Rubisco

I'm not surprised by this. The timing of the two events this year is really bad. 6A UIL on Monday/Tuesday, then BOA SA on Saturday. For bands that are far away, the kids would either have to miss a full week of school or make 2 separate trips to San Antonio in the same week. On a related note, UIL for the top 6A bands is actually well-timed for BOA Grand Nats this year, with a full week of recovery between the two. That will be the case for at least the next couple of ODD years as well. EVEN years are awful for upcoming 6A UIL and Grand Nats, occurring within the same week. Two points I'd like to make: 1.) If BOA wishes to retain the top 6A performers, which typically compose most of BOA SA finals, they'll want to schedule BOA SA the Saturday BEFORE UIL 6A from now on, so bands can make ONE trip to San Antonio. 2.) Most of the top bands in the state (which are mostly 6A groups), who want to go to both BOA Grand Nats and UIL State, will want to schedule their BOA Grand Nats trips on ODD years, to have a full week of recovery between the two. Of course, this will likely lead to more intense competition at Nats on those years.

I'm not seeing many guard updates on Instagram. I went through my "ones to watch" list. Friendswood has a nice audition video, but I'm not sure the choreo or music are related to what they're actually doing this winter. Mirage Performance Ensemble (in Independent World) is doing The Only Way Out is Through, unless that's just some random statement on their Insta. Looks like a show title! 😂 The new Independent World from Houston, Third Coast Independent, is doing a show called The Creative Space. I'm intrigued! Their staging designer is Rick Subel, who designs for Paramount and Carolina Crown, so that aspect of the show should be solid. Now I'm just wondering what level the performers will be at. 🤔 TWHS posted a brief video of their A and World guards from a mid-December camp. They'll both be top threats in their respective classes. The A guard is attempting some above-class skills for sure. The World guard is already looking pretty confident. They've got white boxes on dollies that they're standing up on and almost certainly pushing and pulling around the floor. A show about moving? Making deliveries? Emotional baggage? The possibilities are endless! 😂

Love it! It's like they asked themselves, "How many different kinds of flags can we bring to the floor?" The answer? ALL of them.

Here are some Texas Guards to Watch Out For at the World Championships this season in Scholastic A and Open. Note that this is pretty much purely based on the results from last year and aren't necessarily an indication of who will end up on top this season. Friendswood HS in Scholastic A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGYEFlMXxFc Last year's show, The Girl With The Weight of the World in Her Hands, ended up 6th in finals in Scholastic A at the World Championships. All the units ahead of them have been promoted into Open class for this season. With this semis performance, they were 4th, and very, very close to the top 3. I think half of the judges had them in the top 3, including a couple first places. I personally would have had them in the top 3. This was a fantastic performance, with beautiful staging and set design. Unfortunately, they had a somewhat rough run in finals, hence the drop in placement. Pre-COVID, this group was in the Open class, and has been in the World class in the past. Hebron HS in Scholastic A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLMtYclRdpI This was a fun, fizzy production from a guard that seems to improve every year. They were 2nd to Friendswood at the late WGI Dallas Regional (previously known as the Southwest Power Regional). I think they'll be a strong contender for finals this year. They looked very good on the marching field last fall. Apparently this performance earned them a gold medal at the NTCA championships, although I do see that they were 2nd to Rock Hill in the recap... Rock Hill HS in Scholastic A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbmAFQt8-j8 which brings us to Rock Hill! They're also attending the World Championships this season. How fortunate we are to have such great representation. The school opened in 2020, and look where they are already! They were turning some heads this marching season, as I recall. Seven Lakes HS in Scholastic A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mS0kWjDp9M Now here's a show that's a bit risqué. The opening dancer is absolutely fabulous. If only most guards had most of their members moving that well! Seven Lakes had a somewhat slow start to the season, placing 8th at WGI Houston. But they ended up placing 2nd and breaking a score of 90 in finals at WGI Atlanta. They even beat a couple of guards that went on to make finals at the World Championships. They'll be in the mix this year. Pre-COVID, this guard was in the Open class. Southlake Carroll HS in Scholastic A I can't find a video for this one. It was a Barbra Streisand show. SLC was only a few places outside of finals at the World Championships last year. They're coming off their first BOA Grand National Finals performance. Hopefully they can keep up the momentum. McNeil HS in Scholastic Open https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn0lQc2iy-E McNeil was a comfortable 3rd place at the late WGI Dallas regional, behind Independence HS and Marcus HS. They were the TCGC State Silver medalists in the Open class, losing to Moe and Gene Johnson. In 2019, this guard placed 4th in the Open class at the WGI World Championships, so they know what it takes to do extremely well in this class. Coppell HS in Scholastic Open https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVTEiC7zjNw This show was such a blast last season, an immediate crowd favorite. They brought some high energy, James Logan-style fun. Coppell ended up 3 places outside of finals in Scholastic Open at the World Championships. I think with a cleaner, more uniform performance and some clearer staging, they'll be in finals this year. I was impressed by what I saw from them on the marching field last fall. Plus, I know that their director is the CGT Dallas/Denton founder/director. This team knows what they're doing!

We're less than a month away from the start of the season! Both NTCA and TCGC have local shows starting on January 21st. Those of us who are able to attend will be able to get a first look at some (likely) unfinished shows. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be getting any of these local contests streamed on FloMarching this year. I don't see anything listed on Flo's schedule, except for the end of the season NTCA championships. I've updated the World Championship attendance list. Ether Independent appears to have withdrawn from Independent A. They're a new group, and I suspect funding and recruitment issues may have played a role, based on some social media posts. On the flip side, Black Gold is returning in the Independent Open class, so that's exciting.

Moe and Gene Johnson is actually only a few years old. They must just have really great instructional and design staff, as well as fully committed kids. Despite being a young program, they placed an amazing 6th last year in the Open class at the World Championships. Typically, only the top 3 are promoted to World class, but Moe and Gene Johnson appears to have self-promoted for this upcoming season. Honestly, this may be the perfect time to self-promote, given a weakened post-pandemic SW class. James Bowie self-promoted to World class in 2016 and had an amazing season, although it was hard for them to maintain that quality and they dropped in placement each year after. The 8 hour rule and lack of great guard feeder programs probably explains most of that. TWHS has been around for decades in various classes. They were the first Texas scholastic program to win a gold medal in 2004, when they won in the Open class, where they still hold the record score. They didn't excel in the World class, however, and bounced around the classes, settling back in the A class, until they were promoted midseason by the Steering Committee two seasons in a row 2015-2016, I believe, with the arrival of the current director. Not sure, I'd have to look that up. Only a very small number of guards have been able to maintain World class quality over the years. These are legacy programs like Miamisburg, Northview, Arcadia, Center Grove, Avon, and Carmel. The well-oiled machines. FloMarching will be streaming a handful of events for WGI this season, and I think some Texas Circuit guard contests as well, although those ones may not be listed yet. For "must watch" guards of the past, I would just go over to the WGI site and look at the historical scores and try finding some of those top finalists on YouTube. You'll get a sense of what the top of each class looks like pretty quickly.

I have one to add for this season. Drink whenever you hear Deep in the Heart of Texas. That'll be at least a few per Texas guard.

I'm not sure. It's harder to check now that the older results have been removed from the main WGI site! Regional A = beginner; A = intermediate; Open = intermediate to some advanced; World = advanced/virtuosic to standard setting. Schools typically start out in regional A or A and get promoted at the end of the season if they place within the top few groups in their class at the World Championships. The Steering Committee, which reviews videos of the top few guards at each regional, can also promote a unit into a higher class midseason if they think the unit is misclassed -- really to maintain the integrity of the competition within the class. Individual units can choose to self-promote as well, but they'll typically choose the class in which they'll have the best chance of achieving success. Also, there are minimum cutoff scores to make finals at regionals/worlds in the open and world classes to maintain a baseline level of quality. Scholastic = all members from the same school, i.e. high schools; Independent = not all from the same school, typically older -- think college age and beyond. Judges understand that Independent guard members are typically more physically developed. Hence why they compete against each other and not the Scholastics! Independent World is the tippy top and has a separate paradigm the judges use when rating the units.

Hmmm, you may be right. That would all be quite expensive!

Like last season, I encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with the overall judging process. WGI generously provides a lot of information about the behind-the-scenes scoring process. See: The Adjudication Manual. Much of this information is also applicable to the visual side of things in the marching band world, which I understand is a place of confusion for many! Judging Overview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rzMxKNXoUSs Variety, Range, and Depth (Key Components of Vocabulary Scoring): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JVMXIkmJ_RA Staging: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZXbo0d8PfM Interrelationships and Ensemble Analysis: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PSb3kSNwS3Q Programming: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVJTrK3Pd7c

It's almost that time of (next) year again! This thread will be devoted to all things winter guard, and maybe even some winter percussion as well. All contributions are welcome! Hopefully this thread won't turn into a personal blog. Texas will have INCREDIBLE representation on the color guard side of things at the WGI World Championships in April. Below is a list of all the current entries from Texas. There are a lot of them, including some new ones! It's going to be an amazing ride! Scholastic A Burleson Centennial HS Clear Brook HS Clear Creek HS Coppell HS JV Eastlake HS JV Friendswood HS Georgetown HS Hebron HS Klein Cain HS Memorial HS Mount Pleasant HS Mount Pleasant HS JV A Pebble Hills HS Pine Tree HS Rock Hill HS Round Rock HS Seven Lakes HS Southlake Carroll HS William B. Travis HS Wylie East HS Wylie HS Independent A ATX Winterguard Eagle Mountain Independent Sam Houston State Scholastic Open College Park HS Coppell HS Eastlake HS Varsity James Bowie HS (Austin) Klein Oak HS Little Elm HS McKinney HS McNeil HS Westlake HS (TX) Winston Churchill HS Independent Open Black Gold Open Glory Independent ORIGINS Open Redemption Guard Undaunted Scholastic World Moe and Gene Johnson HS The Woodlands HS Independent World Invictus Mirage Performance Ensemble ORIGINS Third Coast Independent

I wish I could have watched tonight! But I suppose that would have meant putting up with the stream crashing. Congrats to all 4 Texas bands on a fantastic season! Three in finals is awesome. And congrats to Carmel on their 6th (!) Eagle and another caption sweep!

I haven't watched most of the out of state bands in a while. I do know that Carmel came out on top over Avon at State in ISSMA, but I'm sure it was close enough that it could swap back again at Nats. I'm wondering where Tarpon Springs will fit in. I actually quite enjoy the show, but the other top bands may be a little more refined in both performance and design.

Wow! Vandegrift with the upset here. (I'm just dropping back in now that my election obsession is subsiding. 😄) This has really been a surprisingly competitive season at the very top. Ultimately, I think it's a healthy thing to have a lot of bands at a similar level of awesomeness.

The adjudicator there is certainly qualified to judge it, as he judges movement for WGI and color guard for DCI. But, ultimately, it's just one part of a sheet that has many other considerations. Actually, the lack of a pure color guard or auxiliary caption here is conspicuous, considering every other section of the band has been singled out with their own judge.

Honestly, the results and finalists are strikingly similar to the BOA results from a couple days ago, at least when compared to UIL contests of the past. The biggest shake-up is the swapping of CTJ and Cedar Ridge, I guess. Then again, as others have pointed out, this panel consisted entirely of judges from "The Big Three". I guess it isn't surprising they went for those judges, given how much more closely the sheets look like BOA sheets -- also, maybe because these judges have fewer connections to the bands in Texas.

When I said that I thought it was going to be Hebron's version of Flower Mound in 2016, I wasn't exactly expecting The Woodlands to do The Woodlands 2016 as well. And in finals this time! Absolutely amazing! Congrats to all the amazing bands!

Vista Ridge, with an amazingly energetic performance to close out the night, and after having to stand there waiting for the fireworks to stop. Professionalism! This is a show that I had a feeling would probably be a late-bloomer. There's just a lot going on at once, and so it takes some time for everything to click performance-wise. I think it came pretty darn close to clicking tonight. This is a show that thrills you, but also tickles your brain. The visual program is very Bluecoats, as has already been said a bunch. The last statement is so exciting musically, when they do that final forward push, with that super DCI-ish trumpet soloist. If there is one thing they should focus on for next year, I'd say it's guard recruiting, just creating a little bit better of a balance there in terms of numbers.

There are so many extravagantly effective visual moments in Reagan's show. But you know what, they've also improved a lot musically since the start of the season. This arrangement of Adagio for Strings is also very fascinating, very "Guidry-fied" as I like to call it. I'm not always sold on how the big moments link up to each other logically, but it's impossible to deny their overwhelming power. Some of these visuals -- they're pure, unbridled, glorious pageantry.

It's hard to totally eclipse the other bands at the San Antonio Super Regional musically, given how talented all these bands are, but Hebron just did. The amount acrobatics in that music, the syncopated rhythms combined with the quickly shifting intervals, just wow! They execute at a completely unmatched level musically. To top it off, it's incredibly entertaining from start to finish. This is the most fun Hebron show I've ever seen. I love the shift to the easy-going ballad. It's like we've changed the channel on the radio. It's also not a style of music bands usually pick for their ballads. Everybody is busy chasing really epic sounds, and Hebron does something totally different.

There's just so much going on at once in that Vandy show, but they never lose control. How do they clean this?! It's so impressive. They sound fantastic, look fantastic -- really, it's an all-around outstanding show. I also appreciate the risk they're taking by changing up their music book a little bit. It's much more contemporary than usual.

Oh, that was a sensational performance from The Woodlands. Wow! The music is just so energetic and has so much character and nuance. The visual program is very much where the activity is right now, for better or for worse. It's very stagey. The band sounded great. The guard was unbelievable, and made for some awesome visual moments. If there's a deeper equipment book this year, I haven't seen it.

I love the stormy sounding preshow in Flower Mound before they burst out of the box. The music is similarly stormy at first, but moves briskly to and from the heroic. Lots of conflict followed by heroic resolution. There's something very comfy about this show, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It reminds me of some of the best late 90s and early 00s programs -- of course the PCEP programs are the first that come to mind. Flower Mound has the same designers. It almost makes me nostalgic. I also absolutely adore the comic strip set pieces. Inserting your band into the comic book world is such a clever idea. Great, great performance as well. "With great power comes great responsibility!"

There was enough energy in that CTJ performance to power like 5 Alamodomes. Wow! I am so, so impressed by what this group tackles year after year. Is there another band that has so consistently over the last decade or so done shows with this much demand, especially visual demand? It's crazy!

Oh, yes. The low brass was EPIC. Holy cow! The drill design I thought was very graceful. I'm also wondering what all these globe set pieces are made out of. 😄