WanderingTraveler

4A State Finals Schedule: 7:15 - Fredericksburg HS 7:30 - Canyon HS 7:45 - North Lamar 8:00 - Calallen HS 8:15 - West Plains HS 8:30 - China Spring HS 8:45 - Panther Creek HS 9:00 - Sulphur Springs HS 9:15 - Davenport HS 9:30 - Celina HS Congrats to all the bands that advanced to finals, and every band that has performed today! Excited for finals.

Pine Tree winds absolutely running through Shost. 10, great job!

Fredericksburg with the 2013 Cavies🔥

Bridge City really surprised me in this block… extremely balanced sound from the ensemble, and I see them getting in finals now.

Good morning 4A! Good luck to all the competing bands today!

2A State Marching Finals Results: 🥇: Rivercrest HS 🥈: Ropes HS 🥉: Sundown HS 4: Lockney HS 5: Shiner HS 6: Rosebud-Lott HS 7: Cooper HS Congrats to all of the 2A finalists, and 2A state champion Rivercrest!

Vandegrift to 5A🥀🫩

Finals Results: 🥇: Flower Mound HS 🥈: Hebron HS 🥉: Vandegrift HS 4: Marcus HS 5: The Woodlands 6. Vista Ridge HS 7. Ronald Reagan HS 8. Cedar Ridge HS 9. Coppell HS 10. Pearland HS 11. Dripping Springs HS 12. Cy-Fair HS 13. Seven Lakes HS 14. Prosper HS Great job to all of the 6A bands in finals, and congratulations to Flower Mound on their state championship! I will post a recap a little later with my thoughts about prelims and finals.

My ranking at the end of finals performances...Not necessarily what I think will happen. I will also include (+ or - how many places I moved from my before-prelims predictions): 1: Flower Mound HS (-) 2: Hebron HS (+1) 3: Vista Ridge HS (-1) 4: Vandegrift HS (-) 5: Marcus HS (-) 6. Ronald Reagan HS (+6) 7. Cedar Ridge HS (-) 8. The Woodlands (-2) 9. Pearland (-) 10. Dripping Springs (-2) 11. Coppell (-1) 12. Prosper (+1) 13. Cy-Fair (From Bubble) 14. Seven Lakes (From Bubble)

Flower Mound: Love the staging at the start of the show. Starting off with a great articulation brass moment. Great intro from the French horns. Right off the rip, both ensemble and individual visual is VERY strong. Lots of movement happening all over the field, while the percussion delivers an absolutely great showcase midfield. Really like the dynamic control in this group, great expressiveness. Visuals are super in-sync even spread across the entire field. Few people sticking out of the musical texture at the end of the opener. The expressiveness from each performance is really great, and works well with the show theme. Use of props is very tasteful in the show, backfield our stationary, but the blocky ones on the field, moving around and doing some cool things. First touch of color in the guard with the flags being pulled out. Great artistry in the few small ensembles on the platform upfront. Ballad musical arrangement, pulling at the heartstrings, very well done. Uniform swap into colored drapes. Great feature of the drum line at this moment. Backfield props move in to show different paintings. Cool feature of the brass, with some dense chords while moving into some playful woodwind work. Double tonging from the brass, and some super clean woodwind runs. Super creative drill writing across the board, especially in the closer. Really cool set to finish the show. Great job!

Ronald Reagan: Opening set spread out in two boxes covering side one and two. Starting with some visual work, running up to front field to deliver an absolutely powerful hit. Good battery feature into the soli. I absolutely love how low brass is cutting through the texture at this point. Slight articulation issues in the brass before the WW feature. Powerful moment with a cool curve set, including the guard in the back with some nice flags. Cool effects from the trombones leading into a sax quartet that is super groovy (and the third saxophone looks like Markiplier). Great movement work from the guard surrounding the flute duet. Slight full ensemble visual spacing issues in the ballad, apparent in the curvy forms. There’s a lot happening coming out of the ballad, unsure what the focus on, but climaxes with an outstanding impact. Really like the uniforms the guard switch into. Really great full ensemble moment at the end of the show, trombones coming through a little too much out of the texture, final note was outstanding though. Great job, good finals run!

Vista Ridge: Really like this shows theme this year. Seems the show was slow to start, unsure whats happening, maybe electronics issue. Hope this doesn’t lead to any penalties. WORTH THE WAIT THOUGH, what an opening impact. No stick outs, super balanced, and LOUD. Great opening duet from the saxophones, into the WWs. Then we have a carbon copy of the BAC 2019 brass feature, with a super minor alteration, and y’all sound INCREDIBLE. Front ensemble putting in some work during this transition. Articulation across the group is great. Balance in these crunchy chords is very nice. Total ensemble visual seems good, few issues in individual marching / visual that I am able to spot. Beautiful solo from the french horn. Staging for the guard in the ballad is done very well, great flag work. Battery feature time, some great HS chops, good content, good presentation. Super fluid solo from the flute player. The last major full ensemble moment in that block is absolutely melting my face off, and the mellos piercing through the texture was incredible. Dark beautiful chords to end the show, inside of a great final canvas across the field. To me, this is a medalist. Great job VR.

With The. Sealy?!? No way!!!

Hebron: I always really enjoy listening to y’alls backfield warm-up, great way to set the tone of how good y’all are. I guess today they changed what they’re considering their pre-show? Seems they started after the announcement today, unless the announcer was told to read early. HOLY BRASS. This full ensemble sound, and brass technique at the beginning is absolutely incredible… This will be hard to beat. Trumpets absolutely shredding through this opening brass book. Great low brass sounds afterward, into a great display of brass tonguing. Followed by some outstanding woodwind runs…and then MORE BRASS TONGUING WORK!!! Hebron musically seems to be firing on all cylinders today. Visually, from the individual level, seems very clean, but some forms have some slight discrepancies. Looks like the soprano sax soloist is marching with a boot on? Respect. I think Hebron charts woodwind-only non-technical moments very well. Enjoying the visual tapestry for the impact at the ballad, and really enjoy how these props are double designed. Great guard work around this time! Percussion definitely looked like they had a better run today than prelims, feature sounded good, I feel like the content meter could be upped a bit though. Woodwind feature into a brass technical section, and then a jam sesh. Great run Hebron, gonna be very hard to beat that musically.

Hebron: I always really enjoy listening to y’alls backfield warm-up, great way to set the tone of how good y’all are. I guess today they changed what they’re considering their pre-show? Seems they started after the announcement today, unless the announcer was told to read early. HOLY BRASS. This full ensemble sound, and brass technique at the beginning is absolutely incredible… This will be hard to beat. Trumpets absolutely shredding through this opening brass book. Great low brass sounds afterward, into a great display of brass tonguing. Followed by some outstanding woodwind runs…and then MORE BRASS TONGUING WORK!!! Hebron musically seems to be firing on all cylinders today. Visually, from the individual level, seems very clean, but some forms have some slight discrepancies. Looks like the soprano sax soloist is marching with a boot on? Respect. I think Hebron charts woodwind-only non-technical moments very well. Enjoying the visual tapestry for the impact at the ballad, and really enjoy how these props are double designed. Great guard work around this time! Percussion definitely looked like they had a better run today than prelims, feature sounded good, I feel like the content meter could be upped a bit though. Woodwind feature into a brass technical section, and then a jam sesh. Great run Hebron, gonna be very hard to beat that musically.

Yeah, this happens in quite often in a few shows, there should be no problems with it. You see it a lot when drum majors have solos and they still need coverage of that part of the field.

Marcus: Great pre-show leading into this massive opening hit! Woodwind technique right of the bat, super clean. Sounds are super controlled with nobody playing outside the texture, but still quite loud. Nice flute duet! Followed by a bunch of individual small section showcases, most of them were really good, a few muddy brass moments. Now we have an impressive showing of the Marcus percussion. Snares, followed by quad feature… And then a bunch of impressive random things happening in the pit. Great battery break, into the amazing timpani solo! The percussion break has to be my favorite moment of this show. Another great run from this brass quartet, super warm sounds, followed by a great flautist, into the (West Side Story Symphonic Dances?!?!) ballad hit. Really enjoy how the final set of this show is staged. Build into the last few seconds of the show is super creative creatively done, and I love the slow down. Great job Marcus.

The Woodlands: Starting up the show with a bang! Super unified, lower body work right off the bat. Really enjoy these fun uniforms. First major impact was super balanced. The woodwind feature is super technically, impressive, and very audible. Not a huge fan of how the field is staged around like minute two of the show. Definitely a super fun show, taking jazziest of the day for sure. Nice buildup in the ballad, with some halftime marching. Few trumpets sticking out of the texture during the impact, but overall great ballad. Nice styling of some of these jazz rhythms. Brass tonguing feature went well this afternoon! Shout out to this soprano sax soloist! Ending felt a bit shaky, but that is some crazy difficult content at the end. What a fun show. Great job The Woodlands, super entertaining.

Vandegrift: What a powerful opening from this group. Despite what happened yesterday, y’all had incredible resilience and came back for an outstanding performance. Wonderful flugel soloist to start the show, with a great display of woodwind tone alongside. Right into some great triple tongue work from the brass. This show has outstanding soloist all around. Visually in sync at the end of the opener, great job. Really rich sounds coming from the trombone small ensemble, one of my favorite parts of the show. Good finish to the ballad, and straight into a clarinet solo thats super technically impressive. More super in-sync runs from the brass, into WW runs. A few slight discrepancies in the ensemble visual, during this challenging drill section at the end… but again, great performance, great effect, and outstanding performance!

Coppell: Really enjoyed hearing the flute for like a full minute during mic check, great player! More Scheherazade!!!! Wow, y’all have a great powerful and balanced sound, and HOLY MELLOS!!! WW features in the beginning were really exposed, but great execution. On the stream, the pit was covering up the jam session impact, unsure if that translates in-dome. Overall, I feel like this group does a really good job with control. Music in the ballad made me feel like I’m in a scene where I should be riding a dragon or something, beautiful stuff. Cool quad and snare feature. Overall, although there’s a lot of small ensemble work in the show, it doesn’t distract from being a marching show. Another shout out to the flute soloist, wicked talented. Great job Coppell!

Pearland: I really enjoy this tarp surrounding the field. I’m sure it’s a logistical nightmare, but it adds a layer of depth to the field right off the get-go. Great job from both of the mello and flute small ensemble at the beginning. The evolution of the first few sets is really cool to watch from the squares the lines to the big wave. Drum Major looks like they’re having a lot of fun. Dang, there’s a lot of you, but it’s actually incredibly clean. Total visual ensemble package is quite nice. How did I never notice y’all had a cymbal line?!?! Before the backfield playing, was sort of confused about the musical direction we were going, but the lead into the hit in the ballad was quite nice. Great control of the crescendo and release here. Really cool effect to have everyone pile in on the one guard member. Looks like y’all were sprinting in the closer, but still retained the form. Great powerful chord to end the closer, great showing Pearland!

Cy-Fair: Excited to see y’all in finals! Right off the rip, y’all are bringing some serious power into these chords at the beginning. I don’t think the stream is doing the effect of these props justice, I feel like I’ve seen them look better on a different recording. However, I always enjoyed how they lineup with where the sound is on the field in that secondary opening section. I enjoy the shimmering mirror circles the guard holds. Some great playing from the French horn soloist! Great exposed front ensemble moment after the French horn solo. Oboe shredding during his solo! Visually, a great way to end the show, nice!

Cedar Ridge: Thematically, I think this might be my favorite show of the finals spread. Great brass features near the beginning of the show, really highlights these strong players. I think having the red sheets over the guard and front ensemble players is such a cool visual touch. Enjoy this ensembles balanced approach to full ensemble moments. Just a bit of fluff in the percussion feature going into the ballad. This whole show kind of gives Crown 2015 Inferno. Always enjoy hearing this Oboe solo. I love how much the effect of the show changes from these simple, red and black sheets being taken on and off. The use of Pines in the closer was super fitting, but I was left wanting more trombone!!! Overall, great performance, and really enjoy the drill writing for this show. Good job!

Seven Lakes: Good job making state finals! At first glance, really enjoy when uniforms don’t have to be exactly the same with the different colored capes(?!?!). Opening hit was fantastic, into a really beautiful opening set. After that, ride into some impressive, woodwind technique, and tonguing feature for the brass. Balance seems a bit off after the features, but the full ensemble moments afterward were right back to being locked in. Stream zoomed into the props, and really enjoying the detail put into these. Great ballad hit! Overall, top to bottom really enjoy the composition for this show, but I’m also just a sucker for Scheherazade. The dark and powerful tones coming out of this ensemble at the end are just super fun to listen to great job again. I know this show was fun to march.

VERY Flower Mound!!