aaron067

Area B will be at the Birdville ISD facility.

Any band can sign up to attend on any given year. Given the travel costs, though, you will rarely see a Texas group attend who has not been a consistent regional or super regional finalist. If they're going to ask families to spend that kind of money, directors want to be certain they have a strong chance to make finals.

There are plenty of loopholes to get around the 10-hour rule.

There are 5 bands moving into 6A Area B: Waxahachie, Richland, Prosper, Lake Ridge, and Summit. In addition, there were 3 bands who did not advance to Area last year that received a 1st division this year (DeSoto, White and North Crowley), but there was also a group who did advance last year but received a 2 this year. That leaves 32 total groups earning a 1st division this year.

So no movement in Leander ISD this year, though I did notice that Cedar Park has ~200 more students than they did last time realignment took place. We're also probably looking at 3 of the 5A finalists once again moving up to 6A next year: Waxahachie (2235), Prosper (2969) and Highland Park (2180). Unfortunately, they're all three in 6A Area B, making that an even more difficult Area to advance out of.

You're right. 6 will advance since 30+ earned a 1st division at their respective Region contests.

Since the Prosper band seems to be getting such great publicity and support in this thread, I thought I would present a little bit of a/v evidence for the masses to consider. Personally, I would say that their show seems to have a lot going on visually, but the execution is not on par with your perennial State-level bands like Wakeland and Centennial. We shall see how they stack up on Saturday, and I wish them the best of luck at Grand Nats.

It looks like they're including percussion and guard in the totals for overall ranking...my mistake. I don't know if that's a new thing, or maybe I confused it with another contest, like the DMI. Combined, they only contribute to 1/10 of the overall score, though.

GE is the least weighted of the three major captions. 2 music judges = 400 points 2 visual judges = 300 points 1 GE judge = 200 points Percussion and Guard are not included in the total used for overall placement.

Keller's tone was so pure, and the ballad was absolutely gorgeous. They deserved that win in the music caption tonight. The dance sequences at the beginning of the Marcus show are just incredibly creative and quirky. And it's so clean now. It's the first performance of the season where I just couldn't pull my eyes away from the field. They have some musical issues to take care of, but I can't wait to see where this show goes over the next month.

He hits those notes in every run of the show. He just happened to be better at it Saturday night.

I don't know what changed and haven't gone back to compare, but I know someone who heard that from a staff member. Maybe the comment was taken a bit out of context...like they went back to the drawing board in regards to the closing section of the show instead of changing something that was performed at Birdville or Plano.

In case anyone else find's this interesting...Flower Mound took their show apart the week following the Dallas regional, so much so that they couldn't perform a run-through of it the following Friday night. I guess the judges had some commentary that made them feel such a drastic change would be necessary to compete well at San Antonio.

^^^This. Their total enrollment is between 1700 and 1800, or it was last year at any rate. They only have a single CCC middle school feeding into them, so that number is as expected. I expect Cedar Park's high level of performance to spur the other 5A schools to up their game even more in the coming years, just as the Lewisville schools have done in 6A over the past 10 years.

Warning...this turned out to be a wall of text. Sorry about that. MPE tapes often deal with design, especially in regard to demand placed on the students and how it affects their ability to perform the music. For instance, a group with incredibly difficult music arrangements with pretty strong execution is going to outscore a group with middle-of-the-road level arrangements who performs just as strongly, and probably a bit better to our UIL ears. There's obviously a point where high quality music arrangements definitely will not make up for a lack of quality execution, though, and also where truly immaculate execution can make up for weaker arrangements. The design being involved in the performance scores bothered me until a judge explained the general effect caption to me. There are three aspects to it: (1) the emotional connection with the audience, which is the most important; (2) the intellectual design, and can the students clearly demonstrate the complexity of that design; and (3) the artistry, or detailing and subtle nuance of absolutely every aspect of the performance. That final element is where bands like Marcus and Vandegrift really shine through in the GE caption, while bands like Flower Mound and Leander just blow you away with high energy and excitement, and groups like Carmel, Avon, and William Mason excel at the intellectual design. Of course, all the successful groups have a strong marriage of all three elements, but you can begin to really understand how some end up above others when you dig into the GE caption like this. I bring all of this up because GE does affect UIL scores, even though it isn't a judged element. Take Leander and Vandegrift. In an outdoor stadium, at the end of the season, on a first or second read, Leander has ended up outscoring Vandegrift. When you go back and watch videos, there's really no way Leander should ever top Vandgrift in a UIL contest based on quality of marching and playing (though they're still very strong and worthy of both their 5A and 6A finalist positions); however, their occasional higher placement is easily explained by judges getting carried away with the high energy of their performance, which is a huge factor when it comes to a Leander show. It's a lot like watching Bell's 2006 The Remaining live versus on a video. It still holds up on video despite some of the issues in performance captions, but the massive amount of emotion coming from the live performance was just unmatched and makes you forget about any of the other issues. On the score sheet, UIL really places very little emphasis on difficulty or content. Those sheets are concerned primarily with execution; however, some of the more experienced directors who judge often look for elements in a show that allow them to tick off boxes on the sheet. For instance, a group that features every section of their band successfully or who has both lyrical and challenging technical features for both brass and woodwinds throughout the show is going to be given more credit because it's more moments where a judge can be impressed. This means that a group with a show designed to feature and impress is probably going to end of scoring higher than a group with an out-of-the-box type of show with some judges, but not necessarily all. Unfortunately, UIL only requires a brief online course for judges at the Area level, and, beyond that, it's really a very subjective point system. That's why you see so much variety between rankings...not everyone manages their scores well over the course of a contest, and they're simply reacting based on their own experience and preferences. Regarding Hebron in particular, I think that may just be a fault of the system. Hebron performed at a level so far beyond all the musical capability of the other groups at GN that there was no precedent for how to compare. Gary Markham himself told me that Hebron's performance last year was one of the most memorable musical performance of all his years involved in BOA because they shifted the paradigm regarding what a high school band was actually capable of doing on the move, with such great control, and while performing such a great variety of styles and dynamics. They couldn't very well score them above a 20.0, and going first obviously didn't help. It's just the nature of this type of scoring system.

If anything were to change, I see it being as simple as changing the band version of the 8-hour rule to what the other fine arts and athletic groups benefit from: 8 hours from the beginning of school on Monday through the end of school on Friday. Weekends are a free-for-all. That being said, I believe athletics has several weighty stipulations when it comes to actual practice vs. workout time vs. group gathering (such as watching videos), and Lord knows most theater programs don't seem to abide completely by their 8 hour rule (or they find "loopholes").

Don't discount UIL just because of its rehearsal time regulations. Texas has the strongest and deepest field of quality middle school and high school band programs in the country because of UIL and, in a somewhat different capacity, the TMEA Honor Band process. I've never been to Grand Nationals in person, but I've been streaming finals for quite some time, and, despite how the BOA scoring system works or how certain judges may view their caption, I feel that in recent years there hasn't been a band at GN from any other state that sounds anywhere close to the Texas groups who attend, including all of the midwest groups. They may have more effective music arrangements, and they may play louder, but the quality of the music performance they put on the field just doesn't compare to what we produce in Texas. To me, that's always going to be the most important thing about marching band since it's just one component of instrumental music education. I'm all for creative visual packages in marching shows because, ultimately, that's what entertains the crowds best; however...not at the expense of the fundamentals of a quality music performance. That being said, I actually enjoyed watching SA finals more than GN finals this past year, though both were great. SA just had overall better quality and more enjoyable shows, in my opinion.

As does Waxahachie.

Super impressed by Hebron this morning! For my personal tastes, there's no one who can compete with them when it comes to sheer musical achievement. Those kids can flat out play their instruments. Marching is strong, too, though maybe not quite as crisp as you might see from Flower Mound or one of the Austin groups. I love the ballad with the jellyfish floating around the center of the field, too. They remind me of the Finding Nemo show at Disney World's Animal Kingdom.

^ See here for an explanation.

You're correct: 3 - Waxahachie 4 - Coppell In prelims, Dripping Springs and Coppell tied for 2nd. In finals, Dripping Springs and Waxahachie tied for 2nd.

Cedar Park's opener sounds like Sarah's song from the movie Hocus Pocus, also released by Kate Covington in the past few years with the title "Come Little Children". Incidentally, the text is a slightly altered version of a poem of the same name originally written by Edgar Allan Poe. I'm curious to see where they go with this concept.

Is there no edit function for posts anymore? Or has it just been that long since I last made a post at TxBands? Anyway, to answer about Broken Arrow... In the past the head director wrote the drill, but Leon May wrote for them this year. I don't know when that started.

^ ^ ^ From what I've been told Myron Rosander only designed the drill concepts for Bell, while Bryan Youngblood actually made the concepts work in practical application. That's second-hand information, so it could be wrong. Bryan also wrote their drill at least as early as 2004...probably sooner, but I can't say that with any certainty. Cedar Park and Waxahachie both used Jamey Thompson for the first time this year. Not sure why Cedar Park moved away from Leon, but Waxahachie was doing everything in-house prior to this year and is in the process of developing a design philosophy and team to help them push into the finalist circle for BOA while still continuing to do well at UIL-based events.

The prelims marching judges were Keith Bearden (judge 4) and Bill Centera (judge 5). Area C seemed to suffer from poor number management from the beginning of the day to the end, as well as five very distinctive opinions on what successful marching band should look and sound like. I did not get to see all the bands in finals, but the ones that I did see all had stronger performances than in prelims. Screwy judging aside, I think some very deserving, former state-finalist bands are being left at home this year. But, that just goes to show that Area C is growing in depth and is no longer a top-heavy, completely predictable contest.