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2015 UIL 5A State Marching Band Contest


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After last season, it will be real interesting to see what kind of show Leander can produce for state. If they keep up the proficiency of their music they'll definitely be a contender for champion. Of course Cedar Park and Vandergrift will also most likely be contenders for that spot as well. Vista Ridge also has some strong pontential, and I really enjoyed their music selection this past season.

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The quality of this contest in recent years has shot up pretty dramatically.  Some of these could make 6A Finals, in my opinion.  

 

Area D is just ridiculous of course, even bands that don't advance could make finals, easily.  

 

Cedar Park

Connally

Dripping Springs

Leander

Vandegrift

Vista Ridge

 

All those are state finalist level programs.  I'd bet whatever bands advance to state also advance to finals.  

 

Looking at 2013's other finalists.  Dawson and Friendswood bumped up to 6A, so that opens up two spots.  Wakeland's improvement in the past few years has been pretty staggering, they'll be up there.  Same with Waxahachie.  Lake Ridge is on the rise, for sure.  Wylie's a solid program.  Boswell and Azle have been right on the doorstep for awhile, maybe it's time one of them slips in.  Newman Smith and Sherman are always solid.  Poteet as well.  El Paso Hanks has a very solid program.  Gonna be a fun SMC to watch unfold.  

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Newman Smith, Sherman, Azle, Boswell and Poteet are gonna be fighting for those 2 spots and IMO all have an almost equal shot of taking one.

Azle's been doing pretty good lately and they and Boswell have great percussion sections, not TOO familiar with Newman Smith but solid in every aspect, Poteet has the size factor but need to clean up their drill+music, and Sherman, although didn't have the best season this year, is still capable of doing damage. I'm also predicting that two of the 2013 Finalists don't make it this year, not sure who but just a prediction.

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  • 5 months later...

Is it just me or does the UIL grading system seem inconsistent (or even outdated)? I know that marching band is subjective and every judge may just have a different opinion, but the BOA results never make me wonder what their system is like the UIL results do. Isn't there like a new rule for how many bands go to state? I could be totally wrong.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Is it just me or does the UIL grading system seem inconsistent (or even outdated)? I know that marching band is subjective and every judge may just have a different opinion, but the BOA results never make me wonder what their system is like the UIL results do. Isn't there like a new rule for how many bands go to state? I could be totally wrong.

There aren't many "new" ways to decide who gets to go to state besides redrawing areas (which is already in progress). It has and always has been the top from Area. BOA contests don't suffer from this issue because there aren't qualifiers for any contests, just a prelim-(semi)finals singular contest.

 

I personally don't see anything wrong with the UIL system, I like it much more than the BOA one. Or rather, I like highly excelling UIL Bands (Cedar Park et. al.) more than highly excelling BOA bands (CTJ et. al.). It's just a personal opinion :)

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Offering up my $.02...  This is only my third year to be involved as a marching band contest fan.  Two years ago I attended the 4A Area D contest and it was only my 3rd contest ever to attend.  I was there all day and watched the Preliminaries and when they were over I went through the list of bands in the program and checked off ten bands that I thought would make Finals.  Those ten bands finished 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11.  I then sat through Finals and then checked the four bands I thought would advance to State.  Those bands finished 1, 2, 3 and 5. (Yes, I went LISD full homer in my predictions, but was not at all surprised or disappointed that Connally advanced.  They were terrific.)

 

I am not trying to sound prescient.  I have had no such success trying to predict any BOA contest I have attended.  My point is that I believe there is something very intuitive about the UIL system for scoring.  And I say that knowing very little about the details of the scoring system.  Whatever it is, I think it tends to reward quality and challenging programs, without getting distracted - one way or the other - by spectacle. (Yes, that is a reference to GE)

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Here's how I've always kind of liked to think of it, and I think this is what kind of addresses that GE issue. I'm not saying it's inherently scored this way, or that that's what adjudicators are thinking, but I like to think that UIL finds the best band, and BOA finds the best show... Now, before I finish, I realize a lot of time this could be the same group... I just feel like the quality of the performance and not just elements of the performance itself is what makes UIL different, you're getting credit for nothing unless it's done well. Another way to think of it is if every band marched the same show I feel like the best band to match the same show would be the UIL champ, whereas the BOA champ ( and by no means am I saying it isn't deserved ) may be the best overall performance. I hope that makes as much sense to others as it does to me. It also doesn't mean having a more difficult show can't help, as I feel if you nail the music and visual you will be rewarded for it. I don't even necessarily have a preference and I see the merits of both and respect both scoring systems. You must be clean to win a state title though. If your GE is off the charts you don't have to be absolutely pristine to take down a regional. To serve as an example Marcus just doesn't give me that total wow factor where I just want to get to my feet at the end but I have no doubt that if they wanted to they could, case in point all there state championships. CTJ did have the best GE presentation last year I feel, Leander right there though (Leander homer here), but I didn't think they were particularly clean, but it was also a very demanding show. BOA is more forgiving whereas UIL is like play well, March well but your show in of itself I don't feel is overly important. A BOA winning show is never boring, a UIL can be. Both deserved though in their own right.

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So outside the LISD/Area D schools, I'm finding Wakeland extremely impressive early on.  Has been fun watching them progress in recent years.  I think they'll be up there as a contender as of now.  Fantastic ensemble moments musically, and visually they have a fantastic package that looks relatively polished.  Should compete really well.  

 

So we had Friendswood and Dawson bump up to 6A, opens up two spots from last go arounds finalists.  Interested to see who might snag those.  Lots of Area A/B/C schools like Azle, Boswell, Aledo, Forney, Poteet, Newmann Smith, Aledo, ect. that I could see competing for those.  

 

Anyone have any idea how many Area D schools will advance?  Regardless, there's going to be a really good school left off that list.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm admittedly both a  band and data geek... so I just did an analysis of the BOA Austin final results to see what it would look like if they used the state judging format against the Austin BOA results just to see what it looks like and for something fun to do...

 

For those not familiar, state does a relative scoring for their ranking - the judges score against their rubric, the band with the best score gets a 1, second gets 2, etc.. Winner is the band with the lowest total points.

 

If you look at final results from BOA Austin and focus only on the bands in 5A, you can compare the relative score and apply the state scoring model. Once again, it's tight.. and very admittedly this is a limited data set (missing many great bands outside of the Austin area... and every run/contest is different...  but this was a fun thing to do until the next contest!

 

So here's the relative scoring:

 

5A Bands with State Scoring "Relative Model" based on  BOA Austin Judges Scores  

Music Ind | Music Ens | Visual Ind | Visual Ens | GE Music 1 | GE Music 2 | GE Vis | Total   

Vandegrift 3 3 2 3 1 3 3 18  

Cedar Park 1 1 3 1 2 1 2 11

Leander 2 2 1 2 3 2 1 13

Vista Ridge 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 30    

Dripping Springs 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 33  


 

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Sorry - the table looked great in Edit mode - but is awful in actual display..

 

OK- this may be easier to read..here's the relative order by judge

 

Music 1 - Individual

- Cedar Park (CP)

- Leander (L)

- Vandegrift (V)

- Vista Ridge (VR)

- Dripping Springs (DS)

 

Music 2 - Ensemble

- CP

- L

- V

- VR

- DS

 

Visual - Individual

- L

- V

- CP

- VR

- DC

 

Visual - Endemble

- CP

- L

- V

- VR

- DS

 

GE Music 1

- V

- CP

- L

- VR

- DS

 

GE Music 2

- CP

- L

- V

- DS

- VR

 

GE Visual

- L

- CP

- V

- DS

- VR

 

Totals

CP - 11

Leander -13

Vandegrift - 18

Vista Ridge - 30

Dripping Springs - 33

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Just another example of why I believe the UIL judging system to be out dated and not nearly as comprehensive as the BOA scoring process. There are so many problems with it, chiefly in this example that UIL can't show just how much a band beat another band in a caption. Cedar Park won music by .2 and Leander won visual by .25 and with a tie in GE that equals a Leander win, even if only slightly. However as shown UIL can't be that comprehensive in over all scoring and the fact that UIL sticks to this judging system is confusing to me, but that's just my two cents.

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One thing that's really interesting is the impact of a single judge in the UIL vrs BOA scoring.

 

In this contest, direct comparison of Leander, CP and Vandy scoring by judge had 5 judges place CP 1 in their category - 2 placed Leander 1st and 1 had Vandegrift 1st...

 

The total of the scores netted a .05 gap between Leander and CP - the biggest spread was a ,8 gap on Visual Performance Individual...  so that judge's gap mitigated the 5 to 2 judge preference to CP..

 

Very interesting... and State will definitely be a great contest!

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I'll guess Leander/CP/Vandy in top 3, but order could go any way... 4th rep from Area D (Dripping Springs or Vista Ridge) and Wakeland as probably 4th in 5th in some order. 6-10 I'd have to do more researching and video watching. Lots of improvement there but not sure it's medal worthy just yet. Aledo maybe in that 6-10 range.

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