Vidal28

ANDDDDD, because I love watching great bands in late season, don't often have an opportunity to go to SA, I'm probably gonna have to add this one to the calendar haha

Curious to see where waxahachie ends up, played Hammersmith back in High school too and the nostalgia is strong there, so I'm a bit biased for them and it's a unique selection amongst the bands here this year, so that's very interesting too! Not the most played piece for sure

Oh yeah, in my very last bit of my post I said that CP was my pick as of now too haha I’m just thinking of Leander’s pathway to winning 3A as well, if they have a product similarly executed and as memorable as ‘19, they probably win and place pretty highly overall. I think both place above DB as of now.

If I were to bet, Leander plays the Grand Nats game pretty well, if their varied performance concepts and rep go hand in hand with their achievement, they can potentially repeat another 2019 showing and probably win the 3A Crown comfortably. Even then, I’m really curious what CP brings to the table and perhaps taking things to another gear than last year, I would pick them for the 3A crown out of the three if I had to pick now!

Which programs dropped?

I’ve definitely shifted away my advocacy for an 8-hour rule change and more so think the limiting restrictions on the combined August 1st/10 hr visual instruction rule is something that I think should be loosened more. It’s a lot more arbitrary and less explicable than the 8-hour rule in my opinion. The position I have and advocate for wouldn’t mean uniform increases in summer band demand across the board, just more choice and variation in how programs decide how the time for their ensemble will be spent. I think that’s more reasonable in the summertime, I also advocate and stress for student safety and would want programs who embark on increases in summer band loads to ensure that students aren’t negatively affected by the more grueling summers we’ve been having lately, as much of that additional activity to be indoors, especially when it’s visual training. I would definitely agree that with large schools, successful schools especially that everything has more of a time commitment, athletics, fine arts, academics, boatloads of extracurriculars that divide students’ attention every way, we can only imagine how many hours it takes to make that Woodlands machine hum like it does, students are only taking on more nowadays. Really makes you wonder how other schools make it to where weekend rehearsals during marching season, lengthier band camps are received.

I definitely think the topic of conversation has changed to more than just solely “8-hour rule bad”. As for parents that may be concerned about there being even more time that they think is wise, I would imagine quite a few bands don’t do the 8 hour maximum of rehearsals every week. Increasing the maximum wouldn’t mean everyone would do more automatically, each program and staff would communicate with involved parents, boosters, etc. about a potential new change and a discussion would be had about what they want to do for the program, as is the case already now. The maximum isn’t a mandate other than, “you better NOT go above this amount!!”

If they did, that’s pretty cool, a 50% increase is definitely better than nothing.

I just wanted to address this part, mainly due to how easily some folks in other forums brush off your last point and think that the disparity in time between bands for show preparation is a poor excuse for how results pan out. The august 1st rule is imo, more impactful than the 8-hour rule. The argument here isn’t to say that Texas bands would just be cleaner with more time, but considerably so on the visual side, there are much more impactful restrictions on the time allowed to rehearse at the most crucial period of the season, the very beginning. Bands don’t have limitations on what they can do for music preparation, but you still have to be able to train kids their visual fundamentals and build up other concepts amongst the marchers and guard. Over time, if schools were able to decide the amount they wish to rehearse, you would see bands become more adventurous in all aspects of visual design, and also diversifying more so in their capabilities and presentations musically as well. More programs would be able to get more hours in with guards notably so too where you would see improvement over time, more investment and confidence in other endeavors like Winter/Spring indoor would be much more widespread as well without these limitations. At least that’s my opinion, I’ve just seen the discussion be reduced to Texas folks complaining about “8-hour rule” excuse-making when there’s much more to the discussion regarding the various rules’ effects on Texas groups that in my opinion, are considerable.

I thought there was plenty of good in there despite maybe not the cleanest run musically. Very colorful too haha

The chief judge doesn’t have anything to do with the adjudication happening on the field that all the other judges are doing. He’s an overseer of it all, and that’s all. No need for any kind of conspiracy here when there is none.

Vandegrift potentially falling into 5A potentially after these next two cycles is crazy to think about, especially when you know how massive that band is!! But yeah, who knows how school zoning might change in that time as well

For this year, there are arguably two medal contenders in BA and Tarpon missing due to their attendance rotation, but then you replace them with 4 confident Texas locks in Hebron, TWHS, Pearland and Round Rock, plop in Blue Springs for DB, and then you have an increased scarcity and rigidity in the amount of openings for finals spots that there were last year with CTJ, Keller, Bentonville, Dripping Springs, and others out on that bubble. The new set of judges, and continued adjustments might allow Bowie to leapfrog a band they’ve scored lower than, but that might be too much to ask from them. There just isn’t as much availability as there was last year, where groups few expected to make it in did.

Oh no I’m sure they’ll be fine, I’m rooting for them to get the eagle, it’s just the recurring issue I see from them on the musical side, which is of course their strong suit. I can’t wait to see the final product soon enough!

Indeed he was, had him his last year of teaching before he retired, still adjudicating many events as we’ve seen haha