Bonelife

What's wrong with the Alamodome? Too small?

No matter where Grand Nats are at, the local bands would dominate. Far away programs just don't have the money, just like Texas bands with Indianopolis.

Looks like top 5 in E might be Bowie, Reagan, CTJ, Vandegrift, and Westlake/Vista Ridge if Vandegrift and Vista Ridge do move up. I don't know much about a lot of the San Antonio schools and I'm extremely biased towards Austin-area schools but it looks like pretty much all the spots are going to go to former Area D-ers. On a side note, what's up with those band enrollment numbers? I was looking at area D and it says westwood has 773 people that are enrolled in the band! Apparently they are also the Allen High band. Also says that Round Rock has 496. What is up with this?!? Round Rock ISD's band enrollment numbers are all sorts of screwed up. Cedar Ridge has 605 people? I feel like I'm missing something here.

What is it with all these directors leaving? This isn't normal, is it? Was it something we said? As if it weren't already hard enough to predict band rankings in Texas this makes it near impossible.

At Westlake we also have both marching band and concert band (really most of our year is concert, we don't do any marching outside of august-november, and even then we have weekly assignments from our TMEA solos) and I think it's great. It feels like two completely different classes and it's really nice to have something to look forward too. Honestly I prefer marching band, though. You'll have so much fun. It's great to represent one big ensemble instead of your school's 2nd or 4th band and have a little friendly competition instead of just a 1 or best in class at UIL. And football games are a blast.

The Reagan head director is leaving for the school in Frisco (Reedy) along with a director from Westlake and Hebron's percussion instructor.

Hopefully Westlake can come off strong with the new staff. I haven't heard any names yet but 2012 was one of the best years we have had in a while and we lost a director going into that. But it's true that three band directors might be a different matter altogether.

chris? cullen? grant? ruy? alex? nic? ted? collin? kevin? eben? madison? chris? niko? cole? shea? collin? james? gabe? saij? all a few strong possibilities as low brass players.

are they low brass?

GOOD LUCK

Hey WESTLAKE WHO IS BONELIFE

I'm surprised by how many bands have already learned parts of their show! Is it normal for bands to work on stuff outside of August-November?

That looks great! Vista Ridge's design staff has always done an incredible job. I loved Danza de La Rosa. Just a little worried y'all will overtake us (score-wise, your shows are already way more entertaining) at westlake!

Westlake 2015 will be entitled Arte de Moto!

Yeah, you've got me there. They stil do incredibly at the beginning of the season. It's really impressive.

Can't wait to see Bowie sweep again at Austin! Must be absolutely exhausting for that poor drum major to retrieve all those trophies. Sad to say that Westlake will be losing two directors going into next year, one of which handled marching (the one that gave us that boost when he came in in 2012) and the other percussion. Might affect our placements. EDIT: Turns out another director is leaving! Westlake will only have the same head director as last year. The head band director from Reagan, percussion instructor from hebron, and her are all going to be working at a new high school out in Frisco called Reedy.

As we look forward to next marching season, what kind of shows can you expect from certain schools? I know that from us at Westlake it's pretty much always based around a piece that is famous but not overplayed in our director's mind, which is why we end up not using stuff like Simple Gifts for the part of Appalachian Spring we did last year.

On a side note how do these bands bring their giant props up north? Like how did they get FloMo's white columns to Indy? Couldn't imagine the logistical nightmare that it would be like to do that with the trees we had last marching season.

I wish Westlake would go, but everyone seems convinced they prefer our Disney trip that we take during the spring, so I don't think you will see us go up to Indy anytime soon.

The trombones this year are pretty fantastic all around.

Yeah, you guys are right. I'll try and remind the band how well we've done this season. 11th in state is still better than I would have imagined getting when I joined as a freshman.

Thanks! Here at Westlake we were all pretty bummed out when we heard that lost spot and realized we hadn't made it. Honestly I'm just unsure of the marching judges, especially the one that ranked Johnson as worse than us and us as 24th. I've got the bias of being from here, but we've put in so much work since we bombed at BoA Austin and just have trouble saying that 11th is good enough right now.

I can get behind this prediction list.

That's not in order. Westlake got 7th for sure and I won't believe that Bowie and RR did that badly.

Thanks! Unfortunately at exhibition we did have a problem with color guard causing a trumpet to fall over during the opener. Props to him for recovering so quickly. Didn't notice until I watched it the 3rd time.