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Top Marching Band State


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11 hours ago, gregory11 said:

Don't forget Indiana.

Exactly!!! I was reading this with a facial expression of wtf until your post! I’d add OK, IL and GA/FL to the mix for second tier behind TX and IN 

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PA, NJ, DE and NY have many very good bands, but few do national circuits like BOA, but stick to more regional circuits. Also because many of the bands are not the size of the big BOA powerhouses, they get overlooked.

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On 10/14/2020 at 9:57 PM, Jeff Ream said:

Texas treats music programs with an importance everywhere else reserves for sports only

Possibly, but that state is no slouch for future professional and world level athletes.

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Are we looking at skill level or just participation? It seems like almost every school in Iowa has a marching band, though only a few would even have a remote chance at BOA GN Semifinals. I also disagree with the person that says California has hardly any marching bands. At last count, California had over 500 active competitive marching bands, which is absolutely AMAZING considering the level of support California music programs receive from school districts (virtually nil).

Most states are carried by a small handful of powerhouse bands: Rosemount and Eden Prairie in Minnesota, Tarpon Springs (and Park Vista, Timber Creek, Stoneman Douglas) in Florida, William Mason (and Centerville and the Lakotas) in Ohio. Oklahoma used to be like that: it was Broken Arrow, Union, and everybody else for a long time. It's only "recently" (last 10-20 years) that bands like Owasso, Jenks, Mustang, etc. have elevated themselves to at or near that level. Blue Springs has had a similar effect on western Missouri: Blue Springs South, Camdenton, Grain Valley, and Nixa have all be steadily climbing the charts in recent years.

I think Texas is by far #1. Indiana is very good, but if you look at their Top 5 (Avon, Carmel, Castle, Fishers, and Homestead) Texas has about 20 bands of that caliber.

This is a very subjective question, but I have a lot of spreadsheets. I took the top 10 bands for each state/circuit, and tried my best to adjust them all to the same scale (I used BOA scoring as the baseline, since that's the place where most top bands from multiple states go head-to-head). So, in my opinion if you took the Top 10 bands from each state and had a big, open-class competition, the overall "team" results would look something like:

1. Texas (93.99)
2. Indiana (88.20)
3. California (84.57)
4. Ohio (83.97)
5. Illinois (83.79)
6. Oklahoma (83.18)
7. Florida (83.15)
8. Georgia (82.34)
9. South Carolina (82.67)
10. Missouri (82.26)
11. Kentucky (81.71)
12. Michigan (81.21)

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Although not a ton of competitive bands out there, Hawaii has several strong bands as well. 

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22 minutes ago, hostrauser said:

I also disagree with the person that says California has hardly any marching bands. At last count, California had over 500 active competitive

I agree with your disagreement.  I can't think of a high school in our greater area that doesn't have a marching band.  They're certainly not funded like they were b.i.t.d. but marching band counts towards the state mandated P.E. requirement and that alone is an incentive to participate.   

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5 hours ago, tesmusic said:

Although not a ton of competitive bands out there, Hawaii has several strong bands as well. 

Mililani had a very impressive showing at Grand Nationals (Semifinalist in 2017), and Maui is also very good.

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