Texas Bands are the best, thesis:)

[Majellan]

Thinking this morning on the way to work and after tearing apart Carmel’s grand Nats performance. I just reminded myself after I woke up of how fortunate a true band geek has it in Texas. I’m 47 years old, was a drum major in high school, music major in college but teaching wasn’t my thing. However it does my heart good when I go walking at arbor nature preserve in west Plano and have the privilege of hearing Hebron’s percussion on fall mornings or pass by Lebanon Trail practicing in the parking lot on the way to get groceries here in Frisco.

 

I still am a solid band geek at heart, there’s probably not a day that goes that I don’t watch band videos from somewhere. The most recent was the Arkansas Marching championship, other than Carmel this morning...I’m proud of Arkansas they have some up and coming bands, good shows.

 

However, their best band would be lucky to place in the 30’s at boa San Antonio. Lucky, because I’m not sure they could top the Valkey bands. The Valley and El Paso have some outstanding bands that would be in state finals in many other states. But they can’t make it through the intensely competitive suburban bands from the big 4 metros.

 

I’ve heard comments about there being 20 million people here and all, but I don’t see California or Florida putting up the deep quality of bands as Texas does.

 

So I think I came to an epiphany about my fellow Indiana peeps who sometimes say we can’t hang. Let them have that, if we sent every top 20 band to indy every year there would be a lot of hardware in Texas trophy cases. I suddenly realized that the finals do need to stay in Indy, otherwise Texas would consistently dominate and that takes the fun away.

 

I’m also a great lover of marching band and I love that states like Arkansas are getting more quality in their marching bands. I don’t want to take away incentive for those smaller programs to grow because they feel like they’ll be crowded out by the mass of outstanding Texas bands. So I guess I’m coming to terms with the St Louis regional that gave Clovis, nm, bentonville, ark and Weiss time to shine along with grand nats. Because Texans know where the grandaddy of marching contests takes place..... Right in the heart of San Antonio:). No Texas bias present in this wall of text at all;)

[LeanderMomma]

Man, I could NOT have said it any better myself!  I had the same epiphany recently, and I am okay with Texas being Texas, and the rest of the country having their chance to shine at all of the other out of Texas regionals, super regionals and Grand Nationals.  I know some of the non Texans in the MFA forums get salty anytime we Texas folks start talking about how great our state is (ha--I can't really blame them), but there are plenty of others outside of our great state who recognize how amazing this state is for marching band.  Maybe we don't have the consistent top one or two placers in the country, but man we have the best of everything else.  And I'll take it.