Writing the Drill - 9

Throughout my experience of writing my drill, I had a number of revelations and many problems to overcome. Here are some reflections on writing the Opener to Le Petit Prince:

• ​I haven't been able to find a way to use Pyware or Envision to write the drill for this project as I do not have a license for either, so I will be using Micro Marching League (MML) as a placeholder
• I've decided to use props to help frame the band and create an overarching (literally) soft background gesture for the opener
• Looking at the audio file volume tracker, the peaks and valleys roughly outline the development, energy level, and activity of the arrangement
• The production sheet method is definitely the way to go: great for keeping me organized and for balancing several priorities
• As I learn more keyboard shortcuts for MML, the quicker and more natural the process becomes
  • This was also true when I was learning to work with Musescore, and I imagine a similar learning curve would apply to Pyware 
• Even though MML is designed to be more of an online game than a legitimate drill design tool, it has some useful features to make the process more authentic
  • The "L" key highlights the longest path for a particular set, and this is a useful check on feasibility of drill
  • The ability to change facing and instrument carriage are also useful and makes the drill match closer to what I'd like to see on the field
  • The "Yardline Snap" function cleans blocks and lines, and in a real application, would make the dot charts much easier to read and march
  • Having an animation of marchers instead of just dots helps keep me visually organized and mindful of spacing for larger instruments
  • Animated transitions also help keep my focus on motion more than sets at times
    • This is an area where I definitely still need more development as a drill writer
• The farther I get into the drill, the more I find myself departing from some ideas I listed in my production sheet
  • This isn't necessarily a bad thing, rather, it just acts as commentary on the effectiveness of my production sheet
• The actual drill writing process is very time consuming
• Since MML is not designed to function as a practical drill writing software, it has several limitations
  • Paths and direction of travel are not editable, so I have several instances where I would write a follow the leader, but the animation shows unrealistic cross throughs
  • Tempo is not editable in the traditional sense, rather, the length of each set is determined by the time it takes for the longest path to complete
    • This has made it extra difficult to match some smoother, shorter motions to music
  • MML lacks the capability to show half time strides, so I've had to visualize these on my own
  • There is no option to stagger entrances without making more sets, so in places where subsets or simply written instructions would have been effective, I cannot view the results here
  • All sets are created sequentially in MML, so I only had the option to start at the beginning with set 1 and work to the end
• Drill writing is an extremely time consuming endeavor
  • The editing process was cut short due to my time constraints, but this part is almost equally as detail oriented and time consuming
• Combining a video of the final production with an audio recording was quite tedious and had to be manually completed with each set
  • This process was further complicated by the multiple tempi and time signatures in my arrangement
  • If I were to use purpose-built drill writing software, this would have been something to set up beforehand that would have helped with the writing process itself
• Overall Strengths:
  • I did a decent job catering to the many demands, both practical and artistic, I outlined in my preparation process
  • My preparation before writing was thorough enough that I rarely had to go back and rethink things as I was actually charting dots
  • I picked up on the keyboard shortcuts, strengths, and limitations of the MML medium rather quickly and used them to my benefit
  • I was able to incorporate some picture-based and motif-based ideas into the drill
    • Ex. Prince in scarf from book cover at Set 9, 0:43; rose fading during transition from Set 10 to Set 11, 0:58-1:06
  • I incorporated some extended techniques like body visuals, instrument carriage, and half time marching
    • Some of these are visible in the animation, some aren't due to MML's limitations
• Overall Weaknesses:
  • Transitioning between different staging schema was quite a bit more involved than I expected
  • I need to develop more finesse in matching visual speed with energy level of the music
  • I can still transition more towards motion-based thinking and away from set-based thinking
  • The winds, percussion, and guard largely remained as separate captions; I would have liked to integrate them a bit more
  • I did not effectively estimate the time it would take to complete this portion of the project, so I did not have enough time left to edit the drill to the level I would have liked to