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Top Marching Band State


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11 hours ago, Bucbari said:

Just my opinion, but is the marching band programs in Texas, is their primary goal to compete, or to provide entertainment at half time.  No high school in Texas is providing a 25 million budget for their music programs like many of the stadiums that are being built so that a bunch of 18 year olds pituiraries (sic) can entertain Daddy.  If I was 18 again, and I'm not, I'm 66, I would refuse to do half time shows just on principal.  I think I'm going to take some flak but it is my opinion.  Hehehehe so flame away.

Totally agree with your opinion. 

In the last decade the budgets for Texas schools has stayed flat (about the same). The amount of people who move to the state each day is amazing. For some districts you would think that would also increase the school budgets but in most cases it has not. 

 

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Based on most of the comments I've seen so far there are some obvious conclusions.

 

Texas is #1 by a wide margin.

The Midwest states are strong.

News to some of you - Michigan is highly underrated.  They use sheets identicle to BOA and use mostly BOA judges.

Most of the competing bands do NOT use mandatory marching requirements and are almost entirely funded by their booster organizations ... not the school district.  Meaning, if you want to be in concert band, you don't have to do marching band.  This is heavily required in Texas.  The top bands in Michigan are in EVERY flight classification - as they're broken up by school size, not band size.

Using 2019 as an example.  Here are the scoring ranges and averages of the top 5 bands from each flight (total 25) of the

50 bands that qualified for state championships:

Flight 1 - Range 89.3 - 94.325 (avg. 91.17)

Flight 2 - Range 87.8 - 93.475 (avg. 90.73)

Flight 3 - Range 85.975 - 91.275 (avg. 88.9)

Flight 4 - Range 85.35 - 91.3 (avg. 88.47)

Flight 5 - Range 86.25 - 89.225 (avg. 87.565)

Rockford and Plymouth placed 19th and 24th in Grand National Semi Finals at BOA for 2019.

Rockford had the highest score in the state.  Whereas, Plymouth (a former National Champ) had 10 bands score higher than them at the Michigan State Championships.  Jenison was 26th yet outscored Plymouth by 3 points at States.

I would argue that if Michigan (and more states like them) had higher representation at Nationals, their placements would be perhaps more dominant .. but most assuredly have a stronger argument in this conversation.

 

 

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On 10/22/2020 at 9:10 PM, Bucbari said:

Just my opinion, but is the marching band programs in Texas, is their primary goal to compete, or to provide entertainment at half time.  No high school in Texas is providing a 25 million budget for their music programs like many of the stadiums that are being built so that a bunch of 18 year olds pituiraries (sic) can entertain Daddy.  If I was 18 again, and I'm not, I'm 66, I would refuse to do half time shows just on principal.  I think I'm going to take some flak but it is my opinion.  Hehehehe so flame away.

Maybe not $25 million, but Texas has a K-12 focus on music education that no other state can match. It goes far beyond marching band (after all, it is *IMPOSSIBLE* to have a great marching band without a great concert program). And many of these fancy stadiums get frequently used for band shows, not just football games.

I think one thing that really works in Texas' favor is that the same organization (UIL) runs both football and the state music contests, and they really don't play favorites. I remember just a couple of years ago a PLAYOFF football game in Texas got moved because a certain district's stadium was already reserved for that area's marching contest. I simply can't imagine that happening in (m)any other states.

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On 10/25/2020 at 6:46 PM, supersop said:

Based on most of the comments I've seen so far there are some obvious conclusions.

 

Texas is #1 by a wide margin.

The Midwest states are strong.

News to some of you - Michigan is highly underrated.  They use sheets identicle to BOA and use mostly BOA judges.

Most of the competing bands do NOT use mandatory marching requirements and are almost entirely funded by their booster organizations ... not the school district.  Meaning, if you want to be in concert band, you don't have to do marching band.  This is heavily required in Texas.  The top bands in Michigan are in EVERY flight classification - as they're broken up by school size, not band size.

Using 2019 as an example.  Here are the scoring ranges and averages of the top 5 bands from each flight (total 25) of the

50 bands that qualified for state championships:

Flight 1 - Range 89.3 - 94.325 (avg. 91.17)

Flight 2 - Range 87.8 - 93.475 (avg. 90.73)

Flight 3 - Range 85.975 - 91.275 (avg. 88.9)

Flight 4 - Range 85.35 - 91.3 (avg. 88.47)

Flight 5 - Range 86.25 - 89.225 (avg. 87.565)

Rockford and Plymouth placed 19th and 24th in Grand National Semi Finals at BOA for 2019.

Rockford had the highest score in the state.  Whereas, Plymouth (a former National Champ) had 10 bands score higher than them at the Michigan State Championships.  Jenison was 26th yet outscored Plymouth by 3 points at States.

I would argue that if Michigan (and more states like them) had higher representation at Nationals, their placements would be perhaps more dominant .. but most assuredly have a stronger argument in this conversation.

 

 

I was aware Michigan used BOA sheets, but don't they adjust the scoring? I thought their calculation was something like total score on BOA sheets divided by two plus 50.  So to achieve a 90 in Michigan, you'd need to achieve what amounts to an 80 on BOA sheets.

If I'm remembering this fact correctly, that would mean Rockford's score of 94.325 would really be an 88.65 if not for the adjustment, or (88.65/2)+50=94.325. For comparison, Rockford scored an 85.525 in Grand National semi's. Not an unrealistic difference given how a lot of bands in the middle of the pack tend to drop in score at GN given the huge amount of bands in the field and numbers management.

I'm sure that calculation is probably made to have the field appear more competitive, especially with the lower bands who get a huge score boost. For instance, Rockford being a top band only had their score adjusted by 5.675, but the lowest scoring band of those five in Flight 4 had their score adjusted by a whopping 14.65 points. (85.35-50)*2=70.7.

Edited by Musicman1084
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