2011 Marching Band Season post--already....

[klj27]

I had my friend texting me with updates from championships while I was at our campout. I was dissapointed to hear they came in 4th in prelims until I found out they scored an 84 and the top band had an 88. Great scores! We also ended up with a horrible performance time (11th out of 27) while the other top scorers performed much later. We have a great performance time for finals and will go on in 20 minutes. I hope they do well!

I just want to go to bed but have at least three more hours until I will be able to pick her up at school.

 

[klj27]

I just got a text that they are taking the field now!! Sending pixie dust to my favorite band and hoping they "Escape to Insanity"!

 

[golfgal]

Just home from the game. We lost in the last minute by a field goal. First loss against the rival team in 18 years!

What a show the band put on!!! Holy Cow!!! No fly-bys, but there were fireworks! DH is downloading the video to Youtube so I will post when it is up.

What a fun tradition for the kids (and spectators)!

 

[m&m's mom]

Looks like they had a great run in prelims - onto finals! Great job!

Thanks. 2nd place and wom 2 captions - although I still don't know what a caption is.

 

[mickeymo]

Thanks. 2nd place and wom 2 captions - although I still don't know what a caption is.

Simply, it's the highest point total in a category - General Effect, Visual or Music. They're awarded by class after prelims & also at finals. General Effect is weighted more = 60%, so that's why other other school could win the class with one caption. That's about as much as I understand the scoring system.

I'll say it again, I really do like your show! It's beautiful, effortless and elegant. The band makes the difficult music sound so simple. The guard & props guys' costumes are spectacular. I am so thankful I did not chaperone our band at BOA Houston and had the chance to see your band.

 

[klj27]

We came in 3rd in the MSBA Class AA Finals. We lost to Monrovia by.3 points and to Taylor (of KY I believe) by only 1.6 points. What a close competition.

We also won best general effect and best visual performance.

 

[jen0610]

Well Avon rebounded from their ISSMA lose to win at the BOA competition in Indy. Carmel came in 2nd. Maybe Avon got the kinks worked out and will go onto their 4th national title.

 

[mickeymo]

Well Avon rebounded from their ISSMA lose to win at the BOA competition in Indy. Carmel came in 2nd. Maybe Avon got the kinks worked out and will go onto their 4th national title.

I saw that on a texas band website, they were following it with interest. This will be a great weekend to be a spectator at Grand Nationals!

The BOA San Antonio Super regional was this past weekend. The band who placed second, The Woodlands H.S. is creating a lot of buzz about challenging Avon this year. Texas will be represented by only three bands this year - Spring, Claudia Taylor Johnson & The Woodlands. I've seen CTJ & TWHS's shows. While The Woodlands show is very good technically & musically, it isn't my favorite. I know they've finished their show and made changes since I saw it a few weeks ago. Hopefully, someone from the txband website will be live blogging this weekend! Our band will be playing at a football game so we can't order the webcast.

 

[916chipndale]

our daughters band won group 2 open for the new jersey state championship there was only 1 other band but they beat them by 7 points. they also beat a couple of the bigger bands. this week is ussba nationals at the naval academy.

OT-golfgal, are you a member on citydata? sorry if it sounds weird but saw someone with the same name

 

[marcyinPA]

Ok...it took several hours to download this to Youtube, but here it is! I hope the link works!

This is the bands "special" show...the first part is their field show for this season, but the ending is a tag-on, especially for the last "rival" football game.

The man who plays Taps is a graduate of my DS's high school and a WWII veteran. He has played Taps at over 2700 military funerals, and will be going with the band to perform in Hawaii.

The Proud to be an American song has a funny story to it. You may hear booing from the other side. That is because their tag-on was the same song, but our band outplayed them by about 100 miles! They didn't have anything special like flags and pyrotechnics... Anyway, neither band knew what each other was doing- it is always a secret.

I hope you enjoy- I know it is long- but worth it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueSRDomnQfY&feature=share

 

[golfgal]

Marcy-your band uniforms remind me of the Wizard of Oz for some reason . We don't have any baton twirlers in the high school bands around here so that is always fun to see. Some of the college bands have them.

 

[marcyinPA]

Marcy-your band uniforms remind me of the Wizard of Oz for some reason . We don't have any baton twirlers in the high school bands around here so that is always fun to see. Some of the college bands have them.

Thanks...I think? They are actually exact replicas of the Coldstream Guards. Our uniforms, bearskins, and belts come from England. In fact, we have several real bearskins that the band officers wear, and we were granted special permission to have them. Our band has a long history with the Guards.

In person, they are quite impressive. Maybe that didn't come across in a video. At any rate, they may not be a "show band", but I am really proud of them.

 

[mickeymo]

If anyone is in marching band withdrawal, tonight at 7pm there will be a video webcast & live blog of the Texas UIL State 4A Marching Band Championships.

www.txbands.com.

 

[m&m's mom]

DD's band at SA got 4th place out of 60 so that's pretty good. I am just kinda glad marching season is mostly over. DD's needs to concentrate of her grades now.

 

[golfgal]

Grand Nationals are this weekend too

 

[Kat77]

If anyone is in marching band withdrawal, tonight at 7pm there will be a video webcast & live blog of the Texas UIL State 4A Marching Band Championships.

www.txbands.com.

Thanks! We've been watching.

 

[Kirby]

If anyone is in marching band withdrawal, tonight at 7pm there will be a video webcast & live blog of the Texas UIL State 4A Marching Band Championships.

www.txbands.com.

Thanks for the link. It was fun watching!

 

[KiminChicago]

Wish I could have watched, but we had our first Symphonic band concert tonight. Can anyone please explain to me what the difference is between a concert band, a symphonic band and wind ensemble? DS is in symphonic band but the rest of the freshmen are in concert band, and he's also in wind ensemble (which just appears to be a smaller version of the symphonic band ). I've asked DS about it, but all I get out of him lately are grunts. Three of the four electives he's taking next year are symphonic winds, wind ensemble and music theory (and I don't have any information on what any of that means either, I was just grateful that I was even told which electives he picked!).

At any rate, they were all wonderful. Even the concert band was light years better than the 8th grade band last year -- it's amazing how much the freshmen have improved since their last 8th grade concert back in the spring.

 

[Pembo]

Here the difference between the bands is ability. Our wind ensemble is the top band and they play more difficult music. Typically you are only in one of those bands unless you play two instruments and then are placed in each band on a different instrument. We also have a two jazz bands, again grouped by ability. Ability was judged by taped auditions submitted to the director. He gave them a sheet of music that they played and recorded. Hope that helps....


Ds's director is also a comp judge. He judged this past weekend and told the band of one group he had to judge. Their theme was 9-11. At some point in the show the band formed the two towers and then they fell. The members all fell to the ground and laid there in silence. Then a lone trumpeter started taps to which the whole band joined in. The director said it was quite different and he really didn't know what to say. My first thought was that the parents of that band had to watch that show over and over.

I'm grateful we had an upbeat show. It would be rather awkward to cheer for a show about the twin towers?!

 

[golfgal]

Wish I could have watched, but we had our first Symphonic band concert tonight. Can anyone please explain to me what the difference is between a concert band, a symphonic band and wind ensemble? DS is in symphonic band but the rest of the freshmen are in concert band, and he's also in wind ensemble (which just appears to be a smaller version of the symphonic band ). I've asked DS about it, but all I get out of him lately are grunts. Three of the four electives he's taking next year are symphonic winds, wind ensemble and music theory (and I don't have any information on what any of that means either, I was just grateful that I was even told which electives he picked!).

At any rate, they were all wonderful. Even the concert band was light years better than the 8th grade band last year -- it's amazing how much the freshmen have improved since their last 8th grade concert back in the spring.

Here the Wind Ensemble is our top band but they are also a smaller band, play more symphony type music and they only have one or two instruments per part-so one 1st alto saxophone, for example. We also have symphonic band which is larger but plays symphony music as well. We then have 6 concert bands for mostly freshmen and sophomores and they are pretty big and play more "band" music-usually music that is a "section" long-where you don't have different movements, etc.

For our kids, marching band is their fall band class so they don't participate in the fall concert. Jazz band is also starting up in a couple weeks.