VRHSRangerTBone

SVC auditions are in Cedar Park on November 12 at Cedar Park HS. I wouldn't necessarily do the corps this year if I make it because I want to have a summer to transition between high school and college, but I would love to do it in a couple of years. Two of our assistants have connections with corps (Phantom and Cavies), so those would be my top choices. Now that the Crossmen are in San Antonio, they would probably be a good "fall back" corp. They may get to be really good in a couple of years now that they're in Texas though since we all know that Texas is a great state for marching band.

All of us Vista Ridge people should be in section 117 I believe.

Yes, I play bass trombone, but it kinda works the same way. My private lessons teacher told me one time that Donald Knaub, basically one of the best bass trombone players who has ever lived, does the same thing for low notes. He'll play centered and normally for his normal range, but when he starts belting out low notes his embouchure shifts to the side. As you might infer, this makes for some great humor as he shifts back and forth between his normal range and his low range. He's one incredible bass trombone player (retired now), so it pretty much goes to show that even world class players like him play off center too and do just as well. My private lessons teacher was lucky enough to study under him for awhile at UT and still plays golf with him to this day, lol, so that's pretty cool.

The baritone solos (and I think there was a horn too) in the SCV 89 dance movement were VERY good though. Nothing wrong with those whatsover. The trumpet ones? Yes, a lot of crackage if you ask me. As for the Blue Devils show? Definitely the worst screw up I've heard in the DCI world. Poor guy.

Oh man you should also come to the the Cadets camp at Vista Ridge on July 21st! $30 for non-Vista Ridgers. It should be great!

I really liked y'alls jam out / jazzy moments. Big sound for not very many people. You guys were the ones with only one front ensemble percussionist right? Poor lady had to run back and forth between all the pit equipment. She does a good job with it, but have y'all found anyone else to help her out with it? Sounded pretty good overall though! Good luck this season!

I got to hear Revolution last weekend at the Texas Drum Corps Preview at the capitol and was very pleasantly surprised. I'll admit that beforehand I thought "Oh it's just a Division III corps" but afterwords I was very impressed. I was also standing 10 feet from their hornline, so I got blasted at as well, lol. What great music too. I was by their pit as well and they were playing Division I sounding (and looking) stuff...very impressive to me.

Man I wish I was into DCI back then!! Harmonic Journey and Pathways at Bible Stadium? AWESOME!! I searched in the 2003 archives of DCI.org and found that our local newspaper did a story on it. It profiles members of the corps that went to high school around here in the Cedar Park / Leander area. The link is below if anyone's interested in reading it. http://www.hillcountrynews.com/articles/20...news/news04.txt

I wish there were a DCI Austin...or better yet a DCI Round Rock at Round Rock ISD Stadium. That would be sweet...like 3 miles from my house. Heck the stadium's freakin big enough (like a small college stadium). But yeah I'm goin to DCI San Antonio, so whatever. And the Cadets are coming to our school too, so I guess that makes up for it.

Looks like Spirit is back to it's normal self again. I wonder what happened last night, they must have done really well. That or maybe something was up with the judges. Looks like Phantom is climbing up there a little better too! Whoo hoo!

Angelus (Carolina Crown 2005) The first hit and all of the long loud notes are AWESOME! There are some other cool little moments throughout the rest of it, but I think the reason they got 7th and not higher last year was because of a lot of out of tune stuff (not counting the cool hits).

Wow! Cadets and Bluecoats separated by a quarter of a point! Just what I would have expected...very close. Interesting score for Spirit too; that seems abnormally high. No offense to them or anything, but they aren't traditionally regarded as being "up in that league" so to speak.

Haha! Just thought I'd mention that being a bass trombone I don't take any offense to that whatsover. It's very easy to make a bad sound on a bass bone. Blasting can be fun though as long as it's controlled (no bending in pitch, steady air, etc). As for baritones and euphoniums playing louder than trombones...I don't know. I'm hoping I can play a baritone or euphonium for the Cadets clinic at Vista Ridge next month (PM me for more info), so I guess I can find out for myself, lol. Sorry for the late post! I was just browsing around.

Bluecoats and Cadets should be interesting in tomorrow night's show in Evansville, Indiana. Since the Bluecoats have been up against the Cavaliers already, it might give us an idea of where the Cadets and Cavies stand against each other. The Bluecoats/Cadets matchup is pretty intriguing in itself.

I was looking at the score sheets for the last two contests (6/24 and 6/25) and the Bluecoats' percussion has beat the Cavaliers' percussion both times! They're obviously creeping up in the overall score as well. Is the Bluecoats' percussion really that good? Are the Bluecoats in general that good? I love both of these corps, but I think the Bluecoats are for real! Oh...and what about The Academy? I'm not too familiar with them...nor am I familiar with how the scores work in comparing the divisions. Does their score really mean that they beat Santa Clara?

Congratulations to everyone, in particular Cedar Park HS and Canyon Ridge MS!! For those of you who don't know about Canyon Ridge MS, they are only in their 3rd year of existence out of Leander ISD after branching off from Cedar Park MS. The first year I heard them (back in my freshman year), I'll admit that I cringed throughout their entire program at the LISD Band Festival (just like everyone cringed for our first performance of our 35 member freshman marching band as well). Ms. Allison (assistant director at Cedar Park MS when I was there) has obviously done a great job building Canyon Ridge's program since then. I guess you could compare this to Hendrickson getting as far as they did with marching last season, a very honorable feat.

YEAH BABY!! Cadets at Vista Ridge!! It's only $10 if I'm not mistaken, so bring that and your horn and have some fun!! (We people at VR are free though cause we're hosting ) I'm really excited...I just listened to their show on the MySpace that Michael Bui gave a link to, and I love it!! Edit: After reading an email from my band director, it's actually $30. Still a very good price though!

Vista Ridge High School (in Cedar Park) is playing music from John Rutter's "Gloria" this year. It's being arranged by Mark Higginbotham, and the drill is being written by an assistant director from Reagan who is also a visual guy for Phantom Regiment. (I apologize for not knowing his name, I'm sure many of you guys do.) Back in 1989, the Cavaliers did a couple of the movements that we're doing, and they should be pretty much the same for us. Apparently Mark Higginbotham is also writing some original music for us as well. I can't wait to see the music for this show tomorrow at our music camp! A lot of people from our school are fretting about how "boring" the show is going to be because it's based on a hymn, but that is most definitely not the case if you've ever heard 1989 Cavies, which most of them have not. If anyone's interested, I can send a recording to anyone who wants one. We are also going to BOA San Antonio this year which I am extremely excited about. As our first year as a full high school, I think this could be our breakout year, just like Hendrickson's first full year last year. (For those who don't know, we opened in 2003 with freshmen only and have been adding a grade level each year ever since.) We have quite a bit potential this year, and I hope we can fulfill it all. Good luck to everyone this season!

This is for all the folks in the tenor/bass trombone room at 4A Region 18 Phase 2 at Vista Ridge HS today... You know you're a band nerd when the whole room gets bored after waiting 45 minutes for the judges to get there and you all decide to bust out "Land of 1000 Dances" to pass the time. If there is anyone on here that was in that room, that was the best and funniest region moment I've ever been a part of!! I just hope we weren't too loud for the trumpets!!

ha ha! buddy almost lost his slide on the field, that's funny. give him some crap for me for that would ya?

Nope, we actually have a 4A population even with three classes. Anyway, I got an email back from KEYE today saying that our band never submitted a tape. Of all the bands that got a Division 1, we were actually the only ones that didn't submit one. I'm gonna talk to our band director tomorrow to see if we can get one to them. It wouldn't really matter to me if our band got on there late; the exposure of our show is what counts in my opinion. Not to mention the $100 Rudy's is donating to each band that participates.

I just posted this in another forum but figured I would in this one as well: I wonder why Vista Ridge isn't on there? I just double checked the region results, and we are the only band that got a one that is not in the KEYE contest. I'm sending a respectful email to KEYE right now to see if they can do anything about it. I'm sure it was just misinformation or something like that. Congratulations to those who advanced to state!

When all you have on your MP3 player are shows that were downloaded off of either TxBands.com or Skramps. I love blasting different shows in my truck! People look at me like I'm crazy!

The judge that gave us a 2 was complaining about how some people's pants were too long. I'm sorry, but I don't think I've ever heard of that being mentioned on any judges sheet before. Most judges just skip over that category because there are better things to look for than how long our pants are. Oh well, it doesn't matter too much...we're off to area and really excited about our chances for state. There's still a lot of people who don't really know about us yet. Hendrickson (which opened the same year we did with one more class than us) made a name for themselves last year when they made the state honor band contest, and they've continued to prove themselves this year with BOA and stuff like that. We're hoping we can do the same kind of thing at area. Good luck to everyone! This is one of the toughest areas in the state, and whoever makes it to state is going to do very well. Unfortunately, there are going to be some darn good bands that don't make it that would have made it in other areas, but that's just the way UIL works. I'm looking forward to Saturday!

We were out of finals by ONE PLACE!! Placed 11th overall in Prelims and 3rd in 4A. Much better than Capital City last Saturday. We all knew we were better than what we showed last week. There's a tight race going on for Area D. Got a little under 2 weeks till judgement day. Should be a great finish!