Marching band competition

"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
10/05/2019 at 23:17 • Filed to: None

My red head on the synth.

DISCUSSION (14)

ttyymmnn > ImmoralMinority
10/05/2019 at 23:26

Kinja'd!!!

Same here. This was after prelims. We made finals, waiting for results. Hot as balls here today, and not much better tonight.

Ash78, voting early and often > ImmoralMinority
10/05/2019 at 23:44

In my head, he’s going totally off-script and playing the opening to Light my Fire .

I bet you’re super proud. My niece is the color guard captain at a big SEC school and it’s pretty amazing some of the stuff they do.

ttyymmnn > ImmoralMinority
10/05/2019 at 23:47

How did y’all do? We finished 6/10, which I think will be a bit of a disappointment. They played well though. Tough competition.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > ImmoralMinority
10/05/2019 at 23:53

Seems like he should have a taller stand for the keyboard. Reminds me of my time playing marimba and many other things in my marching band in high school. It's crazy how much my life revolved around band back then and how little music at all is part of my life now. I DO NOT miss being in high school but I do kinda miss band.

DipodomysDeserti > Ash78, voting early and often
10/06/2019 at 00:06

My middle school band teacher had us play Light My Fire. He also taught us a lesson about anger management which he said was mandated by his therapist. That was a great class.

DipodomysDeserti > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/06/2019 at 00:11

I feel like the band kids were the kids least interested in music. I quite band in high school but music has played and integral part of my life since. Spent the formative years of my youth in music venues and clubs that would tolerate us. My closest friends are all from our shared music scene.

My step bro was in marching all four years of high school and his idea of music is Nickleback.

Band kids are the jocks of the music world.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ImmoralMinority
10/06/2019 at 00:26

Something we don't have here

Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious > ttyymmnn
10/06/2019 at 00:27

Was this UIL or just a local-run deal?

We're 6A, so this year, we're just out to whip all the 6As at the local contests. No area or state for us.

ttyymmnn > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/06/2019 at 02:52

Local. Vista Ridge. Five bands finished within 4 points. Though we finished 6th, we scored higher than we did last year.

Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious > ttyymmnn
10/06/2019 at 04:22

Oh geez . State champs from last year; I guess if they were hosting, they weren’t competing . Hard not to show up to something like that without feeling like you’re chasing the wind, huh? Did Vandergrift and Leander and...well, all the Cedar Park/Leander area bands show up? Because if so, 6th ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. I would even guess that everyone in finals is probably state level, but only held back by the limited number of candidates each area can send.

Scoring higher than last year is always nice. Personal improvement should always be the goal, especially when it feels like the target is always moving.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > ImmoralMinority
10/06/2019 at 07:47

I know he's not playing a barbecue...but he's playing a barbecue.

ttyymmnn > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/06/2019 at 12:07

Vista Ridge was hosting, and only did a demo. Lake Travis steamrolled everybody, but theirs was a very good show. And we had to follow them. As I was standing on the sidelines waiting to push my sound cart on the field (I pit crew whenever I don’t have ASO or opera), I saw that LT had microphones pointing at the band, suggesting they were amplifying their entire show. Is that even legit? Seems like cheating to me. Then again, I have issues with all the crap that gets dragged onto the field that doesn’t make a sound, all the expense for all that crap, and the amount of electronic reinforcement in general. I imagine if you stripped all of that away the top bands would still be the top bands, but these contests seem to be more of an arms race of who can spend the most money for the most whizbang instead of a music and marching skills contest.

But our band is improving. We got our highest score ever at BOA Midland, so there’s that.

Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious > ttyymmnn
10/06/2019 at 17:26

You and I are on the same page with props and amplification...and most of the original music being written for competitive marching band these days, ugh. Lots of people ask if I’m ever going to shoot for a high school job, and modern marching band makes it an automatic no every time. Don't even get me started on money...there were at least three bands in state finals last year which featured a complete uniform change for the musicians as a part of their show. People complain about El Paso getting all this Title I money by "robbing" districts like Leander...but I watch your bands perform, and it sure doesn't seem like the financial hit is really hurting your schools. :p

I saw Leander doing the same thing with the mics at state last year, and raised your same concerns to our high school director. The UIL rules state that you are allowed to selectively amplify sections during their solis, so the current trend is to park sideline mics every 10 yards, and they are only switched on for the soli. (UIL competition requires a minimum 32 counts of brass feature, 32 counts of woodwind feature, and 32 counts of battery + frontline.) Because woodwind solis are often supported by the frontline, they can get buried standing behind said supporting frontline. So now it’s common to mic WW solis. And mello solis.

Not sure what the rules are for BOA. Since it's a non-UIL show, maybe they CAN leave the whole band mic'd. Yuck.

ttyymmnn > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious
10/07/2019 at 09:04

These mics were on stands and extended about 10 feet up. No way there were there to amplify soloists. In fact, all the soloists had wireless mics and played from the field, not the sideline.