quote from way long ago, i know. but my friend has a clock, this happened to me just last night. the clock plays westminster chimes on the hour, like many clocks, but you know how that song is divided into four bits? it starts, on the quarter hour, playing one of those bits. (eg: E C D G). Then it'll add a bit on the half hour, another bit at 45, and finally play the whole tune on the hour. so we're sitting there and im unaware the clock does this, and it strikes i think 8:45. I'm treated to "E C D G ... G D E C. E D C G ..." that's all. no .. it stops and then it doesn't resolve. i was so uncomfortable. you can't go play a clock, i shouted "BAAH BAAH BAAH BAAAAH" but it didn't help. it helped a little. i hate that clock.

The bell tower here does the same thing, only it goes E C D G, G D E (weird fucking chord with a B flat) and every time I hear that I want to cringe or scream. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE IT OMINOUS!

The bell tower over here plays the same thing (plus the school fight song)...except EVERY SINGLE NOTE is off by a half step. It drove me insane freshman year.