TWHSParent

Saw a post at Hornrank that Pearland is going. Anyone here that can confirm? I hope they do.

Some classic tunes would be by Rush - 2112 and Cygnus X-1 Book 1: The Voyage. Cygnus X-1 Book 2: Hemispheres may be too "Earthy" but worth a listen if you have time. These are all long form songs so range from 10 to 20+ minutes each.

Sigh. I'll be living in Arizona by then, so I'll miss all the in-person contests in Texas...

Banddad84 didn't reference stats, he referenced data. There is a difference. The data is what it is, the statistics that are derived from it are where most of the games are played. Of course games can be played with data, but that is different from the stats games (straight up lying vs lying via cherry picking). In banddad84's reference, the data most likely has not been falsified as it is actually fairly easy for your opponents to check up on you since this isn't experimental data.

Unfortunately.....

I hope you kept that gerbil well fed!

Shame the comic isn't updated any more. Last one was in 2012.

You can still check the lists on the leaderboard - when you get to the leaderboard, click on the Top Members tab. It defaults to overview. Just click that for a drop down and select Most Posts.

Don't forget North Shore! Lots of Houston bands that are good/very good, but not quite (at least consistently) at the SA/UIL finalist tier. That's why I enjoy the Houston Regional so much even though there aren't so many at that higher tier. It makes for a very interesting contest.

The current measuring stick in the Houston area for state finals/BOA Grand National finals would be to at least match The Woodlands consistently year over year. It has been many years since a Houston area band did this. While the number of outstanding bands is growing, the number of finalist spots at those events is not (or at least not as fast as the programs are growing). TWHS tends to be a mid-pack finalist most of the time recently, so being on that level would be a strong indicator of success. Exceeding that level would be even better, of course. My expectation is that TWHS will take what they learned last year (and the previous years) with a program that pushed their boundaries and grow again. They are being pushed harder at the state and national level to remain relevant. I think the program is capable of responding to this, and can really push farther to catch back up with the absolute top programs. They aren't far away. And hopefully that means the Houston programs push harder too. Their goal should be to finish ahead of TWHS consistently. There is no reason Houston can't have the programs to match DFW and Austin.

They have color guard, percussion, and a general audio commentary judge. Those are additional items and not incorporated into the placements. The music (individual and ensemble), visual (individual and ensemble), and GE (2 music/1 visual) judges sheets are the BOA sheets and those are the only scores that count for placements. Forgot to comment on the attendees - it really depends. I've seen it with 20+. 2 years ago it was 14 I believe, and we invited all 14 to perform in finals. Last year was 18 or 19. We'll see about scheduling vs region contests for 6A in the Houston area.

Your question is an interesting one - another contest is the one The Woodlands hosts (Lone Star Preview), which is BOA style rules to the core (including BOA judging sheets). As the ripples of this change expand, I'll probably reach out to a couple people to see if there is going to be a change to account for a 12 band finals per the updated BOA rules.

And the current news from the Hornrank forum is that regionals will have 12 finalists, up from 10 (to be publicly announced tomorrow, 2/27). Supers and Grand Nationals will continue to have 14 and 12 respectively.

From the Hornrank forums, it appears that Jenks, OK is confirmed for 2020 at SA.

So I made a little table of results from 2010 to 2019 for some top bands over the whole decade. I hope it posts OK.... Band SA Finals SA Top Half SA Wins GN Finals GN Top Half GN Wins UIL Finals UIL Top Half UIL Wins Marcus 10 8 2 2 2 0 5 4 3 The Woodlands 10 7 1 5 3 1 5 0 0 CTJ 10 9 2 3 1 0 3 1 0 Ronald Reagan 10 7 1 2 0 0 4 3 0 Hebron 9 8 0 2 2 0 5 4 0 Flower Mound 8 4 3 2 2 0 3 2 1 Vandegrift 7 5 0 1 1 1 5 (2-4A, 1-5A, 2-6A) 4 (1-4A, 1-5A, 2-6A) 1 (4A) Leander 6 4 0 2 2 0 3(1-5A, 2-6A) 2 (5A, 6A) 0 LD Bell 7 3 1 2 1 0 3 2 0 Cedar Park 8 4 0 2 1 0 5(2-4A, 3-5A) 5(2-4A, 3-5A) 4 (1-4A, 3-5A)

Well, if it comes to a choice, England and Ireland would be the right one. It has been a while since I've visited either place, but I feel like I drove over massive chunks of Ireland - Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Blarney (kissed the Blarney stone while I was there), Navan,Trim, Ennis, Adare, Limerick, Cashel, Giant's Causeway, Tara, Newgrange, Kells, Cliffs of Moher, The Burren, and more. I've been to London and a few places nearby (Camberley, Newbury), but spent most of my time in Scotland - honeymooned in Inverness and drove around quite a bit of the Scottish highlands.

In Waco. I remember too many trips to Waco over the last few years for football games. 2016 it seemed like every game was in Waco....

That was very unexpected! Out of all the hotels and flights, whodathunk?

Completely agree. I really enjoyed meeting everyone.

My top 5 in order from today are Avon, CTJ, Carmel, Mason, and Lawrence Township.

Made it to Indy. Now trying to find dinner.

And the cold front has just started going through Houston - had dropped to 51 on my way home from 75 around 1:00.

Random Factoid: Ronald Reagan now owns the highest and lowest score ever at San Antonio Finals: 77.35 in 2009, and 97.3 in 2019.

Yes. You can see the scores at HornRank.

Maybe this one?