After last night’s rehearsal it was clear, we totally learned this show. The band rose to the challenge and is now nailing this very difficult, incredible show. The guard was incredible, the drum line amazing, the pit great and the winds came out of nowhere this week and are powerful, musical and amazing. We could win this thing, if we perform, and the judges do the right thing. Mineola and Roslyn should be at the top of the class in any order. In my opinion, that’s what should happen. Grant it, I haven’t seen Mohonasson or Leroy or even Phoenix, the other 3 bands in our class, but from all I am hearing through the marching band “grapevine” they are having a similar year to last.
Prepare yourself for any placement! You cannot let the judges opinions dictate how we feel about what we have accomplished this year. You cannot challenge or complain about the judging because someday they will crown us championships. This is a subjective environment and it is part of the territory. Anything is possible. We can win, or we can get 5th out of 5. No matter what happens, I am totally excited about how much we have accomplished this year. We will still beat about half of the bands at the dome, a world away from our novice performance in 2002, a short 7 years ago. We are the fastest and most improved band in the state from our start in 2002. We are famous, incredible, and a powerhouse band!
After watching last year’s dome performance on youtube, it is clear we should have won the show. Yes I will admit it. Nobody did those incredible drill moves. It looked and sounded like a national class band. This year we have done it once again. Will we get credit for it? Maybe yes, maybe no. No matter what the result, we have left an incredible legacy here. Our band is simply amazing!
Be ready for anything. The only thing that is guaranteed is the fact that anything can happen with the scores.
Get psyched, and let’s have an incredible weekend!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Competition Update!
Yesterday was a much better performance than at Bethel! We closed the gap from 8 points to 4 points. Our train is back on the tracks and here we come! We are coming back and are once again a contender.
The Judges
The judges love our show. This is rare. They usually are very critical of the show, in fact, all shows. Our show they love, the drill, the music, the programming........everything. We just have to perform it, which we clearly are not yet doing. If we perform this show cleanly, without any musical tears, and with style both musically and visually, we can win this class. This is a huge undertaking however, considering the fact that the show is very hard, we have limited rehearsal time, and that we only have a month left. The staff and myself are confident that we can do it. The judges acknowledged that we are doing a difficult show and had some ideas about how we can get the show cleaner and more proficient.
Our Performance
I am going to be totally honest. After watching the performance again as I uploaded it on you tube I realized that there were still some major problems in the first and second tunes. We still have huge timing problems, keeping the band together. People are pulling fast and slow, entrances are off, and the band does not lock up the tempo. We cannot achieve any kind of excellence from the judges when we have these kinds of problems. This affects every caption at least 1/2 a point and can account for 6 points down from these tears. The fact that we are 4 points away, with multiple tears in each of the first two tunes is very promising in terms of where we can go with this show. In addition, the warm up area was very far away, which caused us a very short and weak warm up at the show. This is why we played very out of tune and poorly from a musical standpoint. Just listen to the youtube video. There are many wrong notes, out of tune notes, overblowing, and poor tone quality which we usually never display. Once again, I blame this on the poor warm up due to logistics at the Sachem facility so we shouldn’t have this problem in the future.
What we need to do
We need to practice and watch the drum majors. These are 4 of the best drum majors on the planet! They absolutely nailed this show with their superior conducting. If you follow them they will lead you to the championship. Marching around, listening foward, and taking your eyes off the drum majors even for a split second can lead to catastrophe in terms of the band not locking up. Once again, the drum majors follow the drummers, visually watching their feet and sticking, the band follows the drum majors visually, and the band locks up. Just like the demonstration I did yesterday with the three snare drummers. The visual count off was flawless while the audio count off was off. Yes, we have been taught to listen to music all around us our whole lives, to balance, tune up, and blend together, but when we are spread out on a football field we need to do the opposite and watch the drum majors. Once again, they are rock solid and will hold us together. We must never take our eyes off them.
The Pit and Colorguard
The pit was amazing! No problems, watch the youtube show. They listened back and were just about perfect! The guard was the best they have been in years, still a little off in some sections but everyone is right now.
This week we will be working on locking up the band on the first and second tunes and readjusting the colorguard spots on some of the impacts along with some general tweaking. We are rehearsing two nights this week, be there and be ready to work! Great job this weekend!
The Judges
The judges love our show. This is rare. They usually are very critical of the show, in fact, all shows. Our show they love, the drill, the music, the programming........everything. We just have to perform it, which we clearly are not yet doing. If we perform this show cleanly, without any musical tears, and with style both musically and visually, we can win this class. This is a huge undertaking however, considering the fact that the show is very hard, we have limited rehearsal time, and that we only have a month left. The staff and myself are confident that we can do it. The judges acknowledged that we are doing a difficult show and had some ideas about how we can get the show cleaner and more proficient.
Our Performance
I am going to be totally honest. After watching the performance again as I uploaded it on you tube I realized that there were still some major problems in the first and second tunes. We still have huge timing problems, keeping the band together. People are pulling fast and slow, entrances are off, and the band does not lock up the tempo. We cannot achieve any kind of excellence from the judges when we have these kinds of problems. This affects every caption at least 1/2 a point and can account for 6 points down from these tears. The fact that we are 4 points away, with multiple tears in each of the first two tunes is very promising in terms of where we can go with this show. In addition, the warm up area was very far away, which caused us a very short and weak warm up at the show. This is why we played very out of tune and poorly from a musical standpoint. Just listen to the youtube video. There are many wrong notes, out of tune notes, overblowing, and poor tone quality which we usually never display. Once again, I blame this on the poor warm up due to logistics at the Sachem facility so we shouldn’t have this problem in the future.
What we need to do
We need to practice and watch the drum majors. These are 4 of the best drum majors on the planet! They absolutely nailed this show with their superior conducting. If you follow them they will lead you to the championship. Marching around, listening foward, and taking your eyes off the drum majors even for a split second can lead to catastrophe in terms of the band not locking up. Once again, the drum majors follow the drummers, visually watching their feet and sticking, the band follows the drum majors visually, and the band locks up. Just like the demonstration I did yesterday with the three snare drummers. The visual count off was flawless while the audio count off was off. Yes, we have been taught to listen to music all around us our whole lives, to balance, tune up, and blend together, but when we are spread out on a football field we need to do the opposite and watch the drum majors. Once again, they are rock solid and will hold us together. We must never take our eyes off them.
The Pit and Colorguard
The pit was amazing! No problems, watch the youtube show. They listened back and were just about perfect! The guard was the best they have been in years, still a little off in some sections but everyone is right now.
This week we will be working on locking up the band on the first and second tunes and readjusting the colorguard spots on some of the impacts along with some general tweaking. We are rehearsing two nights this week, be there and be ready to work! Great job this weekend!
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