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.

Xenon, How were the acoustics in the new Lucas Oil Stadium? How did it compare to Alamodome?

What qualifies as a hard drill? Does difficult drill require abstract forms with really fast tempos, plum shaking, crawling, leap frogging, or running from one set to another while another section plays music? Or is it more difficult to keep defined formations, large rotations and straight lines while constantly playing music? Perhaps Coppell, Duncanville and others made their drill look easy because they executed it so cleanly. As most of you participating band members didn't get the chance to see all of the other bands are you really qualified to say who had easy drill and who didn't? Wait and watch the high view tapes, then you can comment about drill diificulty.

I think the only way to accurately use a mathmetical formula like that and be fair is to increase the sampling pool by increasing the number of judges (which I believe you also stated). So I'd agree with your approach if you added at least one more music judge and one more marching judge. Good luck on pushing this through UIL, and get them to do something about that echo while you're at it!

Xenon I think your logic is flawed. How do you fairly determine which ranking is the one to throw out. That's even more subjective than the actual judging. In your example you throw out Duncanville's highest music ranking while tossing Coppell's lowest music ranking. But the same judge gave both Duncanville and Coppell a very high ranking (10 and 8 respectively). It appears to me that he doesn't appreciate the classical music selection styles of Coppell and Duncanville. Typically in judged events if there is a score to be tossed it is each group's highest score or sometimes the highest and lowest score if there are enough judges. So tossing the highest score the placements would be as follows: Place Band Score 1 Marcus 6 2 Bell 11 3 Coppell 15 4 Duncanville 17 5 Cedar Park 18 6 Bowie 18 7 Richland 21 8 Churchill 29 9 Westlake 29 10 Hebron 32 Using the 60% for music and 40% for marching weighting placement look like this: Place Band Score 1 Marcus 2.8 2 Bell 5.4 3 Coppell 7.6 4 Duncanville 7.8 5 Bowie 9 6 Cedar Park 9.4 7 Richland 10 8 Churchill 13.4 9 Westlake 13.8 10 Hebron 16.4 In either case not a whole lot of movement with the exception of Duncanville jumping to 4th in both.

Expanding on the echoing dome topic...the dome is a great place for these marching events (BOA, UIL, DCI, etc.). No matter the weather outside the temperature is always great indoors, the seats are close to the action and the city is a great place to visit. But given the number of marching events there, as well other big arena concerts they probably host, you'd think that they'd invest some money to bring in a sound engineer to dampen the echo. I was studying it a bit, if they placed long felt curtains from the rafters to the lower seats on the visitor side, basically creating a backdrop for the field it would probably help a bunch. Maybe a few egg crate panels in the ceilings too. For DCI they do put a few curtains on the visitor side but I don't think they are large or thick enough to make much impact. UIL, BOA and DCI should create a joint task force to approach the city about this.

Yes, he or some official tried to get the drumline to stop due to time constraints. But there was no way they're were going to stop.....what are they gonna do, penalize them points?? It was funny how the crowd kept thinking the drumline was through after each movement and jumped up to cheer, then they'd start another movement and everybody would sit back down.

As I commented above the volume hit on Rhapsody was great! I also saw you guys at your Sounds of the Stadium indoor event at the coliseum.......seriously that was ear damaging loud! I really did see young kids and old men covering their ears and cry. I enjoyed your show very much and always look forward to the college exhibition bands. I gotta say you guys are the best band I've seen in exhibition over the past few years. I have a video that I might be able to post to youtube sometime this week.

Miscellaneous random thoughts and observations from the contest: - Way to go district 6-5A!! Three bands in top 10 (Marcus, Coppell and Hebron). That's 50% of the district making finals! A tough football and band district (add Southlake, Flower Mound and Lewisville). - Cedar Park was a fan favorite based on crowd reaction. I loved your sound. The volume that band projects is outstanding...I was looking for microphones on their horns! I think your marching may have held you back just a bit though, saw some drill problems including an out-of-step tuba right up front... - Noticed the Bell director directing from the top of the lower deck....was that just emotion or was the band following him? Is that legal? - Several birds flying around the stands.....left over props from Marcus 2006? - Anybody else see the dropped bass clarinet? I think it was Marcus but can't remember. - Top drumline award should go to Cedar Park (IMO). Love the 8 snares. - I hate all plum shaking movements......lets ban them. - Only saw one tuba take a dive this year...forgot which band (probably a good thing) - Best prop award goes to Richland's Believe Banner. The way it "flew" over the field was very cool. - Duncanville is one of the most consistent programs and joy to watch. They play and march beautifully every year, always playing an upbeat classical style. - Toughest placement goes to Berkner....been there before. It hurts missing finals by 1 spot. They are a great program and will be back. - Marcus parents are the best! Standing O for every band entering and exiting plus that cool chant...."alright!" - Coppell had the greatest dynamic contrasts, from very soft spots to big loud full sound. And very clean musically considering how spread out they were on the field. - Does Bell have a policy to not exhibit celebration? They clapped for the other bands but not themselves...pretty classy but let them celebrate. - Funniest retreat salute goes to the Churchhill guard captain..I thought she was having a fit until I realized she was trying to get out of her straight jacket! - Stayed in the same hotel as Bell, a very well behaved and good looking bunch of kids. - Love the Hebron show, full of energy. The scream and Pyscho shrieks hurt my ears though. - Hate the echo in the dome, can't they figure out a way to dampen the echo with some strategically placed velvet curtains or something? - However, I do love that you can hear even the softest sounds from the bands.. - How about that UNT impact on Bohemian Rhapsody??!! That woke the crowd up, people started throwing babies and covering their ears. - Speaking of babies, did you see the one with the NASCAR headphones on??? - And the UNT indoor drumline, WOW!! Any chance they don't win PASIC??

Just got back from State and reading through the after show comments. As usual lots of positive and negative comments about the placements, and you will ALWAYS get those in any competition that is based on subjective judging by individuals. Just like Olympic ice dancing, diving, floor excercises etc. Seems like the "experts" never quite see it like us smarter folks. Maybe we should adopt the American Idol or Dances with Stars method of fan voting! The general consensus is that everyone knew and accepts that Bell and Marcus would fight it out for 1st and 2nd. From there down it was a wide open contest, so whoever got third was going to hear claims that some other band deserved it more. I personally agree and have no problems with the final placements but am surprised by the large spread in some bands judging (1 and 10 for Duncanville music??). Just goes to show that marching band is a very subjective art. You either like the show or you don't. As for the Marcus versus Bell debate I think the judges got it right at both contests (BOA and UIL). The major difference is Bell's music sets the mood and accompanies the story they are telling through their drill and guard (high GE and BOA friendly) while Marcus' props, drill and guard accompanies their outstanding music program (UIL friendly). Both shows are done extremely well, in a league of their own. I loved Bell's show but would have to give the music difficulty and playing edge to Marcus. The one UIL judge just didn't get the music from Bell apparently...

Very cool! I was hoping you guys would do that. It provides a much better overview of how predictions are going. And I see you've added even the schools that haven't gotten any top 10 placement predictions which is good. Regarding the accuracy of these "polls" they are obviously very subjective and heavily influenced by which bands people like.......hey, sounds kinding of like the judging system. Seriously though, its fun to see how the fans (and band members) think things will shape up. But I bet at least 8 of the top 10 in the State poll will actually make finals. There will be a couple of surprise bands making finals.