TWHSParent

The strongest bands in Dripping Springs group are Marian Catholic and O'Fallon Township. Grain Valley is very good, as is Rockwood Summit. Those 4 plus Dripping Springs would be my guess for the top 5 in that grouping.

Weather is currently looking tolerable. 40% chance of showers (no thunderstorms) and a high of around 70. Only 20% chance at night, with a low of 57.

TWHS is 5-2. They lost their first 2 games and have won 5 straight in the district. Oh, and the game the band didn’t attend they won by something like 45 points.

Good thing the judging panels are switching. With no lunch break on Saturday and minimal on Friday we could have some hangry judges!

Yes, it is happening. There is a schedule that has been shared with the competing bands. 14 currently attending with 10 finalists. I am flying back from my business trip to Europe on Friday so I can do the volunteer thing at the contest!

Reality is we are all just guessing. We don't know what the shows will look like come November. Now heading to my business trip. I hate airports but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Don't forget (per my comment on the previous page) that in 2015 there were 2 weeks between San Antonio and Grand Nationals.

Were you there at Indy that year? Did you experience the crowd feedback to their show that they fed off of for that semi-finals run? You could just see them push harder and harder during that run, and the crowd ate it up and rewarded them. That was the real problem with them going first in finals - half the crowd wasn't there yet, and they didn't have as much feedback. They still put out one heck of a performance, but the full interaction wasn't there because the crowd was still "cold". Had they gone on even 3rd or 4th I think it would have made a significant difference.

And that year San Antonio was 2 weeks before Grand Nationals rather than the 1 week it has been the last 2 years. Hebron, The Woodlands, Round Rock, and Keller (and Keller Central) all made very significant strides in that 2 week gap.

That's unfortunate, I think they would do well this year. We are staying in San Antonio through the state competition since they moved the 6A to Monday/Tuesday. In 2016 we commuted back and forth separately for each contest due to the length of time between them.

Seven Lakes, Pearland, Oak Ridge, JET, and College Park are attending San Antonio SR per the current list. I don't see SFA, Brazoswood, or Cy-Fair on the list. I would say yes, those 5 have a shot at finals. Just from the Conroe performance Seven Lakes and Oak Ridge are in the best position (ahead of Churchill and a couple points behind Bowie), but the other 3 certainly have room to grow and get there.

It has happened to others too. In 2006 The Woodlands were 1st in Semi-finals, got the #1 draw for finals, and dropped to 4th. There is a history of this issue and not only Hebron 2015. 2015 was just the straw that broke the camel's back...

Happened? Nothing. They finished 12th at a tough regional. Their show was quite good, but was edged out by slightly better shows that day (per the judges opinions). If they improve like they did last year, they'll be fine by San Antonio and will do well at UIL. Remember, they finished 12th here last year and finished the season quite strong. Doesn't mean history will repeat, of course, but no reason to overly worry about them based on this result.

Very true. We are tentatively (assuming we make state) planning to stick around until Tuesday evening. So an extra long weekend with lots of awesome band stuff! Oh, and those other things too...

Congratulations to her! Drive safely. I think the tropical storm in the Pacific (Sergio) will stay south of you if you take a more northerly route to Sacramento. Looks like what will be left of it will be around El Paso on Saturday.

It was certainly unusual, and I can certainly say that when they took it off the field at Indy, it seemed the entire stadium needed more lights since everything appeared to be dramatically darker. It actually worked better than you might think, especially live in the stadium. I think it translates poorly on the FloMarching stream. I guess I'm indifferent about tarps unless they get in the way, then I think they should disappear.

Yes it was. Something else I noticed - Bowie had several performers trip, and one that actually fell on a tarp they had right behind the front ensemble during their prelims run. During their finals run, there was no tarp there. Will be interesting if that will now be a permanent change.

It is actually quite difficult, which is why you will rarely see any of the predictions being 100% correct, even after seeing and hearing the bands. One way to start training yourself is to watch as many bands as possible, then, after the contest, look at the scores and compare those with your impressions. Also realize there is no way for those of us in the stands to have any real idea what the individual judges are seeing and hearing on the field (unless they were judging Hebron on Saturday apparently...). So specifically College Park. I know my ears thought they sounded terrific, and apparently the music ensemble judge agreed, as they were ranked 6th. Music individual had them at 15th, which means there was something at field level that was a bit off that wasn't apparent at the ensemble level. Overall they were 11th in music, so right on the edge of finals. Visually, I can honestly say they didn't stand out in my mind. I remember the cages, so there is something to build on. And looking at the visual scores, they were 15th in both ensemble and individual, and 14th combined. Their music GE was right on for finals, with a 10th place showing, but the lack of visual impact dropped their overall GE to 11th. Still very good, but just outside finals. So my take from this is that they fell short visually, and were probably a finals band musically. And thinking back on my impressions, that actually agrees with my memory. So using your eyes and ears to make your thoughts, then comparing that to what judges think can help train those of us that aren't so into the fine details and technical aspects. For most of us, music is easier than visual. I've been trying to hone my visual evaluation by doing what I talk about above, and I'm starting to get better. Basics from spacing, marching in step, making forms correctly, smooth form transitions, not have to make an emergency adjustment to miss someone else, not tripping or falling on tarps, little skip steps that are aligned with music passages, guard tosses that nail the timing with the music, so many things go into the visual evaluations that I'm just scratching the surface on. Some shows are so big, it is almost impossible to see everything going on in one viewing. How do you judge that? I have no idea. I'm sure people could write pages on this. But ultimately at the top level it often comes down to subtle things. Did you notice in our show during the 4th movement that the band has a double musical hit that they actually take a little jump and switch feet positions boom boom while playing that hit? That is very hard to do and maintain good music output. It is also very subtle, and probably wasn't noticed by many people - but I bet the judges did. If you haven't found it already, a good place for the score comparison is HornRank. The Conroe prelim scores are here: https://www.hornrank.com/2018/10/houston-prelims-oct-6-2018.html which I used for my comment.

I hope you took my post as encouragement. It was meant to show that small, economically challenged programs can not only be successful, but can maintain that success for decades. It can be done, but it is oh so hard to do. Just because I now live in an area like The Woodlands doesn't mean I've forgotten where I came from and the challenges experienced there.

Yes, I've been to Texarkana many times. However, compare Texarkana to Columbia, KY and you'll understand my comparative comment.

You know, it is one of those things - it takes time to build a program. There is no quick way to do it. Conceptually the show is very interesting. Execution is lacking, but I think you know that. I'm not a music educator, so I'm not going to try to give any real tips or such. I'll point you to the band program my wife attended. They have some videos of their shows going back to 1988, and are similar in size to Liberty-Eylau in your video. My wife is in the video from 1990: http://www.adaircountyband.com/history These are the types of shows and execution that a small band from a poor, rural area is capable of doing (Texarkana is urban and cosmopolitan comparatively). It takes complete buy-in by first the staff, then the administration, then the kids, and it takes years to build the feeder program so they are teaching the kids proper technique, etc. But it has to start somewhere, by one of the staff that is willing to push hard and really build something.

They have UIL Region on their calendar and not LSP.

Usually 10 in finals, and usually 20+ bands in the contest. There may now be a 15th band to attend, but certainly lower than usual due to the UIL region overlap.

Looking at the scores a little closer, I would actually say that it wasn't so much SFA's GE, but their music performance score that kept them out of finals. They were rated 15th, over a point (1.05) behind the 10th place music performance band. They were 12th in GE, only 0.35 points behind the 10th place GE band. Improving music performance depends on the execution of the band, and pretty much not on the design of the show, so this is very much something they can directly address.

Maybe a way to describe this is something that I loved last year. Vandegrift's ballad was Sound of Silence. During that, they build to a big sound, then the entire band goes silent, leaving everyone hanging, with the last chord echoing. Then eventually the flute soloist finishes the musical thought. That build, sudden silence, then finally the conclusion is a perfect definition of music GE. It hits perfectly with the song (The Sound of Silence) and was just an outstanding moment. For visual GE, I'll go out of Texas, and back to 2015 and something that really struck me. During Marian Catholic's show "String Theory", they form a marionette on the field, then proceed to walk it under the control of the strings. I loved the visual impact of that moment, near the climax of their show. It really worked well to my eyes. I hope these examples help. Rather than a technical definition I thought I'd give these a shot.