Indiana Jones Theme Contest

[Penn State]

Here's some cool info about Texas that may persuade in the voting.

- The 2005 Cadets had 7 members from the University of Texas alone.

- The late 90's Cavaliers had a very high percentage of their drum line from Texas.

- There's a ton of people who march in corps from Texas, can't name all of them.

- We created an indoor drum corps show to compete in the talent show called "40 Acre Sound". We played a great

arrangement of Malaguena with plenty of screaming trumpets and I wrote the drill.

- We have played the Madison Scouts arrangements (note for note) of El Toro Caliente (1995) and Malaguena

(1996). El Toro was played at The Rose Bowl. I played the solos, which were soooo much fun.

- To give you an idea of the talent in the band, here's a stat about the trumpet section. Going down my line, not chair order, the first 6 players were either 2 or 3 year Texas All-State trumpet players. There were more and it's like this in most sections.

- The Longhorn Band doesn't move a whole bunch (show band), but boy can they play.

- Before becoming the director of the Michigan Marching Band, Prof. Jamie Nix was on staff with The Longhorn Band.

[InspaDave]

Texas University plays well, but a big mark against them would be those awful uniforms.

[LHBTrombone]

Thank you for all the kind words about Texas!!

Remember to keep voting all of this week and next week, especially if you're voting for us , but if you are voting for other bands please keep doing so as well since it's important to have a good turnout in voting to show ESPN and Paramount our appreciation for recognizing college marching bands.

After watching the other band's videos, I am in agreement with most people who have posted so far about a lot of things. My two favorites (other than ours of course ) are UGA and UF. There is really some good playing going on in those two bands...no one really overplaying at all, and very well balanced with good sounds, UGA moreso than UF though. I agree the pit is a little too loud with UGA, but I get the feeling it was intentionally done by ESPN's editors to showcase the only pit in the competition (or at least the only one I can hear). UF's inclusion of Jaws (which also happens to be another John Williams creation) at the beginning was a nice touch too.

My voting would go like this:

1) TEXAS- because I'm in it of course!...and because I can say humbly without any bias that we do sound quite good.

2) UGA - see above

3) UF - see above

4) LSU - most creative ideas, musically (best use of fight song in arrangement) and visually (well...), but too slow and not as hard of an arrangement.

5) Auburn - too pecky for me...it may just be the band's style though.

6) Clemson - better than USC, but still sounds like too many individuals.

7) USC - I already have a slight prejudice against them (cough...Rose Bowl), but they really don't play that well and sound like way too many people.

It would have been nice to see some bands like Michigan, Ohio State, Texas Tech, North Texas, UMASS, and JSU in the contest too, but I guess they've gotta create some sort of rules or we would have too many. There are a bunch of SEC schools in this contest, but then again their football teams are quite good (top 10) too.

[Texas]

Another thing that needs to be understood is that this is nothing more than a fun little contest designed to promote a DVD release and support college marching bands. To be honest, the prize money of $25,000 isn't anywhere near what our band or any other band in this contest would use in a year, let alone a week in some cases. When each member of our band gets $50 per diem during OU weekend in Dallas, it adds up to around $20,000 in itself, and that doesn't even include the money the band spends on buses, hotels, and other expenses.

Isn't stuff like per diem, busses, hotel rooms, and other travel expenses paid for by the athletic department or conference and not by the bands themselves? I'm not talking just about Texas but also about most other college marching bands. I would believe the $25,000 goes straight to the band or at least the music department to be used to purchase stuff like new instruments and uniforms.

[LHBTrombone]

Isn't stuff like per diem, busses, hotel rooms, and other travel expenses paid for by the athletic department or conference and not by the bands themselves? I'm not talking just about Texas but also about most other college marching bands. I would believe the $25,000 goes straight to the band or at least the music department to be used to purchase stuff like new instruments and uniforms.

You might be right, I just assumed the band pays for that stuff. Nevertheless it's still generous of Paramount and a good incentive for your band to do well, whether it's a lot of money to the band or not.

[FTNK]

OK, here are my evaluations:

7. USC. They dropped the ball on this. I think it'll be the nearly unanimous last place for the DCP crowd. They seemed bored. One good thing was a couple of attempted dynamic contrasts, but they failed.

6. Clemson. They weren't actively bad like USC was, but nothing that really stood out. Not a great arrangement, ensemble clarity and intonation problems.

5. Florida. Clarity issues again, not a stellar arrangement, more intonation problems and "fuzziness" than Auburn.

4. Auburn. Like, Clemson, nothing really stood out. The arrangement was very straightforward and seemed to lack energy and contrast. Nothing glaringly terrible.

Here's the hard part. I am currently trying to refine my vote between

Georgia: I like the pit, but is that just my drum corps-based values system? Georgia seems to be the most corps-like in look and style. I thought they played well as a whole, though more problems (mostly performance-related) come up with repeated viewings.

ahhhh gotta go laptop battery dying.

[Ranger Rick]

You can't record a 320 member band on a flat field with one boom mike.

Isn't stuff like per diem, busses, hotel rooms, and other travel expenses paid for by the athletic department or conference and not by the bands themselves? I'm not talking just about Texas but also about most other college marching bands. I would believe the $25,000 goes straight to the band or at least the music department to be used to purchase stuff like new instruments and uniforms.

A lot of bands raise their own money and pay for everything (EVERYTHING) themselves.

[Athensdawg22]

I liked UGA the best, but....I'm biased....GO DAWGS!

[crashhelmi36]

I'd say that a large percentage of the best bands aren't even in major conferences. North Texas and UMass come to mind right off the top of my head.

Yup. It's tough being in an awesome band at a Division I-AA school. No publicity.

[juice]

I dont think I can handle listening to the theme music. It will just remind me how awful the new movie was.

Edited October 2, 2008 by juice