Anthony V

I had the pleasure of watching y'all at HEB marching contest. I know it was early in October, but nevertheless a great production. Congrats to the kids on a good season!

What the number on how many Leander and Cedar Park marches? Anyone know?

Great points all around. I love these topics. And thanks for tying my abstracted, philosophy student verbosity back to the present reality of UIL State!

I think this is an artifact of difference in personal judging emphasis - giving more points for certain things than for others. There are many instances among middle and top tier bands in prelims where the MPI and MPE are at least one point different. But we normally wouldn't give much thought to a one point difference between those captions. If, then, a one point difference (which goes underneath the radar) becomes common, then comparatively a two point difference isn't that much. It's just that it doesn't go underneath the radar. The same for VPI and VPE. Just look at James Martin's visual scores. At this point I am just speaking generally, not necessarily to you... And I'm kind of going out on a limb here... This is my defense of judging bias. I hesitate to use the term 'bias' because people tend to read 'political bias' or 'unfair bias' or even 'prejudice' into that. But the reality is that a judge without biases cannot judge at all; he or she would have no prior notion of what a good band sounds or looks like, and thus would be unable to recognize and score any good music or visual production whatsoever. What's required is that a judge have competently formed biases, and BOA ensures that since they choose their adjudicators. The adjudication handbook itself - implicitly, I mean - merely allows for a certain band's performance to be interpreted into a certain scoring range. It's not like the judges are under pressure to subjectively approximate as close as possible the one and only real, objective score that a band's performance deserves in a given caption, for there are many real, objective scores even in the same caption that a band can deserve for the same performance. It's not just that a judge 'sees different things than another might', or that we should put a margin of error after the sub-total. True, there can be error and judges do see different things, but these are mitigated substantially by having competent adjudicators: they know what they're looking for, and they look for it effectively most all of the time. The point is that there can be a legitimate range of difference in scores of the same caption, of the same performance, without actually making any judging error. How is this? The reality is that there is no rigid definition of the terms used in adjudication - just a range of competent interpretations of those terms. This is different from the sciences and mathematics in toto. Any time there is not absolute, univocal, philosophical precision in the definition of a term (which is exceedingly difficult), there can be legitimately different opinions - for there are many ways of legitimately 'carving up' ambiguity. There are many ways to legitimately get to Columbus, Ohio if there are not watertight qualifications on how to get there. So just as in any community, there needs to be something of a gentleman's agreement to settle for a plurality of competent opinions, rather than enforcing an absolute, unanimous homogeneity. This we call the adjudication handbook, and it prevents chaos by sketching very broadly the norms of the community, without suffocating the future of the activity. And if we ever doubt that there are different opinions, we need only to look at the different products that different programs put out. Then also consider whether any group of more than one intelligent, educated person agrees on absolutely everything about a certain subject matter. But we shouldn't be in any hurry to nail down with philosophical precision the meaning of these terms, for if the adjudication terms were static rather than dynamic, the entire future of marching band would be locked in to a predetermined way of doing things. There would be no 'paradigm shifts', no moving forward, no designers pushing the limits of what general effect or execution legitimately means on a marching field, no unexpected Flower Mound or CTJ productions. As with any human community (and the marching arts community is an extremely young one, I may add), there is a continual organic development in which the members of the community evaluate and reevaluate their norms and rules, as they come to a deeper or different understanding of themselves, as well as their goals and means of getting there. This simply cannot be transposed or codified into a short adjudication handbook, for that organic development still has more unpredictable achievements to produce. Moreover, even the handbook is always necessarily just a partial expression of the greater expanse of both written and unwritten, inchoate and intuitive community goals and norms that shape the activity. The letter of the law then has to be open enough to allow for what we cannot predict - so that our expectations can be pleasantly surprised - and turn the rest over to the prudent, continual assessment of the community, even if this means we can't program judging robots. Unpredictability is simply ineliminable from any facet of human life, and the scoring accounts for that because the judges and designers are sensible human beings capable of handling surprising human achievement. Despite the appearance of nice boxes with numbers in them, adjudication is not really like science or mathematics at all, where there's only one true and one false response in the end. There's no harm in playing with the numbers, for they are valid, but they are not the only valid numbers as it would be in the sciences. Adjudication retains the competent plurality of the activity it governs, and this plurality will probably never go away. Why the numbers at all then then? We accept the numbers because it gives a real and valid - competently determined - resolution to the activity. It gives a prudent, informed answer as to what the ranking should be. For this activity, that is acceptable, for it still encourages high levels of achievement and produces life-changing experiences as a result - and (more than) fulfills so many other unwritten goals and expectations. TL;DR: Different judging biases are good so long as they are competent (and they are). Because of this, we get to see awesome new designs every year!

I'm blown away by the fact that by 10th place we're already starting to get into the upper echelon of bands...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a top 7 / bottom 7 draw? Which means Reagan is in the bottom 7?

If it sounds anything like St. Louis and Atlanta, then I'm on board. Otherwise I just have a crumby audio set-up. But seriously, when there's a big hit and it sounds like two clarinets, three trombones, and a third trumpet are playing. Is it a marching band, or is it an 80 member kazoo section? PHHHZZZZZZ

My favorite production (besides those towards which I have strong biases) is definitely Waxahachie's show. It really does an excellent job of bringing out their ensemble sound. IT IS SO GOOD. I could listen to them all day! It kind of reminds me of Hebron in 2010 all of a sudden they bloomed with that super rich dark sound. Likewise, Waxahachie's show really fits their ensemble this year.

For Area B finals recap: http://www.uiltexas.org/files/music/6A_Area_B_Finals.pdf For all Area recaps: https://www.uiltexas.org/music/marching-band/area Yes, loading is slow.

Well, that was unexpected. Congrats to North Shore!

I'm not sure if there have been any big surprise appearances this year from bands we've never heard of. But I think Waxahachie had one of the most brilliant seasons they've ever had. I had the pleasure of hearing them live early in the season and they have just a beautiful ensemble sound. Beating Coppell at the Duncanville invitational and taking the music caption from Keller is no joke! They will do great at state next year.

Way to go Duncanville!!!

Also notable are the music ensemble scores from Haltom and Richland in prelims, ranking 4th and 3rd respectively (Broken Arrow, Rosemount, Richland, Haltom). If I'm counting this correctly, that put them in music overall in prelims at 5th and 4th respectively (Broken Arrow, Rosemount, Blue Springs, Richland, Haltom). Good music because Texas and fundamentals. In fact, Richland was half a point in prelims from topping Bellevue West altogether. What held them back it looks like is visual GE. Richland's scores were kind of flat in finals; it was a good run, but a little lackluster compared to prelims. Still, a great resolution and closure for a great bounce-back. Haltom certainly deserved the jump up in finals, though, as their run was more energetic than prelims. Glad to see them doing so well. If I'm not mistaken, Haltom has also done some changes in design staff this year, and I think it has really paid off. Hope to see Haltom go on and make state!

Very balanced and well-executed musical run from Richland. A little on the slow side, but maybe that was intentional. Crystal clear ensemble sound. Wonderful balance and intonation. Superb brass projection. I can only imagine what it sounded like on the field!

Strong performance from Haltom! Sounded and felt more energetic than prelims.

Surprised to see Keller Central rank so low! But glad to see Keller rank so high!

I think a change this year to BOA Super Regional finals performance order is a random top half / bottom half draw. Here's the schedule: 7:15 PM - Air Academy H.S., CO 7:30 PM - Jenks H.S., OK 7:45 PM - Haltom H.S., TX 8:00 PM - Bixby H.S., OK 8:15 PM - Richland H.S., TX 8:30 PM - Fort Zumwalt North H.S., MO 8:45 PM - Grain Valley H.S., MO 9:00 PM - Blue Springs H.S., MO 9:15 PM - Rosemount H.S., MN 9:30 PM - O'Fallon Township H.S., IL 9:45 PM - Bellevue West H.S., NE 10:00 PM - Broken Arrow H.S., OK 10:15 PM - Union H.S., OK 10:30 PM - Owasso H.S., OK

Congrats to Haltom and Richland!

Wow, I didn't expect the competition to be this fierce! It's really difficult to know where to place almost anyone! And we still have another block!

Bellevue West was energetic indeed. A lot of GE going on in that show. It was difficult to hear how polished the music execution was, though. At times it felt musically imbalanced and dirty, but at other times it felt very solid and clear. But certainly energy and GE. Lots and lots of energy and GE. I would be surprised if they didn't make finals. Great performance from Haltom! Many exposed musical sections which they played very well. Many good music ensemble moments too. Probable finalist.

Seemed like a good pretty good run from Richland. Music ensemble sounded brilliant. Hope to see them in finals.

Great job, Fossil Ridge!!

I haven't had problems since the break.

I think the Air Academy brass line is eating decibels for breakfast. If that's a thing.

O'Fallon Township's ballad was astounding. My only complaint is that it's hard to hear ensemble clarity or balance digitally. It must have sounded fantastic in person.