My first ever competition, which was last year, was ok, but I sucked I did everything right, but damn I sucked at marching. we got 2nd at the competition we lost to a band by 0.5 points who by the end of the year had scored within 3 points of dobyns-Bennett so that’s smth I think lmao. By the end of the season this year we tied in semifinals with the same school at grand nationals with 25-26 place and 81.6 points we got 2nd in class in prelims.
@@juicymango8400 on god Band camps feel miserable Rehearsal outside sucks, I sometimes almost pass out :/ But the Competitons Just bring joy, especially if we thought we sucked and we get 1st places Because our marching is butt.
Nah bc that competition is this weekend and I wanna cry bc it’s my first time doing it it’s in Indiana and I’m in ohio 😭 ANYWHO✨ WE HAVE TO BRING A BLANKET AND PILLOW FOR NAPTIME
We were just in a comp in the pouring rain too! Got last place though but I think that's partly due to the fact we were the only band warming UP in it and then immediately had to perform 😂
Nah bro this will be my parents when I become college student. As if I don’t blow out their ear drums with my drums, brass instruments, and clarinet already.
@@Woatire I play twice as much as that as a high school student going into a music major, but not very well. but thanks for the recognition and the boost to the algorithm. : )
As someone who was in one of the big crazy bands, it was weird practicing like (what I thought was) normal while everyone else thought we were some sort of inhuman force on another plane of being, but at boa comps, that's kinda how I saw the top 12 bands that practice year round. I enjoyed watching small bands though, they look like they have more fun with their shows, and I'm always silently rooting them on to recover, and there's some extremely talented players in small bands as well
In all fairness, those programs (like yours) are built in a way that sets EVERYONE up for success from the minute they walk into beginner band. High Schools like that have insanely good feeder schools that prepare them for that. That can take a LONG time to reform to when you’re an established band with admittedly mediocre results. You have to convince these kids long term, right from the get go. It takes the whole village to get to GOOD normalcy to practice and rehearse like that to put it all on the field in amazing fashion.
we had a decently small band and yea, I've enjoyed every show I played. the bigger bands we got to meet, half of their members would tell us how they wished their show was as fun and cool as ours, even though theirs was definitely better. then at our competition we host, I got to guide a band with only 7 members!!! they probably had the most fun at that comp, because they weren't there to place they were there for the experience. I honestly think what makes a show more or less fun is the stakes you know you have at comp. they knew they couldn't win against the other bands with 60+ members, so they had fun performing because they could relax
Honestly in most comps all that matters is band size. I've been in a comp that had the BEST sounding band with only like 40 members, but then a really mediocre band with (no joke) 200 members comes in, and sweeps the competition away. But we still have fun anyways because that's what matters. And then we go back to the busses only to get yelled at by our band director lol
Our band was a 30 piece band my junior year and we placed higher than a 200 piece band at one of our competitions. The look on our faces when we placed higher was priceless
This is too trueeee. I'm a freshman so this year was my first marching seasonnn. (Also, I really want to march for the Blue Devils when I'm out of high school. That would be a dream come true)
Marching band tournaments are wilddddd. Especially when your on prop crew in freshman year. (our band is only 10-12) I just got to fuck around with my friends the whole time and it was insane.
I did that shit for 10 years and let me tell you it was the best time I had. Lots of ups and downs but i rly look back at that time in awe. When im stable in my job and life i wanna go back to music hobby wise. Good thing is that in the 10 years i gathered a few invitations for recruitment from big name bands as a coach. Very greatful and i will definitely come back to it at a later date. I miss teaching and making music
I loved marching band and i really loved seeing the other bands. Im 26 now and long done with highschool but i still go to our local competition to watch
I got to see that hebron show in person! It was really cool and my first marching competion, so i was blown away because my band was 2x the size and nowhere near as powerful in the sound.
This is the progress of culture-shock for a band kid, for sure. I've been in an ensemble like the first three (with a lot less falling), but never a corps. However, in the college level I was surrounded by corps folks from a ton of different ensembles. Marched on a quadline with a section leader of Phantom Regiment and who won gold with MCM for Hand of Man, in the same year that we had a center snare who was from Mandarins, and our bass section leader was bottom bass at Cavaliers. Pretty much the whole drumline was DCI vets, or had leadership roles within corps. The next year, the center snare was one of the front ensemble members of Bluecoats who was previously on quadline before I got there and was on snareline when I marched. He played marimba with Bluecoats. Folks, do not miss the opportunity while you still have it. Two of the snares who were rookies when I marched ended up going on to march Cadets too, and another who made quads after I did ended up marching with Cavaliers too. College is where you will _think_ you were good in high school, and have your ego compleeeetely shattered. Learn from it. It can take you far. That ensemble played for The Queen (R.I.P Liz), played at Pearl Harbor, has performed at BOA Grand Nats, etc. If you have the opportunities, take them. You will only regret the things you _didn't_ do. In terms of another audition I did, it was against a guy who marched Inferno with Carolina Crown. I was in the audition longer. Don't doubt yourself when it comes to a challenge. Though I ended up marching cymbals as their section leader in that WGI group, I don't regret that audition cycle whatsoever. It's basically the only reason I made the quadline at Jacksonville State University with the Marching Southerners. Failure puts you in a position of advantage, whether you believe it or not. It's your driving force. Remember that. You can do incredible things in adverse situations if your head is in the right place.
The sousaphone fall felt personal from last year show at BOA. Only thing ours were woodwinds. It’s fine because we recovered great and became a giant meme in our school. There may or may not also be a video of it.
One time in 2014, my old high school housed Carolina crown and the neighbors not knowing, were woken up to brass warmups. A lady apparently came over to complain and as soon as she left, Matt harloff told the horns to aim right for her house and play.
That line of tubas falling reminded me of my own experience with something like that. It was at band camp while we were practicing our show. We had about 10 flutes in the marching band at the time and most of us stood together except for maybe 2. We were practicing this one song, just the marching for it, no instruments and the version of the song we played came from a speaker so we could hear it. This song was really fast and we had to step off as soon as the song started which isn’t too bad when you play it. The issue was the delay with the speaker. There was like a half a second delay from the song starting and us registering that the song started. The line of flutes followed each other in this line and we had to walk slightly backwards until we hit this one yard line that wasn’t too far. The song started and it was fine for the first few seconds until the phone of one of the flute players fell out of their pocket. They tried to pick it up fast because of the amount of flutes guaranteeing that it would get stepped on. It caused a pile up of flute players. Because of the speed of the song, it was hard for us to stop in time. The phone was fine and we just ended up having to start the song over again. Everyone was ok and we were laughing about it afterwards.
I’m in pit to I’m technically an oboe player but you can’t March an oboe so I went to pit but our buses are based off grades there’s 5 buses 1st-seniors 2nd-juniors 3rd-sophomore 4th-Colorguard 5th-freshmen
Being a marching band kid in the Westbrook High School marching band, I can say that this is so true even though we are not college level 😂 definitely go check us out if you're bored!
I just finished my first season, and 8th place state finals is not bad AT ALL, considering my band was the second smallest there! It was so fun and I can't wait for next year!
My ex was in band and it was so funny watching them practice. A lot of things happened on a whim and usually worked but most of it was choreographed to be pretty difficult (I imagine bc I never have played and trying to learn sheet music is so hard for me. Nobody helps me 😅).
I’m in marching band and this year was my first time going to nationals. The judges didn’t like us so we didn’t get a fair score. But this was the first time my band had gone to nationals since 2015!
im going to be a freshman next year so im excited to do marching band but also sad because i won’t get to watch the football games the same way i used to
This year was my 2nd year in marching band and we won grand champion at one of the competitions and then placed 5th and 3rd at the other two but in the stands I sat by my friend who plays baritone and I’m talking to him then he goes “there’s a baritone, there’s another one, that’s a mellophone” I’ll never forget him he made life so much more enjoyable and funny sadly three days after our last competition he died in an atv accident
LOL THIS IS SO REAL LIKE ACTUALLY MY EXPERIENCE like my band actually tripped over our props and I think the reason we still stayed together is because no one noticed
This is totally accurate as I watched/played at BOA for the first time like 3-4 weeks it ago. Like I was totally biting my nails when this one band had props falling all over the place.
