Drummantx

As soon as you start, have your section meet, introduce eachother, maybe tell something unique about themeselves or something along those lines to get everyone familiar with eachother. I'd suggest something along the lines of starting off the year with a party or get together, and making everyone feel welcome, especailly the freshman! NOT AN INITIATION! What we did, we (drumline seniors), called each of the kids parents, and asked if it would be fine to take everyone out to one of our houses, which happened to be out in the country, and had really fun games and bonding activites, ordered pizza, ect. We blind folded them after rehersal, made them think they were in trouble, and took them out there. We had a blast. We were done at 9, so it doesn't have to be a super late sketchy type thing. After this just have regular meetings, make sure there's nothing bad going on, have a cool section shirt, and just be involved. One of the most benefical things was just making sure we didn't have any issues with eachother, and if we did, we solved them. One of the most fun things we did was bowling night.

Broken Arrow. For this year, and last year, and all high school years, and maybe over all DCI shows for me. I cannot stop thinking about it......

Semifinals: Music

Prelims Rankings: (Top 34) PRELIMS Semifinals Advancers: Music

Yup. Exactly.

I did another one of these: PCEP's average placement in captions was 11.2th place. Ronald Reagan's average placement in captions was 9th place. Lawrence Central's Average placement in captions was 9.5th place. Center Grove's average placement in captions was 8.5th place. William Mason's average placement in captions was 8.5th place. Kennesaw Mountain's average placement in captions was 7.4th place. James Bowie's average placement in captions was 6.8th place. Marian Catholic's average placement in captions was 4.7th place. Tarpon Springs average placement in captions was 3.9th place. Avon's average placement in captions was 3.9th place. Broken Arrow's average placement in captions was 2.2nd place. Carmel's average placement in captions was 2nd place. Highlights: James Bowie placed 2nd in music ensemble, 4 places above their placement. They also placed 1st in Music GE 2, and 3rd in Music GE Overall. Ronald Reagan placed 3rd in music ensemble, 8 places above their placement. Broken Arrow got 1st from 4 judges, Carmel received 1st from only 1 judge. Broken Arrow was .4 over 2nd (Carmel) in visual Ensemble. Carmel won Music Individual by .4 over Tarpon Springs, and won by a WHOPPING 1.5 points over Broken Arrow.

And then I saw Broken Arrow. WOW. It's Bell 2006 + Tarpon 2010 on the creepiness and disturbing level. Gas masks, smoke machine, people dragging each other, dying, bomb sirens, creepy singing in the field entrance, and imagine LD Bell's guardians from this year gone evil and taken to a whole other level. This sounds really extreme and like it would be too much, but it's PERFECT. As Daniel said on the blog, it's got the GE level of a broadway show and they don't let you go from when they enter the field to when they exit. And they sound just as amazing as how amazing their show design is. They know how to sell a show.

I think both of these bands will make finals, where do you think they will place?

While Bell's show was HARD, it just didn't seem as polished as Coppell or Reagan to me. Oh well, FANTASTIC finals!

Define Central Texas. Because the Central Texas I here everyone refer to is more southeast Texas.

Not even close, my favorite BY FAR is CT Johnson.

9 bands were within 1 point of each other (48 - 56). That's TIGHT.

Just watched CTJ. 14th in Music GE my BUTT. The energy they gave off is ridiculous.

Exactly.

Amen, I think it should be 60% on the performance captions/40% on the GE captions instead of the other way around, but what can you do?

Prelims rankings: 1. Marcus

I got bored and did an ordinals breakdown for finals, some very interesting disagreements between Music GE judges and some VERY high placements for the bottom half bands, you can tell it was a competitive one!

Argyle sure is booking it, but you can tell, they sound very tired towards the end. That's an intense visual book, but maybe a little too much for them to get clean. Musically not as strong as I was expecting. Still good, it just seems VERY frantic. That drum break drill. Wow, that's REALLY fast.

Yup, it would be insane.

All I know is that Marcus won.

Definitely, I have had the honor of playing under Gary Garner 4 Times, that man is amazing and a legend, not that they are not at the top anymore, but so many other schools programs have gotten so much better.

Being from West Texas and competing in Area A twice, I've never really heard the argument of making West Texas it's own area in my region (maybe in El Paso or Midland?). If people really are thinking that, they are either stupid or don't have the drive to compete. If West Texas had its own area, it would be WAY too easy to make it to state in 4A and 5A, while the Dallas Area Schools take up most of the finals spots in 5A, they deserve them, I would rather have Area A send more good bands from Keller ISD than a bunch of mediocre ones from else where in Area A, making our own area wouldn't be fair to Keller ISD schools, Saginaw Schools, and Denton schools. While Keller/El Paso schools tend to dominate 5A, a majority of the larger schools in West Texas are 4A, and they can get past Area to state, so it's not an impossible task like some close minded people from Regions 1, 6, and 16 think it is. While we really don't have the resources and finances, I wouldn't say that marching band is really different, just the talent is not widespread and only really resides in about 6 4A/5A schools in the Panhandle to Lubbock area, and 3 or 4 in the Midland area. The disadvantage we have is the lack of huge population centers like Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin, ect. The pool of talent is SUBSTANTIALLY smaller than larger cities because of population, and because of that, the best directors tend to stay away from the area because it's overall not very strong, which works against the progress. That said I expect area A not to be dominated by Keller/El Paso schools any more, the schools in West Texas ARE getting stronger, and I expect more than 1 to make it past area next year in 4A.

While I say this, I respect the kids, admire their work, and am in NO way discrediting their work by any means, just expressing my personal opinion.

The still play great music and march great drill, but I do agree the extravagant props got old, for me, about 2 years ago. I would LOVE to see them play great music, march great drill, and have an amazing guard without the props. They don't need them, their performance level alone is what puts them on top. I know it's part of their signature, but sometimes, in example last year, they did nothing at all for me.

Amen! Love the way that is put.