FEDude

It was directed at a post that has since been deleted. I meant to delete this one as well, but couldn't figure out how (stupid mobile browser). Not gonna say who the poster was. Don't recommend they come forward either. You can gather more or less what the post said from my response.

I did get a chance to see the BYU Philharmonic do Scheherazade a year and a half or so back. They're quite talented. As much as I loved the school, I decided not to fork over 150 on a ROC pass so I never got to see the marching band.

Sincerely, for your sake, I'd be careful about directly calling out your band director and comparing them to a past one. They don't tend to like that too much. Negativity on social media or forums about ones own program directly undermines your own director and is normally nipped in the bud immediately. Being a section leader is also a cool thing to bring up in college interviews so don't throw that opportunity away. Now if you wanna help change the culture of the band, that requires a very courageous conversation with the director.

^currently-ish attending the same school (it's complicated at the moment). I really wanted to do music up until halfway through my junior year when I found out I really wanted to be a lawyer. I finished a year in the civil engineering program and started my mission. Thanks to soccer, I'm here briefly before finishing my mission.

When I was 14, I asked someone from Austin what the most dangerous part of the city was. She swore it was Westlake. I went on believing her for 3 years. Then my sister moved to Austin and I asked her about Westlake. She started laughing at me and said it's a relatively nice part of town.

Another factor in success is Middle School bands. I hated being in band in middle school, but I loved loved loved it in high school.

Nobody doubts the hard work and individual talent that goes into producing a memorable show. It would be interesting to see a spreadsheet of every band participating in BOA SA and the income. It's mostly public knowledge. It would give me something to do while I wait to go back to Peru.

That was really interesting. I didn't know Stoneman Douglass was a top band either. I'd wanna see the list for all the SA bands. It should be public info so it would only take an hour. An interesting subject to study and an angle I never considered my senior year.

Of course, the programs that have success and don't have the funds are inspirational. And of course not all who are part of an award winning program are trillionaires.

Money deciding a band's success. As much as I don't want to believe it, it's largely true. A lot of bands will talk about community support and hard work in their fundraising. They work hard, and nobody doubts that. There is no doubting, however, that the "top groups" are from the nicer neighborhoods in their cities. Of course there are exceptions, and boy do people love to talk about those suddenly whenever this topic gets brought up. If anyone wants to talk about it, my senior year, I did a big project on why the infrastructure and drainage systems in San Antonio are bad everywhere minus the Northside and how that contributes to the very serious segregation problem in San Antonio.

Congrats to Brandeis! Especially on that guard victory. I expected Warren to take guard and Brandeis to take percussion, but it's awesome to see each school's respective caption winners got that recognition. NISD sweeps feel good.

Anything is possible. I saw Hanna there on the list too. They could possibly be in the top 3 or 4 as well. Warren has a powerful percussion section and an inspiring color guard. Of course, they lost their percussion director (but seem to keep doing great with their new one). USBands looks at both of those captions pretty closely.

I remember this comp from my freshman year. Hendrickson blew my mind and then Johnson came with Enigmatic and I learned how deep Texas talent can run. I think top 3 will be 1. Alexander 2. Warren 3. Madison After that, I don't know the programs competing enough to predict where they'd place.

When I was in HS I'd anonymously read the boards but never participate. I know there are plenty of others. I'd assume a large part of the cause is that most band programs have their kids on strict lockdown when it comes to social media. Even saying one program will beat another in a competition is seen as hating on the group in the eyes of some directors. At Taft, if you were seen as being negative too many times, they'd just go ahead and kick you out of band. I don't blame them honestly, the good name of the band is more important than any one individual, no matter how talented. There are plenty of band directors on here, and I'd be scared of accidentally crossing the line. I know if I saw anyone currently attending Taft crossing the line, I'd send a screen shot to one of the band directors I'm Facebook friends with so they could deal with it. Side note: I haven't seen any high schoolers be mean on the boards for a while. In fact, it's been a lot of band parents, which I assume the directors can't do much about.

My predictions: 1. Dripping Springs 2. Weiss 3. Lake Travis 4. McNeil 5. Stevens 6. Brandeis 7. Georgetown 8. Hutto 9. Glenn 10. Taft I'm always gonna root for Taft to drastically surprise all of us. I saw a glimpse of their show. It's clean and fun to see. Who knows? Though I am confused, why would a spy be on the chase from the law? If she's known, it completely undermines the idea that she's a spy. It's like their show a few years back where the girl is cured after looking at the ink blots. It was good musically, but the story made me scratch my head and laugh.

Good to see Warren's percussion is still in good shape. I know it's not super fair to compare between divisions, but seeing the scores really makes me wish Taft competed with the large division.

I made it out to the Taft game last night. Even though there were only 2 movements on the field, it impressed me. I think they'll be in finals, but not super high in finals. It looks like they're transitioning quite nicely from one director to another. For some reason, I feel like the doors in the show should be red.

I've wanted A Cruel Angel's Thesis in an anime themed show for a while. Yes, I'm aware of the songs meme status.

Well for Taft, some years have been more notable than others. I'll only name the years something of interest happened. 1998 - 23rd at UIL State 1999 - 10th at BOA SA (would've been 9th ahead of the Woodlands had it not been for a technical difficulty in the pit causing a penalty) 2000 - 22nd at UIL State (tied with O'Connor for the highest placement at state for an NISD band not named Marshall, from the information that's available at least) 2004 - Alternate for UIL state competition at Area E, 7th at BOA La Joya 2005 - 5th at BOA La Joya 2006 - 29th at UIL State 2010 - 30th at UIL State 2014 - 29th at UIL State The strongest years I'd say were 2004-2007. I was there from fall 2013 to Spring 2017 before I moved to Utah. If you were in the Taft, and O'Connor band to be honest, you remember how mentally taxing the 2014 season was. It was the talk of NISD that we weren't gonna make state, then when we did, it started a very mean spirited Twitter fight. But Taft and O'Connor bonded quite a bit after that. We didn't see each other as rivals anymore but as true sister bands. I've been out of the game for a while, but it seems like there's less contention in NISD. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with us realizing State is a long shot unless all of LISD oversleeps the day of Area and Westlake accidentally goes to Area G.

Regarding Stevens: Their show design is top notch (assuming Dominguez is still there). Their execution earlier on in the season isn't as great I'd argue, but they clean up beautifully toward the end. Like I said, it'll be close. Brandeis is a very clean band and has top notch percussion. They perform magnificently come Area time because they are very clean. They might take the win over Stevens, I just personally predict they won't. The rest of the bands from NISD aren't quite up to the level of those two yet. O'Connor is the closest. Taft is unpredictable due to the director change. If things keep on the same, they'll be around the same bracket as O'Connor. Warren is for sure amazing as well. They have one of the best color guards in Texas. I haven't seen their new percussion director, but at one point they had the best percussion section in Northside. They also seem to be the best at BOA competitions in the district.

Maybe. Brandeis is very powerful on the UIL rubric. They've never been more than 2 places away from making state since 2014 after all. History just tells me Stevens end up ahead. It'll for sure be close though. I'm a Taft alum by the way. Stevens and Brandeis were both big competition for my school at one time, but now I'm just cheering for any NISD band.

I see Dripping Springs taking it. After that, I really don't know. Out of the NISD bands, it's likely gonna be Stevens ahead of the pack. Maybe Brandeis up there too. We'll see how the director change goes for Taft. Mr. Mills is a musical genius, so I'm optimistic. I've been meaning to go to a game, but they're too expensive (8 dollars). For now I won't be making any uninformed predictions.

For me it's between Reagan and Round Rock. Call me biased, but 2005-2010 Taft had some crazy sweet uniforms. They were red versions of the Cavaliers DBC.

I just thought Taft, which has a decent sized drumline and pit, would be with the other 6A schools in NISD. I might try and make it out for the brief time I'm in Texas again. Vista Ridge has had an inspirational front ensemble for ages now.

Out of the NISD bands, Brandeis is the only one that could challenge the LISD bands. That's Mr. Asgari for ya. I don't know if classifications are based on band size, percussion group size, or director choice, but I'm surprised (and slightly disappointed) to see Taft in the small category.