Competetive Marching Bands on Long Island
A Brief History of Long Island Competitive Marching Bands. I put this up each year for the new parents and to refresh everyone on our judging system.
There are approximately fifteen bands that compete on Long Island. Competitive bands can perform 30 to 60 forms (this year we have 32), are constantly moving, with memorized music (no lyres), and march in synchronized perfection (or as close as is possible). The other 40 plus Long Island non-competition bands perform their shows during halftime at the Newsday Festival. They tend to perform between 3 and 15 pictures (abstract forms) and do much less complex shows.
There are several competitive circuits in our area. There is the MAC circuit, in Connecticut and northern New England, the TOB (Tournament of Bands) circuit in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the US Bands circuit, which encompasses the entire East Coast, and the NYSFBC (New York State Field Band Conference) which we compete in. The Long Island bands always seem to compete together. In the 80s and early 90s the Long Island bands competed in the Tournament of Bands. The Championships were usually in Scranton, PA. Then in the mid 90's the bands switched to a new circuit, the CMBC (Cadets Marching Band Circuit, Now US Bands) which is still run by the Cadets, one of the top Drum Corps in the world. The draw of this circuit was it's Championships at Giant's Stadium. When the Giant's put in real turf the CMBC was no longer able to use the stadium for a few years, they changed their name to YEA, and moved the championships to venues in Atlantic City, Hersheypark, and Scranton. It was at this time that the Long Island Bands started to transfer to the NYSFBC, the draw to this conference mainly being the Carrier Dome championships, which is obviously indoors, and an incredible venue, not impacted by the cold weather, rain, or ice. The NYSFBC is also a band director driven group, which I feel is the best of the circuits in terms of it's positive outlook and emphasis on education. By the end of the 90's almost all of the Long Island Competitive bands competed in the Carrier Dome/NYSFBC.
Each circuit has a totally different way of judging, different criteria, different judges, and different philosophies. I will now go over the NYSFBC judging system as best I can in a few paragraphs.
NYSFBC Band Classes
There are two main criteria for determining classes in the NYSFBC. There are Small School Classes (SS3, SS2, and SS1) which are determined by school size and the quality level of the program. There are the Large School Classes (LS3, LS2). Class 3 are the less advanced bands, Class 2 the more advanced bands, and Class 1 the most advanced. Please realize, all competitive bands are advanced, going to this circuit shows that. The top class, reserved for the best in the country is the National Class which consists of incredible bands of any school size. Since they are determined by school size, there can be tiny bands and huge bands in the same class in the NYSFBC. Some bands have only the really serious musicians and guard people in their bands, which makes them smaller and easier to make perfect. My goal as a band director has been to get as many people involved in the program as possible. This can obviously hurt our scores since it is harder to get 115 perfect thank 40. This is why sometimes much smaller bands beat us. Touching lives is our philosophy and there is something exciting about filling the field with so many band members. We clearly have the largest percentage of band members to school size of any band, probably in New York State. Our band is the largest band in our class, SS3.
