Vanguard CEO resigns

[MarimbaManiac]

3 hours ago, Slingerland said:

Think broader - I also think sending the B corps from Vanguard to Indianapolis was a huge waste of money. BD went local with the B corps a few years ago and is doing it again this year, and don't seem to be having a problem finding kids to be in that corps.

Is that better? 😄

 

I think you mean the Vanguard Cadets. Also, BDB went to finals last year, along with the cadets corps. 

Let's also not forget that while SCV was languishing in 4th-8th for a decade the cadets corps was bringing home trophies. Let's not minimize the successes of 150 students who consistently execute higher than nearly all of their peers, as well as land mid-pack in the older and more experienced world class. 

[DFA1970]

4 hours ago, OldSnareDrummer said:

There's not nearly enough cholesterol in those for me. Maybe if they used a thicker cooking oil, I'd give it a try. 

Actually, I tried it...well it was shared btw two and we could not finish it. Lots of chewing and meat. 

[DFA1970]

4 hours ago, Slingerland said:

Think broader - I also think sending the B corps from Vanguard to Indianapolis was a huge waste of money. BD went local with the B corps a few years ago and is doing it again this year, and don't seem to be having a problem finding kids to be in that corps.

Is that better? 😄

 

Only 8? I thought it was 80...

[jjeffeory]

21 hours ago, TOC said:

Do they still have BD staff/tech's on their staff?

You know, I have no idea. There are lots of great California staff that do well in Western Bands, then when they do corps, they don't do as well.

I don't know who is on staff anywhere anymore.

[jjeffeory]

21 hours ago, OpenClassAlum said:

This notion that CA talent isn't as strong because the schools don't bother heading east for some national competition is very strange to me. Who cares? Why would a CA HS band want to spend it's resources dragging kids to the Midwest? Honestly I'd argue your average WBA competition is enough to handle the most competitive and invested of HS student needs, and a trip from Broken Arrow, OK to Indy isn't all that longer than a trip from Santa Rosa, CA to Disneyland. Starting from Santa Rosa to Indy? That's a 36 hour trip with no stops. And for what?

Even with as bad a shape as open class is in right now IMO, better to send your excited about marching students to go march an open class corps than pay out the nose for a trip to *checks notes* Indiana. The same is true with sending your best to be in county, Northern/Southern, and state honor bands.

Also, are there even that many high schoolers marching the top WC corps anymore? I'd figure the West Coast Universities on the quarter system is more of an issue for membership than high schools not doing national competition.

As has been discussed here for the last several decades, if your groups don't get in front of judges' eyes, then they don't always get the best reads by the judges and you won't get the best score you would have without their viewing. You simply don't know where you stand on a national level. I don't think that California talent isn't strong, I'm just commenting on the optics of the greater marching arts community. Lord knows California has the best percussion talent overall right now, and they show it at WGI. There's no reason to think that guard and winds players aren't also top-notch, but there are not many comparisons being made.

Yes, you know where you stand relative to your peers in your local circuit, which I have to say is a great circuit ( Blue Devils' Western Band), but there are other circuits that use different scoring criteria such as SCSBOA that doesn't quite align with DCI or BOA. Last year Arcadia won SCSBOA and Chino Hills won Western Bands. I can't decipher NCBA sheets, but apparently, Dublin and Rodriguez are good bands... ...but who is good and how good are they on a universal, country-wide scale?

In HS Band, BOA is the gold standard that Western Bands, most states circuits, maybe SCSBOA, USBands, MidStates, and golly who knows who else tries to emulate.

So, if you have a great program, such as Ayala, Buchanon, William S Hart, Garhr, Arcadia, James Logan, Murietta, Chino Hills, Clovis, Amador Valley, Clovis, Trabuco Hills, Rancho Bernardo, Etiwanda, Gilbert (AZ), or whomever, you can't really get validation of how you really stand against Indy goers and Texas bands. If you're a top California director trying to justify your program costs, you care about these things. You could be working up to a bigger program, you could be justifying the existence of your program and showing that it is at the highest levels, competing against rich districts such as Carmel and Leander, is potentially helpful in so many ways. A high school principal cares. School district administrations care. I bet you Chino Hills and Ayala ( both from Chino Hills) administration try to let everyone know how good their programs are... In fact, I've driven by both schools and they've had banners advertising these accomplishments!

If you don't do direct comparisons, then you don't really know where you stand. I've seen bands who score 95s in their home circuit go to BOA and score in the high 70s, and then another group from the same circuit get a 95 and then go to GN and score in the high 80s.  It's just hard to see where these groups fit in with the different judging are the country.

....some of these "Western bands", especially the Ayala, Uplands, Hart, Vista Murietta's, and American Forks DO go.

When Ayala goes to Grand Nationals now, they're known as a previous GN finalist and seem to score higher. ...and they make Grand National Finals (2019) when they go.  No other Western Band does that. 

In fact, Ayala stopped going to Western Bands championships for a few years so that they could compete at BOA. Obviously, there's a value proposition being made there by the directors and students about what they think is important.

I know of other groups, such as William Mason (OH), and going waaaaay back, Westerville South (OH) skipping OMEA ( Ohio's state circuit) for Midstates and BOA because they didn't see a competitive value in OMEA, and the scoring system didn't align. I know of OMEA bands that max out the OMEA sheets, then go to BOA and get tanked. They'll be competitive in the music category ( top7), for instance, but score 30th in visual to tank them to 22nd...

 

...so all of these sorts of optics could make for a compelling reason for SCV to relocate to a more perceived "prestigious" hunting ground for members, as well as gain the administrative benefits of being in business in Texas.

Texas bands used to be in this same situation, but have made inroads in attending Grand Nationals, and now their bands are known and rewarded. There were 3 Texas bands in GN Finals, and I'd bet they were not as good as several of the California bands at Western Bands Finals. American Fork (UT) DID go and still landed 15th. The Texas powerhouse bands didn't go, but I'm sure that RR, Vandergrift, CTJ, Flower Mound, Woodlands, Marcus, and Vista Ridge would have very much been in the mix.

If more than 3 or so Western groups would make the commitment to head to Indy every other year, that would go a long way in making this part of the whole equation moot.

There are loads of great California bands, the members are awesome, and the staffs are top-notch! I'm sure they could compete at a national level if they tried, but I'm just talking about this particular aspect of what SCV might look at if they're looking to make a change.

The "marching arts" infrastructure has been installed in Texas and could benefit more corps being housed there.

The "marching arts" infrastructure in California is in slight decline. There are a couple of very good programs in Utah, some programs in Arizona that aren't at their zenith currently, Nevada is improving, and New Mexico has a couple of up and coming programs. Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho haven't quite made it yet as a group of programs, so these places aren't going to have the completely trained members that schools in Texas, the midwest, and the SE enjoy.

Even the East coast marching scene is in decline. Someone said Boston has camps in Texas? 

SCV doesn't have to move, but there's a reason that so many corps do things in Texas.

...and Indiana isn't that bad. There's tons of outdoors stuff to do, arts stuff, and there's several amusement parks that are pretty fun. It's ok to go to Indiana.

 

Best wishes, just my opinion.

 

[jjeffeory]

On 3/23/2023 at 1:33 PM, 2muchcoffeeman said:

All very interesting and I will accept it as completely accurate, though it has little relevance to the challenge facing VMAPA.

The topic is how VMAPA can best position itself for revival. Insofar as that question involves recruiting from the pool of interested students in its own backyard, the competitive success of CA HS bands at BOAGN would seem to have nothing to do with the answer.

What makes an individual student eager, motivated and qualified to seek membership in SCV, and what makes a HS music program competitive at a national level among other HS bands, are considerations that are almost completely removed from each other, aside from the fact they both concern music/dance performance. Consider, for example, that one reason why CA bands don't factor into BOA more prominently is that GN is held in Indianapolis -- a hugely expensive travel and logistical proposition for a 250-member ensemble of California-based minors, and all the associated support. Even in the Midwest, just getting to BOA regionals requires total program buy-in from the principal's office and a massive, engaged booster organization that works fundraising 24/7. Whipping up support for the vision falls largely on the back of the band director, so BOA success ends up being a function of the personality and drive (and sacrifice of sleep) of one person, and the resources they can summon from the school's community. For a band director in California, the burdens are even heavier if only because of their distance from the Heartland. And all of this has just about zero influence on whether a guard member in Poway has the interest, discipline, and chops to audition for Santa Clara -- or on SCV's ability to find and recruit her. The whole question on the table here is whether VMAPA can revive its competitive stature by finding membership from California. I think the answer is emphatically yes, and that the vicissitudes of the CA HS marching band scene are nearly irrelevant to the question.

If you're going to make the argument that competitively successful DCI corps require ready and proximate access to BOA-National-caliber HS band programs, I think you've got an entirely different argument on your hands. It's an argument that's going to have to explain the legions of kids who have left places like Iowa -- or heck, places like San Diego -- to join top-level drum corps, and explain BD's 20 rings.

 

 

 

Great post! I already posted another one that may address some of these things, but I tried to show why I think they're connected.

[jjeffeory]

8 hours ago, Slingerland said:

Spending the money to send kids from California to Indiana in the middle of November is a huge waste of money. I find it unbelievable that anyone not already in a midwestern community would give it a second thought, to be honest. 

Yet we have droves of Texas schools and students making the trek; a group of 2nd tier "Texas" schools just came up and made GN finals. No, not the Vandergrifts, Flower Mounds, RR, Round R, The Woodlands, and other powerhouses.

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by jjeffeory

[jjeffeory]

7 hours ago, DFA1970 said:

From the SCV CEO resigns to bands......I'm taking a you'ie...anyone try the Double down from KFC?

I mean, I did TRY to connect the two, and gave my justifications. SCV CEO resignation is about the whole picture. I'm just trying to figure out how to keep SCV as a premiere corps for when they DO come back, and being located in a place where it's easier to pick up better-prepared people ( on average) because their education has been aligned to DCI style throughout their education sets you up better for success.

I appreciate your comment though. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by jjeffeory

[scheherazadesghost]

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Edited June 11, 2023 by scheherazadesghost

[MarimbaManiac]

I think I'm of the opinion at this point, that BOA isn't really relevant west of Texas. California is SO big with SO many high quality programs that the trip out east just isn't necessary. WBA had like 60 groups at its finals last year, SCSBOA had something like 80. That's a lot of high quality programs and opportunities within a 6 hour drive of wherever you are in the state. The density of great programs in one area is somewhat unique, especially with a big gap between California and the next major competition. 

It's not quite the same with DCI, but California has its own summer circuit for open class that isn't that much smaller than the open class championships in August. SCV could have a great summer if they stayed local through the middle of July, and then went out just for the 2-3 weeks leading up to finals like the cadets corps does. 

IMHO DCI kicked off a whole mess by planting finals in Indianapolis, and they could ease that mess by changing the touring model, and placing less emphasis on the regional competitions. Is it nice to get a read on how you stack up to your competition over 8 weeks? Sure, but is it worth bankrupting the organization to make that happen? Absolutely not. Is it more difficult to plan for a moving event that's in a different region every year? Sure, but it spreads the financial burden out more equitably than to just corps in one region.