UIL 6A State Marching Contest 2025 (Nov 3-4)

[Tubalord11]

Prosper-great sound from the horn soloists, huge opening sound. Really controlled sound from everyone. A couple people out of form in cover downs in pods/triangle shapes. Great sounds from brass after the WW quartet, very mature playing from everyone, very minor balance issues. English horn mic not working :(,

Great blend from WW’s with the flute solo in the ballad. They need to fix the micing bc FE coming across way too much. They got EH mic working, yay, great sound closing out the ballad. Great job again mello soloist. Large circular form is very clean, great perc feature. Really solid runs from WWs during their feature. Much stronger form controls in big rectangular shape, them running on the horizontal lines is so cool, great effect. Huge closing sound, little over the top from low brass but it’s probably mic issues. Really strong start to finals, congrats again to Prosper on their first 6A state finals performance, really felt like their best run of the season! 

[Tubalord11]

Dripping Springs- great work from percussion getting us started, WWs sound incredible! Great sound from brass, visual are consistent across the board, very clean circular form. Brass feature is very strong, trumpet tone is so clear for high schoolers, wow. Love the C-net feature, brass injections add lots of effect. Little bit of articulation discrepancy in low brass closing out the second mvmnt, very minor. Fulgle horns sound amazing, very pretty sounds from flute soloist. I hear u mellos, great tone in the ballad, ritardando handled very well. Great work from keyboard soloists. Bones and soprano sax feat was killer, super effective use of props at the end, great curve forms. I really felt the theme throughout, very joyful music. Amazing DS, and congrats on your first 6A state finals!! 

[Tubalord11]

Seven Lakes- super intriguing pre show body work, really sets the theme, those uniforms are so sick. Really solid back field playing. HUGE opening sound, omg. Little bit of timing issues in the lean. WW’s sound amazing in their feature. High brass feat very solid, sounds consistent for the most part. Great form control coming out of the big H looking form. Cover downs in large pods are clean. Huge circular form very clean. Super professional sounds from sax and flute soloists in the ballad, love their arrangement of this piece. Huge sound from the ensemble, compressing form was so tight. Wow, that cut off. Super strong brass and WW’s features. Form control on the sideways moving curves very clean.  Low brass, don’t push the sound too much. Lines moving between each other very well. Just a wall of sound to close it out. Congrats 7L on your back to back state finals appearance! 

[lost]

31 minutes ago, dullbanddad said:

TMC wasn't the beginning of the season it's more mid season. Vandy also fell way short at areas last week.  Either way, 9th was way off IMO and cost Vista a top 5

Way to double down on a weirdly incorrect point. This guy really thinks bands can’t lock in and rehearse and improve. He really just doesn’t believe in the concept of improvement and it’s really silly.

[Tubalord11]

Cy-Fair- super effective opening drill. Really controlled opening sound, great job with the crescendo and decrescendos. Great linear form in the brass. Beautiful WW feature. Great work with the crossing lines. Cover downs very clean. Very nice rifles. Really cool use of props in this groovy 3/4 section. Lovely horn solo, ensemble sounds great behind him and the C-net solo. Really feeling the theme in the ballad. Super cool body work in this very clean perc feature. Yes saber. Oboe soloists, such emotion. Love the flag work in this triumph finish. Great form control. Wow, such an effective ending. I see why they made finals, bc that was insane. Amazing job Cy-Fair!!! 

[Tubalord11]

Cedar Ridge- very tense feeling in the opener. I do like how they are back in traditional uniforms instead all the red cloaks like at Austin ( I think) okay drumline, very solid runs. Lower body work very together. Drill is clean, rotating circle in the eye very effective. Love how the WW’s layer on each other. Very clean high brass feat, wow. Great job battery,  basses are nails. Great sounds from Oboe and Euph soloist. Their ensemble sound has come such a long way. Flag work so effective around the band during the ballad hit. More perc, giving it their all, they sound so clean. Great use of the claw props during the sax solo, who sounded fantastic. WW’s killing those technical runs.  Watch those curves in the u shape. Rotating circles are strong. Great ending hit, eye form is great. Wonderful job CR!! 

[Tubalord11]

Pearland-wave-like body works on the tarp adds some nice GE. Great sounds mellos, love me some Waterfront. Great job flutes. Pods keeping form as they move. Large curve is very clean. Great opening sound, mellos!! Watch the tone brass. Great sax soloist, wow their drill is mesmerizing, and so clean. Great attacks on the articulation. Okay FE. Flute and C-net ensemble sound so beautiful. They are using the field so well. Huge hit, guard running around them reminded of RRs 19 ballad, just so so effective. They do a great job with the Edge part of the show in the drill, lots of pulling away as they approach the tarps. Jazz run was so cool, rotating circle, I mean there’s so much going on in this ending. Ending form so clean, big sound. Wow what a show, amazing job Pearland!!! 

[Tubalord11]

Vandegrift:- opening body work very effective. Jsut such mature sounds from the English horn, so so beautiful, and the WW’s with her. Huge opening sound, some holes in the form though, maybe sick people? Watch that 7th brass, final chord is great though bass trombone pushing a lil to much. Trumpet soloists is insane, and WW’s sound fantastic behind him. Synth to loud, here, hello brass!! High brass feat insane, omg those flute runs, amazing execution. And then it’s a wall of sound. Amazing form control ending 2nd movement. WW’s sound so magical in the ballad, great sound effects in the back. Trombones, wow. Such a mature sound. Watch the cover downs. Huge arch form is so clean as it moves into these curved arches. Ballad hit is masterful. Yeah too much synth, thinking it’s mics. C-net so effective, such a mysterious sound, go battery!!  WW’s killing those passages. Wow, last hit left me speechless. Despite what happened yesterday, they just did that, unreal. Congrats Vandy!!!  

[Tubalord11]

The Woodlands-supper effective attacks in that killer soprano sax solo. Great sounds from brass in this opening section. Yeah sax, jsut insane, huge ending sound. WW’s, that tone and style is so fitting of the theme, dark but groovy, I like it. Great handling of the tempo change. Go C-net! Yeah, this is classic Woodlands right here. I hear your trombones!!! Loved that section. Pods look great, like this front ensemble writing with the trombone soloist. Sleep guard with our flutes 😴

Euph sounds are so mature. Yeah I’m in love with this show. I’m not fully understanding the theme, but I get it some. Beautiful hit in the ballad, great ensemble control. Here we go low brass, get it trumpets! Great work sax ensemble. High brass feature almost there, got a little loose at the end, still really solid. Perc with big slides despite their size. Okay rifles and flags, I see u. Sucks this is multi cam but ik they killing it. Watch those attacks brass during WW feature. Classic W in drill, so clean. Huge and clean ending sound. Fantastic performance Woodlands! 

[Tubalord11]

Vista Ridge- love the visuals with the Swan Lake in the start. Wall of sound, wow brass. Great WW sound in the lacramosa, okay perc. Saxs killing the duet. Good attacks from brass in WW feat. Brass feature was nails, cover downs very clean. FE, holy cow, those runs are crazy. Great form control in the curves. Moving curve very clean going into the ballad. Horn soloist, amazing tone. Great sounds in the ballad, little bit of discrepancy in sounds from some of brass. Great perc feature. Flute solo, amazing. Huge sound going back to Lacaramosa and into Swan Lake. Saw some comments about recovery from something, didn’t see anything?? Amazing finish though, such a great show, amazing job VR! 

[Tubalord11]

Ronald Reagan-such cool pre show drill. Huge and clean opening hit, triangle form is clean. Trumpets are nails, good feat. They are killing this bent leg technique. Low brass, love it! Their form controls is very strong, okay bones! Super fun sax quartet. Again drill is so impressive. Great attacks from the brass during sax feat. Lovely flute duet into the ballad. Great sounds from the WWs, brass backfield playing handled very well. Some minor spacing issues in this big curve form. Again bones!! Flags in this massive ending is effective, watch the tone brass. Amazing performance RR!! 

[Tubalord11]

Flower Mound- don’t rely have a lot of words other than first place. I decided to sit back for this one but I mean it’s just crazy what they’re doing. Those horns in the opener, so professional sounding. That battery has some such a long way, I mean it’s just sooooo much cleaner than previous years. Their sound throughout has so much style, the inform change is sooo cool, and the ending with the prop moving, just GE all across the board. Soloists throughout are nails. Amazing job Flomo, can’t wait to see how yall do at Nats! 

[Tubalord11]

Here’s my preds as well 

State finals Preds: 

Flower Mound 

Hebron 

Vandegrift 

Marcus

Vista Ridge 

TW’s 

Ronald Reagan 

Cedar Ridge 

Pearland 

Coppell 

Cy-Fair

Dripping Springs 

7L

Prosper 

[Tubalord11]

Nothing crazy on recaps, yes VR drums in 9 is somewhat shocking, but it happens.

Congratulations again to all our 6A bands, I’m thinking we’re gonna have  5 in finals at Indy, and possibly bringing home Kevin!!! 

[TheSV-001Gamer]

The band with the biggest props should of won obviously we need a prop caption 

[db5454]

15 hours ago, dullbanddad said:

Vista at 9 in percussion is crazy. They took the percussion caption in every competition they were in this year until today 

That's because until today you didn't compete against Marcus  .  Just joking.  I saw Vista's show and their percussion was really good too.
I think this is 3 years in a row Marcus took best percussion at state.  Marcus percussion is a big deal every year going back many years.  IYKYK.  
All the finalst bands were great.  Some just pulled the whole thing together when it counted better than others.  Judging is always subjective but these guys doing the judging are professionals who's ability to judge music is better than 99.99999% of those of us commenting here.

This is my 9th year going to state with our school, sometimes the winner is dead obvious to everyone, sometimes the judges leave you scratching your head a little but the kids always do an amazing job closing it out and leaving it all out on the field for us.

[Tailgate88]

9 hours ago, Tubalord11 said:

Flower Mound- don’t rely have a lot of words other than first place. I decided to sit back for this one but I mean it’s just crazy what they’re doing. Those horns in the opener, so professional sounding. That battery has some such a long way, I mean it’s just sooooo much cleaner than previous years. Their sound throughout has so much style, the inform change is sooo cool, and the ending with the prop moving, just GE all across the board. Soloists throughout are nails. Amazing job Flomo, can’t wait to see how yall do at Nats! 

I told my daughter (former high school band kid but has not paid much attention for the past four years as she has been in college) “Stop what you are doing and come watch this.”  She missed the intro but after watching a few minutes she asked “Is this DCI?”  😂

[utee94]

Yeah I found Flower Mound's show to be pretty stunning.  Just all around wonderful.  I'll be surprised if it doesn't win BOA-SA, and I won't be surprised if it wins in Indy.

 

 

[RattlerDad]

This competition is so freaking hard.

Our final high schooler is a Reagan Senior mello, and we landed in our annual 7th spot.  Super humbled to have made it to state finals again, albeit for the final time.  

Our program has never finished higher than 5th, and we thought we had a shot this year.  However, when you look, feel, and hear these other bands, they are worthy of their accolades.  So. Very. Impressive.  

What's wild is when you stop and think about it, it sometimes feels like we are David to Goliath (FloMo, Hebron, Marcus, Vandy, TWHS, VR).  You can start to feel kind of bad about it, but then you realize, and appreciate, that you are the Goliath to other David's.  We have a great program.  You all have great programs.  

I am non-musical so I don't know my Euphonium from a hole in the ground, and could never comment about who deserves what.  Our bands are amazing.  These kids are amazing (tired, full of takis and hot fries, and somewhat smelly), but they give it all, and that is easy to get behind and support.

Go Band.

Two more contests in the hopper before we hang up our show shirts after 8 marvelous years (2013-2016, 2023-2026)!

[BlastFromThePast]

13 hours ago, BandDad74 said:

Yes.  Would love to see the full recaps from this 

Me too. Anyone out there have them? Wish those would be officially posted instead of just the ordinals recaps.

[utee94]

49 minutes ago, RattlerDad said:

This competition is so freaking hard.

Our final high schooler is a Reagan Senior mello, and we landed in our annual 7th spot.  Super humbled to have made it to state finals again, albeit for the final time.  

Our program has never finished higher than 5th, and we thought we had a shot this year.  However, when you look, feel, and hear these other bands, they are worthy of their accolades.  So. Very. Impressive.  

What's wild is when you stop and think about it, it sometimes feels like we are David to Goliath (FloMo, Hebron, Marcus, Vandy, TWHS, VR).  You can start to feel kind of bad about it, but then you realize, and appreciate, that you are the Goliath to other David's.  We have a great program.  You all have great programs.  

I am non-musical so I don't know my Euphonium from a hole in the ground, and could never comment about who deserves what.  Our bands are amazing.  These kids are amazing (tired, full of takis and hot fries, and somewhat smelly), but they give it all, and that is easy to get behind and support.

Go Band.

Two more contests in the hopper before we hang up our show shirts after 8 marvelous years (2013-2016, 2023-2026)!

For what it's worth I've really enjoyed your band's shows over the years.  They're always visually compelling, and so much fun to watch. And my kids in the Cedar Park band have had the absolute nicest things to say about the kids in the RR band!

Enjoy the rest, my oldest is a senior mello as well.  This part is bittersweet.  We'll see you in SA this weekend, hopefully both Friday and Saturday!

 

[BlastFromThePast]

11 hours ago, Tubalord11 said:

Nothing crazy on recaps, yes VR drums in 9 is somewhat shocking, but it happens.

Congratulations again to all our 6A bands, I’m thinking we’re gonna have  5 in finals at Indy, and possibly bringing home Kevin!!! 

Thanks for your play-by-play of all the shows (and @WanderingTraveler and @HagsTPT too, and others). Really missing the live blog team this year!

[Tubalord11]

I wanted to give one more shoutout to all the parents, fire teams, and especially the other bands who helped out with Vandegrift. The amount of content I’ve seen online from Vandy parents thanking everyone really just shows how strong band family is. To all Vandy students, I’mvery sorry about the incident, but I know you guys will continue to push on. It’s moments like these that remind me why I love this activity so much. 

[tubapop]

1 hour ago, RattlerDad said:

This competition is so freaking hard.

Our final high schooler is a Reagan Senior mello, and we landed in our annual 7th spot.  Super humbled to have made it to state finals again, albeit for the final time.  

Our program has never finished higher than 5th, and we thought we had a shot this year.  However, when you look, feel, and hear these other bands, they are worthy of their accolades.  So. Very. Impressive.  

What's wild is when you stop and think about it, it sometimes feels like we are David to Goliath (FloMo, Hebron, Marcus, Vandy, TWHS, VR).  You can start to feel kind of bad about it, but then you realize, and appreciate, that you are the Goliath to other David's.  We have a great program.  You all have great programs.  

I am non-musical so I don't know my Euphonium from a hole in the ground, and could never comment about who deserves what.  Our bands are amazing.  These kids are amazing (tired, full of takis and hot fries, and somewhat smelly), but they give it all, and that is easy to get behind and support.

Go Band.

Two more contests in the hopper before we hang up our show shirts after 8 marvelous years (2013-2016, 2023-2026)!

This is such an excellent and mature/wise take. All of our blessings are relative to others'. The 2nd richest man in the world is disappointed that he's not the first, but everyone else in the world would love to be in his financial shoes. 

I'm sure TWHS is frustrated with its perennial ~5th spot. I know the 8-14th bands are frustrated with the fact that it's a bit of a revolving door. Everyone has their successes and frustrations, and it's easy to forget that the 40+ bands at this competition are all the best of the best of the best. I just hope you have imparted some of your wisdom and perspective to your kid!

[Tubalord11]

2 hours ago, RattlerDad said:

This competition is so freaking hard.

Our final high schooler is a Reagan Senior mello, and we landed in our annual 7th spot.  Super humbled to have made it to state finals again, albeit for the final time.  

Our program has never finished higher than 5th, and we thought we had a shot this year.  However, when you look, feel, and hear these other bands, they are worthy of their accolades.  So. Very. Impressive.  

What's wild is when you stop and think about it, it sometimes feels like we are David to Goliath (FloMo, Hebron, Marcus, Vandy, TWHS, VR).  You can start to feel kind of bad about it, but then you realize, and appreciate, that you are the Goliath to other David's.  We have a great program.  You all have great programs.  

I am non-musical so I don't know my Euphonium from a hole in the ground, and could never comment about who deserves what.  Our bands are amazing.  These kids are amazing (tired, full of takis and hot fries, and somewhat smelly), but they give it all, and that is easy to get behind and support.

Go Band.

Two more contests in the hopper before we hang up our show shirts after 8 marvelous years (2013-2016, 2023-2026)!

Love this. In HS, our area always and still does take the same 4-5 bands each year. Is it because we worked less hard or because we were that much worse, no. They set up legacies for success that have continued still to this day, and while it can be frustrating, it's not about the quality of success from results, but the quantity of hours of hard work and dedication that really matter.