How We Get Judged

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. Roslyn is the most recent addition to this group (it's our 7th season). The others have been in this competition circuit for 30 to 40 years. Competitive bands can perform 30 to 60 forms (this year we have 67, up from 32 two years ago), are constantly moving, with memorized music (no lyres), and march in synchronized perfection (or as close as is possible). The other 50 plus Long Island non-competition bands perform their shows during halftime at home football games and at the Newsday Festival. They tend to perform between 3 and 15 pictures (abstract forms) and do a much less complex show.

There are several competitive circuits in our area. There is the MAC circuit, in Conncecticut and northern New England, the TOB (Tournament of Bands) circuit in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the YEA 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) which was run by the Bergen County 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, they changed their name to YEA, and moved the championships to venues in Atlantic City, Hersheypark, and Scranton. It was about 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. 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. 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. For instance, Northwestern, who won SS2 for several years, marched around 40 members. 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. In our conference, you get a bump in General Effect from being big but that's about all. In the YEA conference, the larger the bands, the bigger the class, and the higher the scores; they reward you for being bigger and feel that the General Effect of a larger group gives you a higher score.

NYSFBC Judging / How We Get Judged
In the NYSFBC there are two large areas that we are judged on, Visual and Music. Each of these two areas are broken down into three segments, Field, Ensemble, and General Effect. So here are the six judges that judge us: Field Visual, Ensemble Visual, GE Visual, Field Music, Ensemble Music, and GE Music.

Field Visual: This judge is on the field, walking around, through, and in front of the band. This judge's job is to evaluate the individuals on the field and how they march, do their guard work, and how they look as individuals.

Ensemble Visual: This judge is up in the stands and evaluates the drill, the band and the guard doing their designs and work as an ensemble, the artistic value of the show.

GE Visual: This judge sits up in the stands and judges the "General Effect" of the visual portion of the band and guard. This is usually what the audience responds to, the GE.

Field Music: This judge is on the field, walking around, through, and in front of the band. This judge's job is to evaluate the individuals musicians on how they are playing their parts.

Ensemble Music: This judge is up in the stands and evaluates how the band performs their music as an ensemble. This judge evaluates the difficulty of the show, how clean the band is playing musically, and how they sound.

GE Music: This judge sits up in the stands and judges the "General Effect" of the music. This is usually what the audience responds to, the GE.