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Avon over Carmel by just over a point at their IHSCGA contest tonight. Avon with a 78. 😮 That's a massive score. I wonder if they'll go undefeated this season, although it's hard to tell with all the shows in various stages of completeness. I think Avon's show concept, Voila, has lots of potential for fun visual ideas, like big reveals and whatnot. Easy to digest thematically as well. Carmel also got a huge score. Their show is Memento Mori, which is probably the most intriguing theme in the class. For those who don't know, a memento mori is a reminder of death. Thematically, this seems in line with Carmel's prophetic marching show from the fall.

And here are some of today’s contest results from Morton HS: Scholastic A: Cypress Woods HS 70.570 (1) Seven Lakes HS - Varsity 66.330 (2) James E. Taylor HS 65.790 (3) George Ranch Varsity 65.660 (4) Barbers Hill HS 63.320 (5) Cypress Falls Varsity 62.350 (6) Klein Collins HS 60.990 (7) Terry HS 59.860 (8) Cypress Ranch HS 57.480 (9) Andy Dekaney HS 56.580 (10) Magnolia HS 53.490 (11) James Earl Rudder High School 53.360 (12) Scholastic National A: Grand Oaks HS Varsity 73.240 (1) Katy High School Varsity 69.580 (2) Oak Ridge HS 68.280 (3) Cypress Creek HS 55.590 (4) Scholastic Open: Jordan High School Varsity 67.800 (1) Bridgeland HS 67.000 (2) Clear Brook HS 66.300 (3) Cy-Fair HS 64.000 (4)

vids from Morton Ranch are currently uploading to drive. Cy Woods to the end. ur welcome!! standout was Grand Oaks. will be surprised if they don't win WGI Houston. general imp is that it could place near the top at Dayton also. extra points for exploring the Black Sheep idea. one of my ideas for a show actually, but their's is def cuter lol. seems like the kind of show wgi will fall hard for. amazing performance too. Katy wasn't too far off of them imo, very different energy tho, 90s punk grunge skater whatever show. performers killed it. got tanked in movement a little. lotsa fun. loved the barbarian style ground hammering LOL. THUD THUD! it's like, you WILL pay attention to us. Cy woods still around where they were last yr, haven't missed a beat. will be back in National A next week probably lol. also thought 7 lakes and James e Taylor were strong in the regular A class, better than half of the ones in National A imo. open class was a bit of a cluster f b/w the top 3. thought clear brook's performers killed it but the show they've been given is not at their level right now, in terms of staging success and general aesthetic. kind of chasing last yr in terms of mood, too. prob not fully fleshed out yet. Bridgeland had by far the best show compositionally but they seemed to be overreaching a little w/ the skills, tho they've still got 2+ months to clean it. very layered and musical and dynamic however. Jordan was kinda b/w those two for me, maybe the best balance of design + performance. their opening wowed me, loved how they moved + the staging. very colorful too.

Here are some scores from the TCGC competition at Pieper HS today. Scholastic National A: Georgetown HS Varsity 67.690 (1) Lockhart HS 67.350 (2) Pieper High School - Purple 66.520 (3) Lake Belton HS 65.990 (4) Louis D. Brandeis HS 65.550 (5) New Braunfels HS 65.340 (6) McNeil HS 64.390 (7) Round Rock HS Varsity 63.640 (8) Canyon HS Varsity 60.890 (9) Independent A: Origins A 70.900 (1) Ether Independent 48.430 (2) Scholastic Open: Ronald Reagan HS 64.500 (1) Lake Travis HS 56.100 (2) Claudia Taylor Johnson HS 52.100 (3)

Avon’s show is très magnifique. 😘 Just wow. Their performance level already is insane and they definitely deserved that score they were awarded yesterday. I declare Victory in Dayton for Voilà! I am in love!!! 😍😍

Some results from todays CG competition at Morton Ranch HS, this is the Scholastic JV Regional A group. Cy-Fair HS JV 69.300 (1) Ross S. Sterling HS JV 62.540 (5) Terry HS JV 64.500 (3) George Ranch JV 65.620 (2) Seven Lakes HS -JV 63.360 (4) Conroe HS JV 0.000 (7) Cypress Park JV 62.160 (6) Cypress Woods HS JV 60.440 (4) Katy High School JV 61.820 (2) Oak Ridge High School 59.460 (5) Cypress Creek HS JV 0.000 (7) Madisonville HS JV 52.740 (6) Cypress Ranch HS JV 61.280 (3) Barbers Hill HS JV 69.040 (1)

Not that it really changes anything, but there were 6 TX bands at grand nats in 2016. Cedar Park, Leander, Ronald Reagan, Claudia Taylor Johnson, James Bowie, and Whitesboro.

Forney making state finals in 2021 after not advancing to finales for over a decade. Still glad I was a part of that. We went from 8th in finals at 2021 to 4th place in just two years.

You can definitely tell I copied and pasted that block of text by the weird formatting shift. Sorry! 😅

Klein Oak's show is lovely! It's called Fool For You. The song is Pink by LEON. It's hard to make out the overall design of the floor from this angle, but I love the contrast between that red block in the front and the wispy gray and blue line, which curves sinuously, like smoke. (Appropriately the song opens "smoking blues/sipping red/and I picture us inside my head.") The girls start out in two separate pods diagonally across the stage, and slowly trickle out along the smoky line via a series of chaines turns and calypsos. I feel like the tenderness of the music and soft quality of the singer's voice is well matched by these sabre phrases -- light, airy, expressive. The back of the stage is a really deep gray, maybe black, so when those red flags pop out they really pop. (Of course, these might not be the final silks, but the color works well.) Amazing job on the sabre catches while on your knees! Wow! The performance gets a little dicier when the rifles come out, but that girl up front nails that one handed catch on the rifle 5. Alas, the other rifles seemed to go up at various heights, with the assorted partial catches and drops that come with under- and over-rotations. As is typical with this class, I think there's ample room to connect the phrases with more movement, or at least something that looks more purposeful. But it's early, and I'm really liking what they have so far. It's around a 63 for me, very solid for a January performance. Okay, let's see what they actually got... Just around a 61, pulled down a little by one of the effect judges, too many drops for him maybe. But the scores look mostly accurate to me. I immediately recognize Talking Heads singer David Byrne's voice in this Woodlands A song, but I'm not familiar with the song itself. It's called Glass, Concrete & Stone. I'm not going to pretend to know what the theme of the song is, but it seems breezily, quirkily existential in parts. "Skin, that covers me from head to toe/Except a couple tiny holes and openings/Where the city's blowin in and out/This is what it's all about, delightfully." The floor is pretty austere, simply a black rectangle with a light bluish gray perimeter. This might be a JV floor masquerading in a class filled with varsity floors. 😅 But the girls definitely don't perform like your typical JV guard. They all start out sitting on a tiered stack of (concrete?) blocks in the top right corner, all of their bodies slumped over. The cool cat percussion creeps in, and the girls rise alertly at the first bongo hit. I love it! The first girl steps out from the blocks and demonstrates near perfect technique on the opening rifle toss caught at flat. Another steps out for a clean traveling toss duet, then a third for a trio of one-handed catches. It builds into moments of just amazing multiples on flag, rifle, and sabre, all already quite clean, although there are some lapses, obviously. The guard is big and is wonderfully talented top to bottom. Everywhere I look, the technical foundation is evident. They end their show midway through with a really well done group rifle catch at port, which is something a guard in this class has no business doing as well as they do, but there it is. Very cool, different kind of show overall. I'm going to give it a... 67.5. It's not done, there's room for growth. And let's see what they actually got. A 66. Close enough. Speaking of David Byrne, fun fact, he produced a color guard performance film back in 2016 called Contemporary Color. It's worth a watch. Apparently Byrne stumbled on guard and was fascinated by it, so he decided to have high school performers perform to live pop music. Pearland is making extra good use of their moon set pieces from their marching show. How cute is this! The show is called Blue Moon. As mentioned by others, the moons are still black and yellow. I don't believe Pearland has a floor yet either -- it's totally black. But the staging and choreography appear to be mostly done. The song is the crooner classic, Blue Moon. "Once upon a time/before I took up smiling/I hated the moonlight." It all has a very luxurious and dreamy quality. It's the kind of song you'd hear in a classy restaurant or lounge -- or maybe just an Olive Garden, I don't know. 😅 The performers begin their show resting in the curve of one of the crescent moons right in the middle of the floor. As the classy piano music commences, the moon slowly rocks back and forth with the performers on it, with a couple of soloists pulsing off. You have to love how they use these moons for clever staging effects -- also for fun trick tosses while on the moons, while hopping off of them, so on and so forth. Again, the technique here is very clear, even if not everything is a perfect catch. How cool is that when they line up the moons diagonally in the center and have them rock back and forth in a ripple? I can't wait to see this with the complete aesthetic of the floor and costumes and flags. I love the cute vignette at the end of the two girls who are sleeping but are pushed together by the tipping of the moon. It's a clutch character moment. Really, the entire show is like a nice, warm hug before you go to bed. As for my personal scores, it's close, but I like the staging and movement (and just general completeness) of Pearland's show a little bit more than TWHS, so I'll say a 68. (No sabres in Pearland's show, which is interesting. Not a requirement, but it could enrich the vocab.) And let's look at the actual score. They got a 66.6, a little bit low, but not too far off. The Woodlands World is already giving me goosebumps. Their show is called The Light You Cannot See. Perhaps it's about being in the throes of depression and not seeing the hope that's there, or perhaps it's about something more spiritual, like God. As of right now, it's open to interpretation, which I like. Pairs of cylinders are set upright across the floor, which itself reminds me of space, with little white dots for stars and the lambent glow of some invisible light(s) creating golden brown patches on the floor. The girls begin in a pod in the lower left corner, with a few others posed farther away atop the cylinders. A female narrator simply says, "Look," and the one girl just outside of the pod charges up and over the other girls, flinging herself stomach first, before returning to her feet on the other side and catching a rifle that is flung over the pod. Wow! What an opening! The haunting long tones commence and we get that classic Woodlands slow processional jazz walk. The pod lifts up a girl as it travels, and the outer members rotate about her quickly, looking up at her questioningly as they move across the floor. A few duets of performers break off as the pod moves, accompanied by some slightly spacey, irritated synthesizer bleeps. The pod converges around a girl on top of one of the cylinders in the center of the floor, her body pulls upward with tension, then there's the release (maybe a good moment for a solo toss catch), and the pod swirls quickly outward and apart, very cosmic-like, with a nearly full ensemble rifle ripple around perimeter of the floor as they push outward. It's like 20 rifles. Stunning! Suddenly we have a clearer, faster tempo in the music, with a relentless up and down organ/synthesizer figure. Achingly beautiful long tones in the strings creep in and crescendo over time. I do think there are parts in the middle of this opening that could use more movement, more appealing and musical staging. It's oddly still and contrary to the music during some of the rifle partnering moments. (I also don't think it helped that they had a missing rifle partner right in the middle of the floor. It seemed empty and a little unbalanced.) But then right after we get that magnificent sequence with the tutti flags and ensemble rifle 6s, followed by all those dense, fast, winding follow-the-leader phrases in both rifles and flags. These girls are just running and spinning and tossing -- at one point even passing the rifles from one hand to the other under their legs as they leap, immediately connecting it into other skills. It's so challenging and exhausting, but they're killing it. Again, everywhere you look you see quality. Overall, I don't think they're quite as far along this year performance- or uniformity-wise as they were last year at this contest, but the vocabulary in this show is much richer. I cannot wait to see this on Flo at Austin when it's done and the full aesthetic is there. I think it'll be quite affecting, but with a serious intellectual quality that prevents it from being maudlin. Score? I'll say a 73. The staging during the middle section of the opener could be more compelling. Also, they had a few exposed drops and uniformity issues. And they got... a 72.4. Close! Their equipment score should probably be higher. Still need to watch the others!

Excellent approximation, @Tubalord11 !!!!! Average of Texas Bands at GN (last 10 events) --- 4.9 2023 --- 8 2022 --- 4 2021 --- 7 2020 --- N/A 2019 --- 6 2018 --- 1 2017 --- 6 2016 --- 5 2015 --- 5 2014 --- 2 2013 --- 5

It's the end of the month. Here are all the confirmed bands for Grand Nationals (so far): Confirmed (64): American Fork H.S., UT Archbishop Alter H.S., OH Archbishop Carroll H.S., OH Avon H.S., IN Avon H.S., OH Batesville H.S., IN Ben Davis H.S., IN Bishop Fenwick H.S., OH Bourbon County H.S., KY Brownsburg H.S., IN Campbell County H.S., KY Carmel H.S., IN Carroll H.S., IN Cary H.S., NC Castle H.S., IN Catawba Ridge H.S., SC Cedar Park H.S., TX Center Grove H.S., IN Centerville H.S., OH Central Crossing H.S., OH Cheney H.S., WA Christian Academy of Louisville, KY Clover H.S., SC Columbus Schools, IN DeWitt H.S., MI Dixie Heights H.S., KY Dobyns-Bennett H.S., TN East Clinton H.S., OH Finneytown H.S., OH Fishers H.S., IN Floyd Central H.S., IN Friendswood H.S., TX Goshen H.S., IN Green Level H.S., NC Greendale H.S., WI Greenfield-Central H.S., IN Hamilton H.S., OH Homestead H.S., IN Huron Valley Schools, MI Jenison H.S., MI Jenks H.S., OK John Hardin H.S., KY Lakota East H.S., OH Lawrence Township, IN Leander H.S., TX Marian Catholic H.S., IL Meade County H.S., KY Miamisburg H.S., OH Milford H.S., OH Monrovia H.S., IN Morton H.S., IL Norton H.S., OH Owen County H.S., KY Piqua H.S., OH Plymouth-Canton E.P., MI Prosper H.S., TX Reeths-Puffer H.S., MI Rockford H.S., MI Rosemount H.S., MN Tippecanoe H.S., OH Walter E. Stebbins H.S., OH Westlake H.S., UT William Mason H.S., OH Worthington Kilbourne H.S., OH

That tubabone solo was so great! I really loved hearing it, every time CP performed with Leander! Really enjoyed your whole show of course. And I'm already unreasonably excited about next year, too, it's going to be a lot of fun to see what the LISD bands come up with, along with everyone else around the state and country. The kids are begging the directors to pull-in the Show Reveal, it didn't happen until May 8th last year and I don't think anyone can stand to wait that long this time.