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BOA Houston 2019


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I can also imagine this was a pretty bad loss for Cy-fair as well considering last year they beat half of the finalists and have been a pretty solid contestant to make finals. I haven't seen their show this year but they were beaten by both Tompkins and Seven Lakes.

CFISD as a whole is seeing some shifting of strong groups. I wouldn't believe these results were real if in 2016 you told me that's what they'd be this year.

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BOA Houston was AWESOME!

 

Top 4 were pretty clearly above the rest in my opinion, with reagan way out in front. A case could be made for Clear Brook to be in this group also as they beat Woodlands Westwood and Westlake in captions. 

 

Reagan - Holy....I have never heard a high school band sound this loud. They were twice as loud as any other band. Louder than drum corps even. The whole show just has a swagger to it. I loved it. Will challenge for BOA SA gold. 

 

Woodlands - Not my cup of tea as a show. They are not as loud as they have been in years past, though maybe by design. The music stood out from other finalists because of how closely related to the source material it was. I think this show will grow on me by the end of the season. 

 

Westwood - They are so good! Wow, the brass especially. They hace some really great small ensemble moments as well. i think this show may stall out as other groups become cleaner, but I think would challenge for BOA SA finals. 

 

Westlake - A big step up for them from last year. They have been on a quick growth back up the last couple of years. The props in this show and the multiple uses of them is so cool. I think this show is a little dirtier than the other 3, but has a little more potential than westwood. 

 

Clear brook was awesome as well! 

 

It was SO HOT during prelims toward the last block. You could see it on the kids in each of the bands in the last few slots, even reagan. The kids all powered through some pretty amazing performances regardless. 

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Just saw a video or Reagan and HOLY COW was it good! Thanks to their amazing drill writing and almost 90 member guard, they don’t need props to convey a visual theme. The show definitely feels very similar to last year BUT I think it is even better. I have a feeling that this will be the show that people wish went to Nats by the end of the season.

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Before it gets yanked, there is a "not reagan band" video from Saturday night floating around. Highly recommended viewing if you haven't seen it, or even if you have.

 

Vista Ridge also has a video up of their exhibition at the VR Marching Festival. Probably not going to be yanked as it is their official channel I believe.

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Before it gets yanked, there is a "not reagan band" video from Saturday night floating around. Highly recommended viewing if you haven't seen it, or even if you have.

 

Vista Ridge also has a video up of their exhibition at the VR Marching Festival. Probably not going to be yanked as it is their official channel I believe.

 

Holy COW Reagan! That show is going to be a monster by the end of the season. I'm really digging their style these last few years. Nothing against 'One Love', but the next time they go to GN they need to bring a show like this or Loop. 

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Holy COW Reagan! That show is going to be a monster by the end of the season. I'm really digging their style these last few years. Nothing against 'One Love', but the next time they go to GN they need to bring a show like this or Loop. 

 

Purely my opinion, and there is a post I made earlier before the scores were announced where I predicted they may break 90. I wasn't far off.

 

That show was a late season show (not end of season show). It was a full show, polished, and clean. So far, as of October 5, no show we have seen at a BOA contest is particularly close. By San Antonio that won't be true of course. I am strongly of the opinion their score was NOT inflated, it really was that good musically and visually. I think they were shooting for beating CTJ's earliest season 90+ score, as there is a bit of a rivalry there, but I am absolutely speculating on that point, and not trying to open a can of worms.

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CyFair school district is the 3rd largest in Texas and shows no sign of slowing down. Many of the affluent neighborhoods are where the new beautiful schools are built or will soon be built. Neighborhoods where strong band programs like Langham Creek, CyFair, and CyFalls are changing because of this sprawl. I imagine schools in Katy ISD will soon be in the same boat.

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Reagan’s show felt very very complete to me. I’m absolutely shocked that they are so clean and complete so early while also preparing for the Macy’s Parade this year. I wonder how the show will progress or if anything will be added in the next month. Will it peak early? Doubt it, because it is a fantastic and versatile show with tons of demand and effect. I do feel that the color story is oddly similar to last year with the gold and purple/red. And the curvy and circular drill doesn’t do much to differentiate the two. Both are phenomenal products, but I couldn’t not compare while watching.

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Before it gets yanked, there is a "not reagan band" video from Saturday night floating around. Highly recommended viewing if you haven't seen it, or even if you have.

 

Vista Ridge also has a video up of their exhibition at the VR Marching Festival. Probably not going to be yanked as it is their official channel I believe.

Before it gets yanked, there is also a “not the woodlands high school band” video from saturday night floating in the same place. Would recommend watching that as well.

 

In terms of Reagan- I wasn’t incredibly impressed by their show because of the similarity to last year. It also seemed like they were getting around “park and bark” by having woodwinds march while brass played and brass march while woodwinds played, almost giving the illusion that they marched and played their hits. My other gripe is with all the bands, including Reagan that march during big full band hits, but are marching in half time, making it much easier to march and play.

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Before it gets yanked, there is also a “not the woodlands high school band” video from saturday night floating in the same place. Would recommend watching that as well.

 

In terms of Reagan- I wasn’t incredibly impressed by their show because of the similarity to last year. It also seemed like they were getting around “park and bark” by having woodwinds march while brass played and brass march while woodwinds played, almost giving the illusion that they marched and played their hits. My other gripe is with all the bands, including Reagan that march during big full band hits, but are marching in half time, making it much easier to march and play.

I think given the difficulty of their book, I thought Reagan had tons of difficulty. These days its more than just marching. There is tons of body movement while playing. 

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Just watched the Reagan video. Definitely, there's a depth to that pit and synthesizer sound that you really don't get in a noisy football recording. I think this show is pretty much par for the course for Reagan. While they sound and look great for this point in the season, I don't think it's quite as clean as last year's show was around this time, but I think it's more difficult, which ultimately should be beneficial, because there is more room for growth. Speaking of difficulty, I think Reagan has struck a pretty good balance this year. It's not as demanding as what CTJ or TWHS are putting out, but it has its impressive moments. The drill design continues to move forward. There is so much more variety in the forms than what we got from them just a couple years ago. Reagan is slowly but surely creeping back up to the visual ingenuity that defined the program in the early naughts. I like the second half a lot more than the first, but that might be because I'm not as familiar with the second half. Once again, they make great use of that massive guard/dance team combo, filling the field with flags in a very Broken Arrow-ish ballad moment, with flags swirling around the perimeter of the field. I love how the little maze of rings opens up for the line of guard girls. That pyramid drill at the end with the circle on top is very reminiscent of a drill moment from their 2004 show, Synergy. Made me a little nostalgic! As I said before, I'm not as big of a fan of the music book this year. Part of the reason for that is the way the music seems to stop and then start up again repeatedly. There's a bit of discontinuity. I'm thinking it was probably done for audience reaction. Anyway, it's an excellent show, and should be in the hunt for a medal at San Antonio.

 

Watching TWHS again, I think this is probably the best drill Vanderkolff has written for them since 2013, and it's clear that they're going for a show that's more like something he would write for the Bluecoats (Session 44, anyone?). It's very elegant and nice to look at, although it still lacks a wow moment, besides the big hit of the ballad. That said, I never once feel like I'm in New York City. They need to add some props to make it feel like they're actually "On the Town." Also, there's a bit of a side 2 obsession in the drill. Side 1 seems a bit neglected at times. I think having more props might help fill in the space. Musically, I actually don't miss the power chords as much as I thought I would. But those more kinetic melodies could be more of an ensemble effort, could be fuller, more sonorous. I'm excited to see where this one ends up. I appreciate it when a group tries new things, which TWHS does often.

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Just watched the Reagan video. Definitely, there's a depth to that pit and synthesizer sound that you really don't get in a noisy football recording. I think this show is pretty much par for the course for Reagan. While they sound and look great for this point in the season, I don't think it's quite as clean as last year's show was around this time, but I think it's more difficult, which ultimately should be beneficial, because there is more room for growth. Speaking of difficulty, I think Reagan has struck a pretty good balance this year. It's not as demanding as what CTJ or TWHS are putting out, but it has its impressive moments. The drill design continues to move forward. There is so much more variety in the forms than what we got from them just a couple years ago. Reagan is slowly but surely creeping back up to the visual ingenuity that defined the program in the early naughts. I like the second half a lot more than the first, but that might be because I'm not as familiar with the second half. Once again, they make great use of that massive guard/dance team combo, filling the field with flags in a very Broken Arrow-ish ballad moment, with flags swirling around the perimeter of the field. I love how the little maze of rings opens up for the line of guard girls. That pyramid drill at the end with the circle on top is very reminiscent of a drill moment from their 2004 show, Synergy. Made me a little nostalgic! As I said before, I'm not as big of a fan of the music book this year. Part of the reason for that is the way the music seems to stop and then start up again repeatedly. There's a bit of discontinuity. I'm thinking it was probably done for audience reaction. Anyway, it's an excellent show, and should be in the hunt for a medal at San Antonio.

 

Watching TWHS again, I think this is probably the best drill Vanderkolff has written for them since 2013, and it's clear that they're going for a show that's more like something he would write for the Bluecoats (Session 44, anyone?). It's very elegant and nice to look at, although it still lacks a wow moment, besides the big hit of the ballad. That said, I never once feel like I'm in New York City. They need to add some props to make it feel like they're actually "On the Town." Also, there's a bit of a side 2 obsession in the drill. Side 1 seems a bit neglected at times. I think having more props might help fill in the space. Musically, I actually don't miss the power chords as much as I thought I would. But those more kinetic melodies could be more of an ensemble effort, could be fuller, more sonorous. I'm excited to see where this one ends up. I appreciate it when a group tries new things, which TWHS does often.

TWHS definitely needs to work on volume throughout the whole show. We saw in their last hold that they can play loud while not marching, but they need to figure out how to translate that to the entirety of the show. The opening hit that the full ensemble plays is really lacking in volume right now. As for their props, they had some obstacles that they ran into last week and I’m sure that they will contribute more to the GE of the show next time we see them. It definitively has a Bluecoats-esque vibe to it compared to what Vanderkolff usually writes for them, and I think that’s something that they really needed. Now they just need drum corps volume to go with it.

 

Also we’ll see how long Dan lasts on YouTube this year.

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In terms of Reagan- I wasn’t incredibly impressed by their show because of the similarity to last year. It also seemed like they were getting around “park and bark” by having woodwinds march while brass played and brass march while woodwinds played, almost giving the illusion that they marched and played their hits. My other gripe is with all the bands, including Reagan that march during big full band hits, but are marching in half time, making it much easier to march and play.

 

Reagan is slowly but surely creeping back up to the visual ingenuity that defined the program in the early naughts.

Have people forgetting that Reagan WON the Visual caption in 2015, and 2018 at San Antonio AND was second to only Avon in 2017? Pretty sure they know what they’re doing and have pretty much crept back. Js
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Have people forgetting that Reagan WON the Visual caption in 2015, and 2018 at San Antonio AND was second to only Avon in 2017? Pretty sure they know what they’re doing and have pretty much crept back. Js

 

Oh, no, we haven't. We just know the difference between visual performance and visual effect. Watch Reagan 2004, or really any of the shows from that era. Then watch Reagan 2015. Then report back.  :lol: 

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Have people forgetting that Reagan WON the Visual caption in 2015, and 2018 at San Antonio AND was second to only Avon in 2017? Pretty sure they know what they’re doing and have pretty much crept back. Js

 

Don't mix visual performance with visual ingenuity. You can perform not so well written drill very well and get a good performance score. Where the suffering in the BOA world comes in is visual GE. Reagan won VGE in 2018, but not in 15, 16, or 17. Also, check your numbers for 2017 - I see 6th place visual performance and 4th place VGE.

 

So VGE placements: 2015 5th, 2016 9th, 2017 4th, 2018 1st. Throw in the 12th place finish at GN's in 2016, and I think that starts to support Rubisco's point very well. Take it as a compliment as it was intended, not a slight.

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Oh, no, we haven't. We just know the difference between visual performance and visual effect. Watch Reagan 2004, or really any of the shows from that era. Then watch Reagan 2015. Then report back.  :lol: 

I’m just quoting this to emphasize it to everyone. For those youngin’s who haven’t watched early 2000’s Reagan, stop what you’re doing now and watch.

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Take it as a compliment as it was intended, not a slight.

I am welcome to my opinion and can take things however I want without a lesson from you, thank you very much. If you’ve listened to visual tapes from judges, you would understand that effect comes FROM performance, and that good design done at 8/10 is as good as bad design done 10/10. If you don’t like that then we can agree to disagree

 

And for the record, I am an aspiring music educator with no connection to any school that is mentioned in these forums so I take nothing personally nor have a dog in the race but to defend my own opinions

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