Show Style Comparison

[whitewing09]

Is style of a show dependent on the region? Do certain regions in Texas have different style of shows? How about different regions of the country? Are any regions noted for their certain style?

 

Just thought I'd give some food for thought.

[Xenon]

Yeah, styles definitely do differ by area of the country and even areas within the state of Texas.

 

- Texas as a whole is very music performance oriented, thus why you see a TX band taking the BOA GN Music caption almost every year.

- The Midwest USA focuses a lot on Visual and thus why a midwestern band takes the BOA GN Visual caption almost every year.

- East Texas has a lot more military bands and even the corps style bands are very heavily influence by the military style.

- South Texas has a lot more GE and straight forward, easy to understand elements and show concepts. This doesn't make them inferior to harder to understand shows, just different.

- West Texas was classically more of a traditional corps style, but has been modernizing rapidly recently.

[takigan]

Ahhh!!! What a great topic

 

 

Daniel summed it up pretty nicely. I would like to add that for Texas bands that do full length "BOA shows", there's often a strong impact point that occurs about 7-8 minutes into the show that signals what I like to call a "UIL cutoff" indicating where the show would normally end during a UIL competition while obeying UIL's time limits. I believe this is a pretty important element of Texas' style on the grand scale.

 

When you compare the method of Texas bands to other parts of the country, there is in fact a stronger emphasis on music as opposed to visual. This is primarily due to UIL's influence (a system that heavily values the musical execution of a performance more than anything else) but it doesn't stop there. TMEA is a very powerful organization that is involved on the political scene as much as they are on the education scene (they're a large enough entity to be considered a major lobby group, like PETA or the NRA but on a somewhat smaller scale) and they represent the philosophy of Texas music educators more than any other organization. TMEA doesn't invest a whole lot of interest in marching band (though they do acknowledge its importance to our livelihood). Essentially there has always been a philosophy in Texas that music comes before anything else, including marching band itself. This is reflected in its approach to putting a show together and it shows in the number of times Texas has netted the music caption at Grand Nationals.

 

The midwest is dominated by a powerful drum corps tradition. They rehearse more, are more invested in staff that focus on visual execution, choreography and design. Their shows are longer like drum corps shows and the marching and concert organizations are viewed on a more level scale, whereas in Texas marching band for many years was seen as more of a burden to what we're really trying to do with the concert side of things.

 

After BOA gained a strong foothold in Texas starting around the time of 9/11, I feel like Texas has started to adopt more midwestern principles. As the economy went through a massive growth spurt, education became wealthier, teacher salaries went up, band programs got more money which resulted increased staff rosters and more band organizations started pushing for "Fair Share" programs that pulled additional dues from students to raise money to emulate the midwestern BOA/DCI style of band shows. The prospect of competing in BOA seemed much more affordable now and we started to see more and more bands compete in BOA and even make the trip to nationals.

 

Even with the widely adopted BOA tradition, Texas itself has its own distinct philosophy and local/regional traditions.

[whitewing09]

I watched the champion excerpts for 10/10/09 I believe and it amazed me how advanced bell's music designed seemed in comparison to the other two champions. I know it's bell we're talking about, but it was just so eye opening lol