marcomac29

You are correct that they only go to Region. Most military bands exclusively go to region marching contest, some go to NAMMB (national association of military marching bands) contest as well. I do not know enough about Plainview or Odessa outside of that they are decent-good. Plainview was in Area finals just last year. East Texas military bands have a big mindset of "us against them" and they have brainwashed their students into actually HATING corps style marching. It's actually a very sad culture that the "old guy's club" has established out there and it's holding programs with great kids who could be wildly successful back majorly. Just look at Mineola for example, the reigning 3A state champs (and I believe honor band). Just 4-5 years ago Mineola marched military and was pretty meh, and now they are one of the top bands in the state and definitely one of the top bands in ETX as far as marching band, granted a lot of that success is also a result of who their new director is. The military game has been saturated for years with mediocre drill and lack of attention to detail in the execution aspect and instead of fighting to make it clean and changing literally ANYTHING, they do the same thing every year and just tell themselves that there is a bias towards corps style. Even just changing some of the tunes to something more engaging than a quick step march that 20 other bands are also playing that year would go a long ways, but it simply won't happen. At the end of the day, it comes down to the game changing and them not being willing to adapt. It's the same thing as trying to win the super bowl without using the forward pass, or the NBA championship without shooting the 3. In my opinion, military bands can't possibly complain about results at contests if they aren't making an effort to appeal to the judges/audience. That being said, a good amount of East Texas towns' audiences do prefer the quick step marches as it's what they have also been raised on, and they don't see the need to be competitive at the area/state level. The culture of mediocrity is woven into the fibers that make the East Texas marching band scene what it is.

I also taught in East Texas, and this guy is correct. Longview is gifted first division ratings, and they're drill/execution is a shell of what it used to be. I have seen it first hand, and the judges are in on it. The region coordinators literally get judges that are "old school" and will help keep the streak going. I've seen old Longview videos... and even being military, it was TRULY impressive. Precision execution and drill that is fun to watch. Nowadays, they typically drag the field and do a countermarch, occasionally they'll stagger into diagonals or make a chevron.... But you can't possibly say what they are doing nowadays is impressive. If you want to see impressive in the ETX region, military specifically, you need to go see Lindale, Carthage, or Cleveland (which is down near Houston). Word on the street is that Lufkin will be a powerhouse here in a few years for the military bands. I know Kingwood was the real deal in the late 90's, but I don't much about them these days. You took this dude's comment way too personally. He was offering a perspective and some history behind a band that honestly not a lot of people on this site know much about. Kids in most city area corps bands don't even know military marching exists, so this is a perspective that needs to be shared in my opinion, especially because it's true.

it adds contrast which gives greater impact moments when you play louder. it also gives you a chance to show the judges and the audience how beautiful you can play instead of just in their face stuff. it's a chance to be musical, not a chance to be boring.

seeing how many bands they're sending to grand nats really makes me wish they'd move finals around the country like dci used to do. maybe if it's just to give people from other states a realistic shot at going without having to make sacrifices financially, but i think it could help boa broaden their audience as well.

http://soundcloud.com/dub4sissies/kalinnik...ony-no-1-finale I seriously started laughing when I heard how loud he was playing. Skip to the 5:30 mark and prepare to get owned.

It's a shame that only 4 bands get to go from this area seeing as how there's about six that could make it in just about every other area.

well now that the mystery is about to be over did you guys hear about J.J. Pearce 84'?! that was just tragic...

second best band in the southland conference

succesful troll is succesful.

I think i've almost got it figured out. lol

so... how does one go about getting more GE since that was mansfield's downfall?

youtube.com

and to make things even more interesting mansfield beat coppell at this contest last year. just goes to show you how boa and uil have their differences.

are you trying to tell me that this whole time i've been thinking it was about the town in east Texas?! sigh...

stop hating on crockett 93.