MarktheTrumpet

I didn't audition at UNT because I felt the program was too big to give the personalized attention I was looking for, but I do have a music ed degree from an equally ranked music school and think I can give you some insight. I had a teacher who compared musicality to a three-legged chair. The three legs that hold up the foundation to a musician are tone, tuning, and time. Without one of these, the chair collapses. Trumpet professors are looking for players who are established in their technique and have good habits. Tone is a very important factor because if you have problems with your tone you most likely need some adjustments to your embouchure. Changing an embouchure can be a very daunting task and can take months, even years to sort out. Many professors don't want to take the time to go through this process and would rather take students who are ready to start developing their musicality with advanced repertoire. If you want to develop your sound, long tones, long tones, long tones. Ask your teachers about the Stamp and Chickowitz long tone studies. One of the most over-looked techniques for young players to develop is their ear. If you can play in tune by yourself professors will notice it and you will truly set yourself apart from the majority of high school players. I'm 23 and I still practice with a tuner in every single one of my sessions. When you do your long tones, watch the tuner and make sure every time you change pitches you are landing as close to in tune as possible. Do the same thing when you are playing a piece and want to check large or weird intervals. If you do this long enough your lips will learn what position they need to be in for each pitch and how to compensate for certain intervals. But, more importantly, it will teach your ear to hear what being in tune sounds like. When you are playing with your band/ ensemble or with a recording you need to use your ears and really listen to the intonation of the group. Make sure you are not sharp/ flat to the other players in the group, but don't adjust to players who are out of tune themselves. Listen to the group as a whole. Again, a lot of young players don't see the importance in this but it is crucial to playing music at an advanced level and will show a high level of musicianship in an audition. You also need to have a good understanding of rhythm and be able to hold a steady tempo. Practicing with a metronome is important to develop this skill, but it goes beyond that. Again, in ensemble make sure you are listening to other players and matching time. When you prepare ANY piece of solo repertoire, it is important that you listen to at least one professional recording of the piece. This will give you an idea of appropriate tempos for the piece and how to tastfully apply ritardandos and tempo changes. But as I think of it, listening to recordings is important for so many other reasons. The best way to develop artistic phrasing and a high level of musical understanding is by imitation. Ask your teachers for what trumpeters you should get recordings of and try to make musical phrases the same way they do. Well, this was a great distraction from work. Best of luck to you! My advice is to stop worrying about what schools to get into until you are a senior. For now, just focus on becoming the best trumpet player you can possibly be.

I meant nothing negative by commenting on when Round Rock left. They watched more of finals than any other band which shows some class. I didn't realize ya'll felt the same way about simple fact checking as the Republican party. Soooooo I was into this forum a lot when I was in high school but have drifted away from it in recent years. I remember people talking a lot about the performances they saw and their opinions on different shows. This year I am teching for a band in the Austin area so I thought I would check out this forum again. It seems like now all anyone talks about is scores and the reputation a program has. Wheres the fun in that? Does anyone who watched the contest want to talk about the shows they say?

I was at finals and you guys left before Westlake. Just sayin.

I saw the last few bands of prelims and all of finals, and WOW! What a great showing of talent from central Texas. I remember being in high school and stressing so much over contest results. Now that I'm a few years out I realize how trivial and unimportant the rankings of a contest are. All of the bands should be proud of their product regardless of how they placed. That being said... Here are my unapologetic rankings from finals haha. 1. Bowie 2. Westlake 3. C.T. Johnson 4. Ronald Regan 5. Westwood 6. Hendrickson 7. Cedar Ridge 8. Lake Travis 9. Churchill 10. Judson Rankings may be trivial and unimportant, but it's still a lot of fun to play God. Bowie was just "on another planet" good haha. I appreciated the small portions of The Planets suite rather than just playing it the whole time like so many bands have done before. They have a huge sound like always and had some great dynamic contrasts. The drill was clean although they are so huge it was information overload at times - almost impossible to see the whole picture at once. Very uniform marching fundamentals. Westlake exceeded my expectations, and I already knew they would be great. They definitely had the hardest music of the night and they pulled it off. Great balance, great tone quality. The fast runs in Festive Overture at the beginning had some timing issues but thats my only music complaint from the whole show. Scottish Dances was a lot of fun and THOSE TRUMPET SOLOS! He deserved his own advancing slot to state. Individual marching was not as strong, fundamentals suffered on large step sizes. Their show concept was the best executed of the night. The choreography on the stair steps was very effective. This show is a perfect example of a UIL-BOA hybrid. This was my first time to see Johnson and I loved it! There were a couple of moments when I thought I was listening to a drum corps. HUGE sounds. Their color guard threw down... 15+ girls tossing solid 5s in unison? That doesn't happen on the marching field very often. The tree props were beautiful but I think they could have utilized them more. I saw Regan in prelims and finals and I thought they stepped up their game for finals. Intonation was a lot better in finals than in prelims, particularly in the solos and the dissonant trumpet quartet. The battle of the clarinets was a lot of fun. The plume changes were impressive and flawless. Actually, all the visuals were executed very well. Some slight spacing issues on free forms. I didn't see Westwood in prelims and I have to admit, I was very surprised to hear that they made finals. But MAN was I wrong. There drill was easier than some other shows but it was so clean! Lots of really neat ripple effects. Their sound is very balanced from bottom to top, but there were a few times where the brass' tone got a little edgy. What great music arranging! I never would have thought you could combine Sheherezade with Alanis Morissette and Led Zepplin, but it worked so well! Hendrickson's drill has cleaned up a lot since I last saw them two weeks ago. Individual marching is very uniform. They do some difficult pass-through drill and they execute it well. Color guard is pretty clean. The bassoon ensemble had some intonation problems, but what else do you expect from bassoons in 50 degree weather? After the bomb detonated they played Salvation is Created and it was a great moment. Their music was not very demanding and had some tuning issues, but they have great tone quality. If they can get their music a little stronger I think this show could do well at BOA San Antonio. Mad props for making it to 5A state for the first time. I loved Cedar Ridge's show even though the friends I was with didn't haha. I really liked their pre-show, they made the bird theme evident from the beginning. They did fine with free forms, but their lines and block forms were kinda messy. All of their visuals were executed very well and fit the show concept. They have a very full sound and play in tune. I love it when a brand new program hits the ground running like this one, congratulations! I love old movies and the 1920's era in general, so Lake Travis grabbed me from the beginning. However, I felt like their show concept only lasted about half way through the show. By the end I was on the verge of boredom. The sax solo was impressive. Their sound is very balanced and beautiful, almost sounding like a concert band at times. However, it was on the conservative side and lacked any "WOW" musical moments. Free forms had a LOT of spacing issues. Congrats on making 5A state for the first time! When I saw those venus fly traps enter the field with Churchill I was really hoping for a Little Shop of Horrors show haha. But they didn't do very much with those fancy props. I've watched some videos of them and I don't think this was there best musical run. Not trying to be rude, but can we talk about A440 for a minute? Yes I get that it was cold, but there were way too many intonation issues. It was distracting. Straight-leg marching technique was executed well. I really liked when the guard tangled the band at the end. Really cool to see the Judson band make a come-back. The teepee rotation drill at the beginning set a great tone for the show, but I think it would have served better as a pre-show. Because of this they went over a minute of their performance time without playing at all AND they ended their show with 30 seconds to spare... seemed like a bit of a cop-out. There drill was clean but there music was probably the easiest of the night. Lots of good solos with only minor intonation issues. Great drumline - I remember a bass line lick that was pretty sick. Pretty sure I sound like a condescending snob right now, but really, I thought all of the bands in finals were great. As for the mad surprises of who wasn't in finals... I durrnurr. Like I said earlier, the placements of these contests is not a big deal. My message to those students who are upset about not making finals: 2 years after you graduate, you won't care at all and will only remember the good times of high school band. It's late and I spent way too long on this. Good night.

My bands advancing: 1. Bowie 2. CTJ 3. Round Rock 4. Regan 5. Anderson 6. Westlake No surprises there. Cedar Ridge and Churchill have a shot at squeezing someone out of there. The real drama will be in who rounds out finals. My best guess: 7. Cedar Ridge 8. Churchill 9. Hendrickson 10. Pflugerville I'm still unsure of my PISD homies, they can be so unpredictable, but I really hope they both make it into finals. Hendrickson is so entertaining but there sound is still a little undeveloped. Or at least it was at Westlake, I haven't seen them since. Their color guard looks better than ever, but we all know that doesn't mean much to UIL. Pflugerville's drill is the cleanest I've seen from them in years, but like Hendrickson, they just don't have the top-notch ensemble sound of the big dogs. Everyone talks about Lake Travis, McNeil and Westwood being the bubble bands for finals, and I can't argue with that at all. However, I think Judson should also be thrown into that mix. Lets not forget that they beat Lake Travis in prelims and finals at Westlake. Should be a fun contest. I usually only show up for finals but I may make a day out of it and go to prelims.

With 5A area happening this weekend, a lot of us are ready to make our predictions. I know most if not all of the Area schedules have been released by UIL. When will we be able to make predictions? Also, when will all of the past contests have the finals results posted? There are a couple of contests from the past few weeks that I still have no idea what the results were. Love the site, thanks for all that you guys do.

When will we get to make predictions on this? I guess I'll just do it here. I haven't seen any of the San Antonio schools so I'm only guessing their placements based on previous seasons. 1. Bowie 2. CTJ 3. Round Rock 4. Ronald Regan 5. Anderson 6. Westlake 7. Cedar Ridge 8. Winston Churchill 9. Hendrickson 10. Pflugerville

High Clarinets 9 (-) Bassoons 31 Trumpets 59 (+) Horns 64 Mallet Percussion 8 Piano 20

USSBA Central Texas Preview Hendrickson HS, 9/29/07 Scores 1. Westlake 76.75 2. Leander 75.80 3. Connally 75.65 4. Pflugerville 75.55 5. Dripping Springs 75.20 6. Sandra Day O

why isn't Akins going? i really wanted a chance to see their show.

Westlake has become a pretty big deal around Austin. I really hope i get to see more bands then i did last year since the talent level is so high. My only prediction is that Leander is going to make a big jumb from last year. With such a good start at USSBA, I think their season shows promise. And as usual, I can't wait to see Westlake's exhibition.

I didn't get to see many bands since I was working... but Bowie was amazing. Looked clean for this early in the season. And the show is really entertaining. Trumpet solo was nice too. Even though we wern't competing, Hendrickson still got scored. Theres a rumor going around that we got top scores... 82. something. Can anybody prove this? I guess we'll just have to wait for USSBA to hurry up and post the scores on the site.