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At the next football game, every single member of our band will drop something on the field, lol. We're performing our third mvmt. (ugh) for guard parents or something, and then we're doing an LCHS spell out, and as we march off to the fight song, everyone is going to leave their shoes on the field, so you still see the "LCHS". Im not sure how we're getting our shoes back yet, but it should be pretty interesting.

finals at SHSU a couple weeks ago, a tuba player completley wiped out, hardcore fell/rolled on the ground, and lost his mouth peice. Watching the video of it, its seriously the funniest thing ever. AFV funny, if you ask me. But he got up, and linked right back into perfect alignment within about six counts, so alot of people didnt notice at the contest because of the fast recovery. We've also had people lose random things like gauntlets and a shoe on the field, and few years ago when langham played their state show "Textures", if anyone remembers it, the yellow ribbons everyone connected to eachother in the big block. Those were ALWAYS left on the field. CG always had to get them at the end.

I get what you mean with the Key Poulan stuff...we use him every year and its really hard to play his stuff good. But you can still be successful with his shows and a low budget none the less. on a different note.. OMG. We missed finals by .2?! you have to be kidding me! What a bummer, but considering all our drill drama at the beggining of the season, and our really late start, i can't say im not happy with our placement.

Where can we see how all us bands that didnt make finals placed? lol. Im really interested see how my school (Langham) placed at a BOA contest, especially since we got such a late start this season with drill (ha. if you saw our show, you can definatly tell too. DIRTY!). This was the first BOA contest for everyone in our program, except the seniors. It was a really good experience for us.

omg. Langham in prelims for state last year. Bass drums and organ came in early in fourth movement. Phasing was so bad that even if you didnt know the music, you could DEFINATLY tell. People started to get out of step and everything. Even our parents told us it was really bad (ha, and they usually think EVERYTHING is good.) By some miracle we still made finals.But we were so scared after that, that in finals we had a really hesitant, flat perfmormance.

Oh man. i HATE those comments so much. Seriously, we learned that piece a few days before the concert just as a last minute little something to honor the Virginia Tech victims. We were going for emotion, not musical perfection, like we try to do with everything we play. But on a different note, anyone know where i can see cedar park's show online? I havn't seen it yet, and I really want to.

wow. im surprised noone has commented on the massive collisions Langham (my school) had during finals! A tuba player fell down completley, and there were apparently five horns that ran into eachother and multiple flutes stepping on eachothers heels. But we're lucky alot more than that didnt go wrong, considering we finished our show last wednesday and have barely begun cleaning. Our biggest issue is (like you said) that our music just doesnt go places. Our talent pool is just so much smaller then it usually is, so its been an uphill battle trying to get people to play out with confidence to create those impact points and to highlight those impressive technical places (which right now, arnt as obvious as we'd like). But i have to say, that was the WORST crowd i have ever performed for. We were boo'ed in finals, and apparently the duncanville drum majors made some really rude comments about our piccolo players solo to her personally. Everyone kept walking by us and talking really loudly about how much they though we sucked, and didnt deserve our placements and whatnot. It was really stupid.

We do jumping jacks and pushups/situps everyday. During aerobics. Like a warm up thing. And for demerits it basically marching up and down the field a long time ridiculously fast. Or in past years, even marching around lake lobo [its only a real lake when it rains. alot.] Oh man, but i would rather do jumping and run laps for 15 minutes straight then do fundementals. Fundementals are sooo hardcore at my school. Especially Diamond Drill [does anyone else do this? its ridiculous! but effective] And slide excersice 6-to-5 steps at 180, then having to sprint to get water and back for all our water breaks. The worst part is, our director will absolutly refuse to move on from fundementals until its exactly how he wants it. We've seriously spent whole rehearsels in fundementals if we can't get it right. Marching band is sooo much more physical then people give it credit for.

eh, i dont know. I kind of feel electronics take away from a show. But my band is more traditional, so i am a little biased =P I feel like synthesisers are being used more and more in shows, and bands are playing less and less. I understand using electronics to amplify a section during a feature or solo, or to conver the part of an insterment you cannot play on the field (ex. harp, organ..things like that) but i think it is far more impressive for a band to create a stellar show WITHOUT the use of electronics. I dont know. With all the use of electronics nowadays, when i see a band hardly using them and still being amazing, i appriciate the show more so than i would a show that is equally amazing, but uses alot of electronics.

Langham recieved straight 1's also. Best run we've had, by far. Everyone finally stepped up today and really delivered. Now we just need to get the last 30 seconds of the show on the field...

That was my initial though, but he's living in Chicago now from what I've heard. Which is sad. We all liked him alot. He danced when he conducted. : D ..but If i had to guess, Id say its either Mr. Lebreck or Mr. Sommers who is the new percussion director being reffered too.

wow, which of our former directors do you have? (we have ALOT of formers percussion directors) Hah, that position at our school is like the "defense against the dark arts" position. Seriously, they never last a year. Its kind of creepy. Hm, yes, and usually at the beggining of the season after rehearsel, the leaders perform the music of the show memorized, like a passoff. The band basically doesnt start passoffs until the leaders can pass off the music as a group. This is the first year at langham (that I've seen) where we did not do this. We we're too behind getting music/drill that we didnt have that kind of time to invest in that at the end of rehearsels.

hm. looks like alot of talk about Marcus and Bell. This is an interesting topic to read, lol. Bell's marching program is (looking at their track record) more successful overall, but Marcus's band definatly has the better concert program. Both are great, and both are among the best. I dont think anyone can truly say one is "better" than the other, because they both shine in different ways. To label one band as the "best in texas" is pretty impossible, considering all the different ways in which a band can be great, not to mention all the other bands in Texas besides those two who are truly exceptional. Personally, i prefer Marcus's shows to Bell's, but thats probably because my band program also marches shows that seem "boring", yet the music is much more demanding than anything Bell would play. So i would be lying if i said i werent biased. My school values musicality more than how many yards we can cover in one show, so naturally id prefer Marcus. But hey, its just an opinion.

All i know is the contest Langham is attending is at Edna (?) HS i believe. Ha, I have no idea where that is, but im thinking its not this contest.

actually, our predicament really isnt a good excuse. Its absolutley unacceptable, and ridiculous. To put is simply: we pulled out to save our egos. I don't know how else to put it. Our show right now is definatly not presentable in a competitive contest. There is so much going wrong, and not just all our drill/music drama. Whether we'll get it together in time for UIL or San Antonio has yet to be seen. How we perform at contest this year is going to be very....interesting. To say the least.

I think this might be the contest Langham's going to instead of BOA Houston this Saturday. (i don't know anything about the contest, though)

Langham pulled out, we were just told today. We're going to some other contest on Saturday instead. BOA Houston was going to be way to competitive for where we are in our show right now, not to mention we would have had to start rehearsel at 5 am Saturday morning, after comming back from a football game with a pickup time of 12:15. Ha, have 250+ kids in the mindset to perform after basically 4 hours of sleep? no way. Im sort of relieved. We would have seriously embaressed ourselves. We basically JUST started the closer today (we learned the first five sets of it).

ha! we have a "parallelogram" set too! except, after last saturday's game it has been renamed "the blob". Its the last set of our second movement, and we learned it litereally a few hours before our game saturday, so obviously, noone retained it too well. Its supposed to be a paralellogram, but it (quite literally!) looked like a big blob. ..but then 3/4 of the band ran off the field while those who passed their music played half of third movement in place, and the blob looked slightly better. lol.

I've actually heard Cy-falls is doing really well this year. From what I've been hearing, I think they have a good shot at finals. I dont know about Cedar Park and Coppell, but right now it looks like Langham wont be making finals at the rate the shows going. Most of the strong brass players graduated last year, and drill isnt being learned [or given!] fast enough. Ha, what a wonderful impression for our first time entering in this contest.

very true, and thats why Bell's program is so successful. Even though some of their music isnt as difficult, the marching portion more than enough makes up for it. I was refering to the music when i was speaking about Marcus, when you take into consideration the difficulty of the DRILL, thats a wholleeeee other story. sorry if that was confusing. I say Marcus's arrangement was more difficult only because they were playing as a complete ensemble for much more of their show, which musically, is much harder. But like you said, its all about preference.

What i meant was Marcus's music was at a completley different level of difficulty compared to Bell's. They both played at a very high level, but since Marcus's music was harder, they get more credit. louder and great playing of a peice does not increase its value in comparison to a more complex arrangement that was executed at a similar [if not higher] level.

we just got new revised sets for the end of our movement 2 today. Three sets to go, then we're done with the opener and movement 2. We'll probably finish that thursday [our next rehearsel] Whats left is to learn more visuals [tai-chi stuff] this saturday before our game and then learn all of third movement, which is a beast. Its really long in comparison to the first two.

louder does not equal better. and comparing Bell musically to other schools isnt really fair. They dont play shows with near as much musical complexity as alot of other consistent state finalists. Watching them perform at state, i thought Marcus was pretty top notch on a musical standpoint, and very deserving of their musical ranking.

Im not sure if langham is going to go to this anymore. And if we do, im almost sure well be embaressed. Right now, i dont see any possible way well have our show learned.We're too behind. There are so many problems. With having our drill re-written ,this being a HUGE re-building year for the band, and seeing as we still havnt gotten all the music for the closer, i dont see how we can perform at the level we usually do. The drill Mark Chambers is writing is so fantastic, and the music is difficult and actually enjoyable to listen to [a big difference from the "boring" show music we usually play, apparently]. This is the best BOA show we've had at this school, but theres just been so many setbacks. This is really depressing.

yeah, Dr.Tim showed us that video! He came down to our school and did his whole leadership thing for everyone in leadership positions in our band. After he worked with us, he said he enjoyed it so much he wasnt going to accept any money from us, and he flew down to Texas with his own money to speak with us in the first place. HE IS AWESOME!