Steeldrum

What he said.....I copied the list of bands that have been given a placement of 1 - 10 in the predictions. So if some bands haven't received any placement predictions then they wouldn't be on my list.

Major geek warning ahead. I scrapped the entries posted in the Predictions page for UIL 5A State as of Wednesday, fed it into Excel, gave a point value of 10 for 1st, 9 for 2nd, 8 for 3rd, etc., and totaled the points. Based on those predictions the results look like the list below. Probably pretty close to what will actually happen. Place School Points 1 LD Bell 1615 2 Marcus 1379 3 Cedar Park 1106 4 Duncanville 642 5 Churchill 464 6 Bowie 460 7 The Woodlands 450 8 Coppell 353 9 Richland 337 10 Brazoswood 310 11 Hebron 244 12 Berkner 147 13 Langham Creek 146 14 Haltom 143 15 Westfield 123 16 Spring 121 17 Westlake 114 18 Akins 61 19 Vista Ridge 45 20 Cy-Falls 44 21 Harlingen 34 22 Fossil Ridge 30 23 Keller 28 24 Hanks 24 25 PSJA North 19 26 Sandra Day 16 27 Clements 12 28 Donna 12

OK, let me chime in on this. Stating that a group "cheated" is a serious accusation and a detriment to a fine program, and just makes you look like a bitter sour-grapes band student. There is a major difference in someone cheating, say by using ineligible students, playing recorded horns through the PA or other obvious rule violations by intent, versus an individual who in the heat of the competition stepped up to the board to fix whatever it was that was wrong. I don't think I've seen anywhere on this board stated what exactly this individual did. Do any of you really know or are you simply frustrated that your band didn't make it? As others have stated, Coppell won first and advanced due the strength of their performance with absolutely no assistance by the "sound board incident". Saying that they should be DQ'd for some slight rule infraction is also wrong. Now I don't know what the rules state precisely but would be very surprised if they say "if you violate any rule whatsoever you will be automatically DQ'd". I'm sure what the judges and area director did was assess the violation in the spirit of the rule and determined it to be a non-event, for both Coppell and Duncanville, and moved on. That is what you should do, move on.

If what you're looking for is a drum corps style marching band check out Jacksonville State University. Their marching band is called The Marching Southerners with about 400 members. Not in Texas but it is an affordable college in Alabama with a great music program and a beautiful campus. Check out this video from a recent contest exhibition. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=36401896159

I don't think you can say Area C is "so much easier". With far fewer bands advancing to that area it makes moving on to state that much more difficult. Only 3 bands advanced this year and there were at least 5 bands there that would probably advance in many other areas. And in 2006 Area C advanced 4 bands with 3 making state finals. Compare that to Area B which advanced 5 bands but only 2 made finals. Not saying Area B is not one of the strongest in the state, it probably is. But Area C is no cake walk for anybody.

Coppell did not have a band parent run the sound board. It is one of the directors who is in charge of the sound board.

Rowlett was great during prelims, I had them picked as first though I didn't see Coppell's show. Their evening show wasn't quite as good though, lacked the energy and sharpness of their prelims show. But the top 5 bands tonight were all pretty evenly matched I thought. Sachse played as loud as anyone and I believe had one of the smaller bands. Their music was not as difficult but a fun show, better suited for BOA though.

How many march in the Cedar Park band? They didn't look that large at BOA Arlington but sounded much louder than Marcus and Coppell who are obviously much larger.

Cedar Park was outstanding tonight and IMO deserved to win. The hornline and drumline are as strong as I've seen from a high school in a long time. I'm not a guard person so maybe that was the difference between Marcus and CP. Marcus' show is fun but safe, and not complete. The hornline was a little messy at times tonight compared to prelims but the marching was great. The opening trumpet fanfare is very effective, reminds me of Phantom 08. I don't care for the bass synthesizer which is used frequently as it takes away from the natural great sound of their hornline. Will be interesting to see the whole show when its finished. Hebrons show is very creative and entertaining. I thought the finals show was flat compared to prelims but still very well done. Berkner did a great job and is getting better each year I see them. Great impact moments from the hornline. Mansfield guard is amazing (and again I don't watch guards normally). Coppell, excellent full sound and some great drill moments. From the rest I liked Legacy's show best, good use of vocals which I normally don't like.

Does anybody know the finals performance order?

Coppell is playing first in the morning at Mesquite so they can participate in the BOA contest later that day. So I have a question for the group. Can judges who see a 5A band first thing in the morning, followed by smaller bands during the day, judge that band fairly with the other 5A bands that will perform at the end at the contest? Personally I think that will be hard for judges to do as they tend to compare bands to the previous bands in front of them or at least to the group of bands they're performing with. By the time they get to the evening 5A block the morning performance will be a distant memory. Thoughts?

I was at this contest and saw many of the drumlines. Colleyville was amazing. Great show concept and unbelievably clean snare and tenor line. Even more amazing when you consider they march 8 snares. I actually thought that this line was better than FM Marcus (exhibition), though Marcus' show had a more complex drill and probably more difficult music. From the standstill class Round Rock rocked, sweeping all but one category, if I remember correctly. 1st - Round Rock 2nd - Georgetown 3rd - Coppell Best Pit - Round Rock Best Tenor Line - Round Rock Best Cymbal Line - Round Rock Best Snare Line - Coppell Best Bass Line - Round Rock

Just got back from San Antonio and chiming in. This was an amazing competition, and the weather in San Antonio couldn't have been more perfect. It would be hard to believe that GN will be any better than this contest. Marcus was stunning and Bell was amazing. I couldn't talk for about 5 minutes after Bell's show, had to compose myself. I don't necessarily agree with all of the finalists but it was such a competitive group of bands I'm not surprised by the results. Really gets down to personal tastes and opinions as to which bands got in and which didn't. I didn't see the Friday prelims but I did see most of Saturdays. Biggest surprise was Coppell not getting in. Their sound was amazing and LOUD. My biggest (only) complaint about the show was the freaking BOA nazis roaming the stands looking for people with video cameras. These aisle ushers must have been told to look for this, but they were extremely distracting. And they didn't stand back in the portals where they would be out of the way, they stood out in the stairs watching the crowds, moving up and down the stairs. Not only did they block several peoples views but they distracted the heck out of us. We had great seats but ended up moving to get away from this one usher. After paying $42 for seats I don't expect to feel like we're in a police state. I mean come on, if someone wants to videotape their kid on a home video camera, is it really going to cut into BOA's profits from selling professional grade video tapes!! I don't think so. This needs to be addressed by BOA. Ok, back to the show. Congrats to all of the bands and looking forward to next year. I think Texas will be well represented at GN. Oh, one other thing. I know Marcus isn't going to GN, but wouldn't it be cool if every Super Regional winner got a free pass to GN finals? That way a band could skip some of the cost and missed school time associated with attending the whole three day event. If this were the case I bet Marcus or another school in this situation would consider putting together a last minute trip to compete at GN finals. But I'm probably just dreaming.....

Does anyone know if streaming videos are available at Music for All for all prelim shows from San Antonio with a premium membership?

OK, this is a real band nerdy thing to do, but I was reviewing the predictions page for BOA SA and wondered how all these predictions would rank the bands if they were added up. So I copied the predictions to excel (as of 11/1/2007), sorted them and assigned point values to each rank (1st = 14, 2nd = 13, 3rd = 12, etc.). I also included a counter of how many times each band was ranked by position. Interesting results but I wouldn't be surprised if final rankings ended up pretty close to these results. DISCLAIMER: I think there are some bands listed that won't be at BOA, but these are the ones posted on the predictions page. Also, I make no guarantee to the accuracy of these results, they're just for fun and debate.

This show didn't make finals at Houston BOA???? Why?

I don't know, something about that Marcus show really "bugs" me........ Marcus plays at a different level than the other groups. Such an even pure sound, not overblowing yet effectively loud. And whose college drumline did they recruit to play for them?!? Man were they clean and good. Is this show finished or is there more to come?? Seems like they ended after a ballad and maybe a closer is still due. I thought Bell did better in finals than at prelims. This show is very good but takes a while to setup and grab the audience. Love their uniforms, classic look. And the award for easiest drill goes to their tubas, who get to sit for the first half of the show. They had to love that during band camp, "You mean I just sit here for the first two songs?.....cool!!". Colleyville has a very BOA friendly show, built around a great concept. It would be hillarious if The Cadets would adopt this show next year as a response to all of the criticism about their talking. For those who haven't seen it Colleyville's theme is "Talking...", and they yell "Stop Talking!!" about half-way through the show, then perform a silent drill for about 16 counts. Their drumline was one of the better lines at the show. 8 snares and a pit larger than some of the 1A bands... Richland has a great sound as well and a cool show theme. Surprised at placing third in prelims as they had a rough show greatly affected by strong winds blowing their props over. But its another well thought out theme that plays well to the judges. Coppell had probably one of the top three sounds tonight and one of the best music selections (Gershwin). Its the only show that I left the stadium with the music still in my head, even as I type this. Their marching is very clean and a good drill. They need to add more GE and pickup the tempo a bit and they may do better in San Antonio. Very strong pit section. Funny at retreat how the band extended all the way back to the visitor stands. Wasn't room for all of them on the field I guess. Berkner's show was very exciting, still needs to be cleaned up a bit but was a very engaging show. Strong hornline. I was also somewhat surprised Hebron didn't make finals. I thought they had a good show. The dance thing at the end however really didn't seem to fit the show. Crowd loved it but it was almost like they were saying "remember how we did this last year....." and just stuck it in for effect. From prelims I also enjoyed Newman-Smith, who has a great spanish style show with dancers in long-red dresses. They need more volume to make the show stronger and better drill to compete at this level. I also enjoyed Princeton's exhibition show, a very well done show for a small band. The rock stars were rocking. UTA was smoking. Great show and strong horns from a fairly small group. Last comment on the great crowd. Its absolutely amazing how that many people (8,000 maybe??), can sit so quitely during the shows. You can hear every nuance of the band's performances. So unlike trying to watch a show on Friday night with all of the chatter in the stands. Before Bell played their first note you could hear a pin drop. Can't wait for San Antonio....