The first sing is called " kingfishers catch fire " by john mackey. It is one of my favorite compositions and i would really love to do it in marching band.
I went to a Texas high school and the only thing we did not have to pay for was the transportation to games (provided by the school district). Us students even had to pay out of pocket for the annual band shirt, and there were only about 80 of us.
Wow. You guys have an outstanding band program. We just got selected to represent the United States at the Western International Band Clinic in Seattle. Our band program making great improvements and I hope it will be as good as yours. Funny that you go the University of Denver. Maybe you can come see us a our next state championships.
Massachusetts is the home of music education theory and we dont even have money coming in for marching programs. music is IMPORTANT... Texas has the right idea.
I'm from a band winning state championships in Colorado. I saw you guys in San Antonio and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. How do you do it?
As a parent paying the bill for a Bell marcher, we pay less than a cheerleader pays for their uniform in junior high. We do massive amounts of fundraising, have tons of community support and try to be as thankful and gracious as we possibly can. As with everything in life, there are the have and have nots, and I guess we are in the middle somewhere. More blue collar, than anything, but we sure do enjoy our marching band season. Best of luck to you and yours too! God Bless.
What you say is true. I volunteer at my alma mater high school's marching band and they spend 110k every year for 140 students. Most if not all of it comes from fundraising, students dues and sponsors.
my friends payed around $600 to be in band there... i wish my school did that, it would keep out a lot of the people who are just there because they need a credit
I like how L.D. Bell's shows can tell a story. IMO Avon's shows are just musical arrangements with drill. I can appreciate the difficult marching and fast music, but to me, Bell's shows have depth.
My god Texas bands are just amazing. Nothing over here in California has a band the fraction of that skill. I mean there are some that go to grand nationals, but so few. We are the biggest in the Los Angeles area with only 130... which is considered massive to the average 35.
@BigHeartedMan65 It's true, our Junior high band programs are great, but all drill and marching technique is taught sophomore year when we get to high school. Junior high band is solely for developing musical talent and starts in 7th grade (which means we have 1 less year of practice than most of our main competitors).
I've always wanted to march corps, but my school is military we placed 12th at Area(Area C, Region 4) this year, and hopefully 2014 will bring us closer to state, since that is my senior year.
I love that LD Bell uses the whole field. My band does too. It makes the show waaay more awesome. And wow Bell is amaaaazing! Can't wait to see them at state!
I meant that the schools in Texas actually put money towards their arts programs, not that the state funds them through taxes or anything like that. If I still dont make sense to you then oh well, because I live in Michigan and many of our arts programs aren't the best because not a lot of our schools have a whole lot of money to fund our arts programs.
@ravel111 Note i said Los Angeles area because yes, almost every single competition we've gone to we have been the biggest and best. And LAUSD championships is like 35 bands with 40 or less people, and us with 130. Most the large bands are off at WBA
Very nice! Its difficult even getting a small band to look and sound good... so this is quite an accomplishment producing something this solid with the level of depth and demand in its design. No apparent timing issues even with the band spread across the 100 yards. @2d181 - you may think its "just band" but these kids work extremely hard. Take it from someone that knows what it takes to put something this complex on a field and make it look this good! Its no small accomplishment.
thats why the Homestead Spartan alliance marching band couldnt go to and win BOA (cause they would have), their budget is likley a 4th of avon's or LD bell's and they have nearly as many members. from what i heard, they havent had enough to repair instruments like tubas for the past 2 years.
Their past 2 shows have been nothing compared to their other shows, IMO. Their shows from 200-2009 were absolutely amazing, but their 2010 and 2011 shows didn't live up to my expectations of them.
well i wouldn't say it was all about money. I was in the first year of our school to go to BOA, we went with $30K for the entire season for 130 kids.we made a regional finals for our first try out and we were ecstatic.
I was under the assumption that most extra-curricular activities are funded by booster programs. I dont think that schools would have a general "sports/arts" savings account to dictate money to - mainly it is a free for all fundraising scheme under the pervue of district admin. i think at most the school is required to maintain injury waivers and transportation - even then most big bands use coach buses.
@IAMQUICKS I think the audio quality for the video is not the best. You should hear them live, omg can they play and fill up a stadium. Seeing their shows live gave me goosebumps.
I wouldn't really say size matters that much. I'm in The Spirit of Central, Lawrence Central's (Indianapolis, IN) band and we've competed in Grand Nats every year for years. The past few years we've been about half the size of our competitors, but we keep up(:
its also coming from the schools. every "good" band in Texas (Marcus, Bell, Coppel, Haltom, Hebron, Flower Mound, Richland Hills, Stephan F. Austin, Wakeland, Reagan) they all have school and district funding.....and I promise you...a trip to grand nats is more than $50 bucks per child
@Tigertail1717 Well you have to consider that the BOA system and UIL are pretty different. The bands best bands in BOA may do relatively well in UIL, but may be the best in UIL and of course vice versa. Also, oneonetwosiz1126 brought the time restraints into consideration. I don't know what the Indiana restraints are, but if they're longer than Texas restraints, then if you subjected and Indiana band to the same restraints as a Texas band, would they do as well?
@indcnut IN typically has 4-5 bands make GN Finals each year (Carmel, Avon, Lawrence Central, Center Grove and maybe Ben Davis on a good year). TX has 4 make it on a good year. However, there are usually 8-10 programs from Texas that are fully capable of being one of those 4, but not all of those 8-10 can afford to go every year. LD Bell Marcus The Woodlands Stephen F. Austin Cedar Park James Bowie Richland Hebron Berkner ...& more recently, Spring (Churchill and Ronald Reagan are out)
@LuxAurumque02000 As in 2 hours after school? Another major thing: We march with Freshman in the show, we can't afford to lose that much more people. The budget cuts are killing us, from 6A for the last 20 years to 5A for 3 years, then a sudden drop to 3A, and up to 4A. ugh
Sorry never been to Chicago Heights but i make my point. The state doesn't help these programs, high fees and fundraising do. There are ways to reduce costs, (i.e. yellow subs, and sleeping on gym floors). Texas bands in general have more costs due to travel, Chicago height is a couple of hours away from indy, where as a bus ride from down south is at least 10-12 hours. Putting more fatigue on students isnt the best way to get the best performance.
@AlexHurstProd Year, you are right, Broken Arrow got first at GN (LD bell didn't go this year), but my comment clearly says "BOA Super Regional" of which Bell placed first. It's a simple mistake, don't worry about it.
@thestared I have no clue what this is in reply to, but I'm pretty sure Bell's shows have had "stories" since 2005, which was around the time Marcus started to become one of the major bands in Texas. It's kinda hard to say which one "started" this, maybe it wasn't either who started?
Wow! Thats alot, my band fee each year is $125 I am tin he Gadsden City High School Titan Band. We march anywher efrom 300-320. Our fee includes everthing except food at games,and our trip each year. We have been to New York, The fiesta bowl,gatlinburg,San Antonio. We were invited to go to england this year to play in same parade as southereners but it was going to be over 3,000 a person.
@KanazawaFTW I know right? I was rooting for them all the way, but they did a great job anyway. I just don't know what is the difference between our bands and Texas/Indiana bands. It seems like the general level of marching bands in T/I is higher than what we have here. I don't think size has to do with it more than having good feeder programs.
@ravel111 But the problem is, Bands are dying. I mean LAUSD bands used to be a pretty decent 6A size, Our band used to be 250, but the constant budget cuts are killing all these schools. Texas bands are greater mostly for the reason that there really isn't much else to do, so they revolve their time around it.
Fine band! Love the marching & musicianship....but the word "unbelievable" makes me want to scream! I see & hear it, okay....so I believe it! Auuuuugh.
Broken Arrow isn't a "prominent" band so to speak. It has superpower status. Another comparable band is Avon that perfects high school marching. Avon is fortunate to be superpower status because of its communities affluence, quality of leadership, location (Lucas Oil, Carmel, etc), and student participation and drive to succeed. I would like to know where you got $1.2 million though.
Eh not like I'm saying Band size of a band determines skill because we've beaten plenty of bands with 200 or so people, and our small 13 dance guard has beaten 40 or so dance guard. Where this band is massive with near perfect forms and incredible guard.
zacharyp09, who knows about practice restraints and IF this or that band would do as well IF they had this or that amount of time to practice. It's a lot of IF's. The point is both Texas and Indiana have great bands, but I think it's unreasonable to think that Avon the grand national champs for the past two years would have a difficult time competing with any Texas bands. I think they have shown they would fair very well.
As the parent of a Bell marcher, I know we have used the same uniforms for three years. We try to keep close tabs on them and never make any permanent adjustments to lengths etc. Lots of community support in a district where median purchase price for homes is $120k. We love the marching band "cult" as we call it. Gr8 people throughout the country and a gr8 way to showcase all that is good about the USA! Enjoy it now it, all goes by way to fast! God Bless.
@technopath18 The lady wasn't creepy! It added a cultural dynamic to the show that was in the original designs... but I'll agree with you on the shrouds... those probably should have been something different. Reflective maybe....
I rather think we have large marching bands because football is a big deal. Soccer, baseball, and basketball do not, to my knowledge, have the necessary fields or intermissions to make a marching band for them worthwhile.
What is broken arrow spending that much money on!?!??!?!?! they dont have new uniforms each year like LD Bell does, and they dont cover half the field with winterguard/drumline floors with printed colorguard flags and mechanical props like Tarpon springs, how do they spend 1.2million?
L.D. Bell isn't even the best, though one of the best! We got to see them live at the H.E.B marching contest this year! Of course, Marcus took first and we, Midland High, placed 12 out of 23. Being from a small town almost 1/4 the size of Dallas, I find that amazing! Plus, we traveled over six hours and only had ten minutes warm-up...
@KanazawaFTW I think you're forgetting that Los Angeles county includes all the suburbs of the San Gabriel valley... which includes Chino, Ayala, Arcadia, etc. What's the point of the comparison of LA (a central core of 1 city) to Texas (a gigantic state)? A more fair comparison would be California vs. Texas in terms of band size, but even then I think SoCal has a decent number of large bands as it is.
@millkid9 It has five members, probably butthurt students of other schools that lost to Marcus. Even people in my band say how "simple" and "easy" their shows were. One of my friends even said Marcus only used the candelabra props to make their show look "deep and intricate."
