Steeldrum

Who is the judging panel for finals, a different group than prelims?

No Marcus and no Coppell this year......that's disappointing. Saginaw is definitely 5A this year as there were last year.

Son, go back and read my reply again. What I said was that Cobb County probably has more good band programs than most states, OTHER THAN TEXAS AND INDIANAPOLIS. I don't believe I referenced the rest of Georgia nor compared it to Texas. I'm also from Georgia, live in Texas now, and don't dispute that Texas has without a doubt the highest level of band programs in the nation. My point to be clearer, is that Cobb County Schools perhaps has the most overall successful music programs of any single school system in the nation considering the number of high quality programs there. So you're from "May-etta", welcome to Texas!

The Director of Music for Cobb County Schools is Gary Markham, one of the Chief Judges for many DCI events, and I believe he is/used to be very active judge for BOA. He has built that county school system into a major power. There are probably more good programs in Cobb County Georgia than most states other than Texas and Indiana. I attended one of the Cobb County Band Exhibitions last year and was very impressed with the quality of all of these bands. These programs include, in somewhat ranking order based on what I remember: Lassiter Kennesaw Mountain Kell Walton Wheeler (one of the best HS drumlines) Harrison Pope Sprayberry McEachern Hillgrove North Cobb There were also a couple of schools, don't remember which ones, that did a HBCU Show Style show, quite entertaining. In all there are 17 high schools in Cobb County. Georgia generally has county wide school systems, and Cobb is a major suburb of Atlanta. Imagine if all the schools in Tarrant county were in the same district.

Now that's just real funny! Go read through numerous posts on DCP about how good those acoustics are. I'll take Alamodome acoustics over Lucas anyday.

Said judge is a former band director of Haltom.....

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Good point. I'm the statitician, you're the analyst!

I'm a numbers guy, so I summed the scores from prelims and finals to see how the combined pool of 10 judges would have placed them, and surprisingly the top 10 order is identical to the prelims order. Marcus (14) Bell (35) Coppell (52) Hebron (56) Duncanville (60) Bowie (62) Woodlands (70) Berkner (85) Spring (95) Westlake (102)

Dallas Morning News article on the contest with a credit to txbands.com: Six local high schools emerged among the top 10 in Texas to qualify for tonight's Class 5A state marching band contest. Also Online Dallas-Fort Worth's powerhouse marching bands vie today for 5A state title Link: TxBands.com In all, 36 high school groups gathered at the Alamodome in San Antonio today for the biennial competition. The preliminaries ran all day, with 10 finalists announced at 6 p.m. According to txbands.com, which is live-blogging the event, the finalists included: Richardson Berkner, Coppell, Flower Mound Marcus, Hebron, Hurst L.D. Bell and Duncanville. According to the site, the other finalists are: The Woodlands, Spring, Austin Westlake and Austin Bowie. The finals start at 8:15 p.m. Marcus will be seeking its third-consecutive state title, while L.D. Bell and Duncanville are perennial top finishers. North Texas has dominated the competition in recent years, winning every state title since 2000. And another local group is the champion in Class 3A. Argyle High School won the title on Monday at the Alamodome, easily crushing all its competition.

Olympic style judging results would have been: Marcus (1) Coppell (3) Bell (2) Ducanville (5) Bowie (6) Hebron (4) Woodlands (7) Spring (9) Westlake (10) Berkner (8) Doesn't mean anything, just something to do while waiting for finals results. My guess with a totally different judging panel tonight there will be major shakeups between 2 - 10. Gold is probably a lock for Marcus.

Prelim results here: http://utdirect.utexas.edu/uilsmbc/lbw2_sc...;s_display_sw=R Wow, Coppell score: 17 - 2 - 2 - 3 - 2 (3rd). Looks like one judge really didn't like them but the others did.

How about a student not playing any notes, just marching? I know there are some programs that are just filling holes or don't let the freshman play. Some of its obvious (missing mouthpieces). Will that impact the individual scores if a judge notices someone not playing when the rest of their section is?

Can one of the txbands.com staff members provide a laymen's description of the various judging categories and the overall BOA judging process? I've read the official descriptions on Music for All but still don't completely get it. A few clarification questions I have: - For Individual Music and Individual Performance, is this a judge (on the field?) looking for and listening to individual members, so a weak member the judge happens to see/hear may bring down the entire group? I see some pretty big differences in placement between Music Ensemble and Music Individual. - How does Visual Performance differ from Visual General Effects? - Is Visual Performance strictly the guard or inclusive of the entire band? Thanks

Are finals order determined solely by the draw order or do last year's champs get the final spot?

Could you be more specific? Actually thanks for the details. I'm planning to go to DCI next year and wondered about the best seating.