BOA Conroe Regional Schedule- Oct. 3rd

[principalagent]

But the tiebreaking process was done incorrectly and Churchill should have won it. Therefore, Churchill and Duncanville were named co-Bronze medalists.

[whitewing09]

A few things to note about The Woodlands' somewhat lower than expected ensemble music score. I feel obligated to address it, because I was the one gushing about their music performance earlier: 1.) The recordings we're going off of are not the best quality, although they aren't bad either. It's possible that even though they sound technically great, the quality of the sound isn't quite up there yet. 2.) The last performance I heard from them (last week) was with a metronome. It's possible (actually, given all the tempo and time signature changes in The Woodlands' music book this year, likely) that the music doesn't click as well without it. 3.) When I listened to that Woodlands recording, I listened to it from the perspective of somebody who's very knowledgeable about wind playing, and a little less so about percussion. Chris Harris, who judged ensemble music performance in prelims, is a big percussion guy, and I have to say, I tend to disagree the most with percussion guys when it comes to music performance judging, probably because I have a different background than them. That's not to say they're wrong, it's just something I've noticed every year I've been involved in this activity.

 

Oh, how I wish there were videos!

As someone who actually knows close to nothing about music, I'm curious about your perspective on how a wind specialist and drum specialist evaluate bands differently (which aspect of musicality is valued more by each, etc).

[Rubisco]

It's mostly a matter of focus. People tend to focus on what they feel most comfortable with. So, for instance, a percussion specialist might focus on rhythmic accuracy and notice more issues related to that. Frankly, there's also some ignorance involved. I can't tell you the number of times that a percussion specialist has complained to me about how useless a judge's music tapes were because the judge either A.) Mostly ignored the percussion or B.) Didn't have anything remotely insightful to say about it. It probably works both ways. It also helps explain why other contests (like DCI) go out of their way to really separate the different groups in their rubrics.

 

Also, I want to emphasize that I have literally no idea what went on in the particular case I addressed. It was pure speculation.

[Rubisco]

Did anybody catch Westfield early in the morning? I was hoping for a little bit more of an immediate resurgence after Calima took over, but things do take time.

[takigan]

7 bands had penalties in prelims:

Bwood - 0.3
Morton Ranch - 0.4
Clear Lake - 0.5
Cy-Fair - 0.1
Keller - 0.5
Spring - 0.2
Langham Creek - 0.5

...that's pretty unusual.  Austin had 3 (very windy, shorter shows),
McAllen had 4 (rainy, also shorter shows).  More than one regional this
year didn't have any (Bowling Green, OH & Monroeville, PA to name
2).

To have 7 on a clear day with little wind and ideal show lengths is pretty unusual.

[knoxisawesome348]

For everyone that was wondering about why College Park didn't make finals, look at the visual GE scoring. They were 7th overall in music, 12th overall in visual, 7th in music GE...... and 24th in VGE. 5 of the 7 judges had them in finals. 

[Rubisco]

Yeah, I saw that. What a shame. I find it hard to believe they were 24th in VGE. Makes me want videos even more!

[Rubisco]

How far along were the groups at Conroe? I just listened to the most recent football game recording of TWHS (the game they had to go to instead of finals), and they stopped after their ballad, which is surprising to me, and also frustrating, because I'm still waiting to hear whether or not they're actually doing Pink Floyd music. I want to know whether I started a false rumor. Heh. Also, the quality of the recording was awful, so don't even bother with it. You could barely hear anything, although the battery in the ballad (which was pretty much all I could hear) did not sound very in sync.

[takigan]

I'd say roughly 1/3 of the bands still don't have their complete UIL cut of the show performance ready yet... Which is about typical actually.

[Rubisco]

Was that true of finals? I've gone to Conroe/Houston most years, and most groups typically have at least some sort of closer on the field. A notable exception is Marcus back in 2011. They stopped after their ballad and still dominated a really stacked contest. Kind of par for the course for a group like Marcus.

[takigan]

I would agree that most (2/3) of the prelims groups have at least "some sort" of closer.  But 1/3 is still like 10 groups, which I think is fair number to say don't have a "complete" show.  Some schools probably hid it well with some kind of tag ending.

I'd say all but a couple in finals had their whole show out.  But this is what used to be "week 1 BOA" (with Arlington on "week 2").  The years Houston was on week 2, pretty much everybody had a full working show.