herpaderp

Holy crap, the competition for 3rd was insane. Tie followed by two schools tying ONE point behind? And congrats to Marcus on the 4-peat!

No Duncanville - WOW. On the other hand, I correctly predicted all of the schools in finals, except that I had Duncanville in rather than Reagan. I'm pretty happy that I nailed what I considered the bubble - Westlake and Berkner.

Glad to hear that about Anderson - behavior was a little hit or miss when I was there. I guess the attitude of that program has turned around a lot!

Very late here, but I'd say that above all, keep in mind that slow movements are HARD. Sure, they're easier in terms of technicality and energy, but they expose marching fundamentals a lot. Most of all, you have to really engage musically to make them compelling. So be wise - know if your group can pull off slower, quieter music. A boring slow movement drags you down, but if you really nail an emotional ballad, you can put yourself above and beyond the competition. I have always thought that it's the slower stuff and keeping dynamics and balance great in all tempos that shows real ensemble musicianship. Fast, flashy loud stuff is just silly and obnoxious when that's all you can do.

Part of the issue is that the big metro areas have the strongest programs, period. Certain areas are always going to be harder to get out of. Smaller areas with high numbers of great groups ( won't be easy to get out of. Bigger areas that are just stacked like D aren't easy either. The only way to make it "fair" with having State made up purely of the objectively (heh) best programs/performances from across the state would be to have a pre-State competition where everyone that makes it out of region goes to one place and gets judged by the same people. Obviously this is infeasible, so you have two options: a.) Raise the standards for getting out of Region significantly so that this is a manageable number of people. I think this should be done to some extent anyway. The reason being, with higher initial standards, the pools for Area advancement change to better reflect the overall quality of programs in the area. It normalizes it a bit for the small, densely concentrated talent areas. b.) Align the areas as fairly as possible. I think the best solution, as said before, is to make a new area from parts of D and G, creating what is essentially a San Antonio area. This would give the Area G bands some better top dogs to aspire to, raising up their level. Meanwhile Area D would be a little less tight, giving more room for great programs to go to State. The situation with B and C is a little less familiar to me so I'm not really sure how to rectify that. They could really use an extra advancing slot each. IMO it's inexcusable that, for instance, Richland, Flower Mound, Bell, Marcus, Hebron, Plano East, and Haltom are all battling over just five slots - and it used to only be four! Any of them would make it out of at least 4 of the other areas with no problem. And yeah, TMEA areas are crazy. E has most of the Austin schools except RR and Leander schools, along with a good chunk of Houston (Cy-Fair schools mostly) and all the heavy hitters from from San Antonio (Churchill, Reagan, Johnson). The North Texas areas are insane to get out of as well. TMEA districts need redoing much more than the UIL ones IMO.

They do have a shot, of course, but SO many groups do. State Finals are a crapshoot. I predict Plano in the top 15 for sure but I wouldn't bank on anything more specific than that. They're just part of the really unpredictable bubble on the last 2 or 3 spots in finals. Also, after seeing their placement at BOA SA I wouldn't call it a given. A bunch of bands beat them that they have to edge out to have a shot. They lost to Reagan, Westlake, and Richland (by a nose on the last two, admittedly) and were only 1 place ahead of Spring. All four of those groups are fighting Plano for the last couple of slots IMO, plus a few others that weren't at BOA. Of course BOA is a different ballgame than UIL, and every performance could change everything. However, this to me is a better predictor than Area, purely out of how much closer the timeframe is. Area results also tend to have fairly little bearing on State. Last time around, Westlake made 5th in Area D finals and managed to get a state finals slot. The only other band from that area that made finals was Bowie. Area B and C almost always have big shakeups in a similar vein. No one's discounting Plano, it's just a very tough contest.

First off, I'm not in a HS marching band. I used to be, I have since graduated. So there is no "my band". Second, you don't have to be winning to realize that a BOA contest in the same timeslot would almost inevitably be more competitive. And great programs not participating also indicates less competition than before. Since when is wanting more competitive contests a bad thing? The competition pushes everyone to work harder, making the end product better.

I think a Central Texas BOA would be great. There's a couple of good venues in Round Rock in particular. Plus, this would be a pretty equal trek for almost all of the heavy hitting programs - Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston would all be within relatively easy distance, as well as the Austin area obviously. After that, the trick is just putting it at a time where a BOA contest would actually be desired. I wouldn't mind seeing it usurp the place of the Westlake contest on its weekend, as a more competitive event. It would set up Area much better, IMO. Some bands that need a little extra push to keep going at that point could see a lot of improvement. Of course, that's probably a great fundraiser for Westlake so they might not want to give it up - then again, some bands don't do the BOA thing, so Westlake could still thrive as a bit of a smaller contest. There's plenty of schools there that don't have the resources or whatnot to compete well in BOA or State level contests, and without the usual suspects, they would have more a chance to shine at Westlake. Looking at the past couple of years, it seems that Westlake is getting less competitive as is. First no Cedar Park, then no Bowie - a more intense competition in pretty much the same place, with more standardized scoring, would be a much more appealing proposition. It could be a great way to see most of the big dogs from separate areas compete directly, but a little earlier in the season.

My predictions: Top 2 in some order: Marcus Bowie 3 and 4: LD Bell Duncanville Outside of top 4 but probably still locks: Hebron Coppell The Woodlands CT Johnson The last two slots could be anyone's game. Just way too many great groups. Westlake, Berkner, Spring, Reagan, Plano East, Rowlett, Richland... It comes down to who performs the best on that particular day. I will be very surprised if Bowie does not medal this year though. They have the most upward trajectory of any of the very top tier of bands, IMO. It's just hard to say since they've hardly competed yet this year. Really excited to see if Marcus can hold on to their title this year. All in all I think we're seeing the start of a big shift in the status quo - I think we're going to start seeing the North Texas monopoly over the top levels of competition start to disappear.

As an alum I'm disappointed Anderson didn't get another shot at state, and pretty shocked that they didn't even make finals. However, this is a very different area than it was 2 years ago. 3 of the finalists weren't even competing last time around, 2 of which are advancing. Interesting to see that Churchill once again did not get a State spot. RR losing out seems odd as they seemed to be doing better than ever this year. Going first is the likely culprit. I didn't see Anderson here, but IMO they don't sound quite as good as they did last time around. Less blend and more intonation issues. I haven't seen a lot but that was my assessment from Westlake. Their show seems more BOA oriented this year, which may have hurt them. I haven't seen Bowie but they sounded STUNNING last year. I will be very, very surprised if they don't medal this year at State. They keep getting better every year which is incredible considering how good they are already.

Here's how I see State finals shaping up: 1. Marcus 2. Bell 3. Bowie, it's time they medaled. They won Area D, and while it's true Cedar Park isn't in there anymore, that's still quite an accomplishment. 4. Duncanville 5. Reagan 6. Coppell 7. The Woodlands 8. Johnson And then a major toss-up. I see the bubble as: Hebron Rowlett Berkner Anderson Keller Langham Creek Harlingen My bet's on Hebron and Anderson from those two, but I'm not 100%. Hebron beat Bell, which means something no matter what the circumstances. Anderson, well, I'm biased . But I think there's a momentum now that just may get us through. We'll see.