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Post by aznfiddle on May 20, 2007 1:37:30 GMT -5
Okay, my band has never been to a BOA competition, yet I hear so much about it. I get on the good ol' youtube.com and find like thousands of shows on there... crazy... Anyways, after watching one show after the next, I start to see some common problems around the bands that I'm not sure if I am the only one who spot them or are they just common throughout the competition.
1) Every band has some sort of crazy abstract theme... I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what their show is about, and how they are representing it on the field... Sometimes I get it and sometimes it just goes over the head...
2) over use of electronics... some use is okay but when you have 30 seconds to a minute of electirc keyboard tends to be a bit much...
3) a whole lot of visuals... hand-waving, leaning in and out, take two steps left and one step right then one step forward look up look down circle, etc. I'm starting to think that that's the major focus for most bands at times to compensate for music...
4) music doesn't sound very challenging to me, actually it sounds quite boring or perhaps the arrangement is bad? perhaps it's the bands I'm watching. If anyone has any suggestions, I'll surely accept them...
Overall, I just think BOA bands are trying to be too fancy at times... I'm not sure if that's the right thing to say or not... I always thought of marching band as a balance of music and movement, but through BOA it's one or the other it seems like...
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Post by stickshifty on May 20, 2007 14:03:18 GMT -5
Yay for non-BOA bands!!!
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Post by Lprdgecko on May 20, 2007 20:05:41 GMT -5
My band went to a BOA competition for the first time back in November. We were WAY out of our league. We ended up being the first band to perform, and we had to wake up at our hotel at 4:00 eastern time, which is 3:00 AM our time. It was too early! Afterwards we had to sit there from about 9:00 until 5:00 watching all the other bands... We were all falling asleep. And, I noticed the trends that you mentioned. It seemed like every single band except us did that hand push thing, some sort of wave effect, and were the types of bands that marched for a while, stopped for a while and played, and began marching again. That annoys me so much. Our show we marched and played the whole time, and nearly died trying to do so... Ugh... Oh well, lol.
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Post by stickshifty on May 21, 2007 18:09:02 GMT -5
^ I think our bands have a similar style (I think we're both in West TN if I'm not mistaken). Our band only stood still for about 32 counts of an 8 minute show. I noticed that bands in Middle TN do more BOA than us, and the contests in that area are judged like a BOA event and as a result, nomatter how well a West TN band plays the horn, the Middle TN band will come out on top because they know how to make arm movements better than we can. I always thought it was about PLAYING the horn and MARCHING [simultaneously]... maybe I was wrong.
No hate to any BOA bands here. If you practice hard and you work to be the best-- I respect your program.
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Post by aznfiddle on May 21, 2007 18:34:46 GMT -5
I'm not talking about who works hard or who doesn't. I just think the style of BOA bands doesn't compliment the idea of movement and music as much. Standing still and playing... You can do that during concert season...
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Post by Lprdgecko on May 21, 2007 21:50:59 GMT -5
^ I think our bands have a similar style (I think we're both in West TN if I'm not mistaken). Nope, I'm in middle TN, about 45 mins south of Nashville... But, yeah, it does seem we have a similar style... I think we probably only stood still about 16 counts, literally, lol. It was murder, but fun.
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Post by picpride007 on Sept 23, 2007 19:13:04 GMT -5
My band is going to BOA for the first time in over twenty years....back then they took second in BOA...since then they have split our school and we've had a difficult time with directors in the past. But last year we got a new amazing director and she has done amazing things with us. We are so excited to be going to BOA this November! We can't wait to get out there and compete and see how good we really are, because there are other bands besides the ones here in Utah for us to compare to and we're just really excited to get out there! Good luck to all of you who will be at BOA in whatever state your competing in! If any of you are going to Flagstaff, Arizona for BOA i hope to see your band preform! Good luck to you all!
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Post by shortbaritone on Sept 23, 2007 20:20:28 GMT -5
BOA will be fun, good fun. But in the end it's just opionions. I think if we perform badly then who really cares, the judges will say what they think, if we perform extremely well the judges will say what they think. No matter how good we do it will still be their opionions. Strive to be excellent. Excellence is the best, not what place you get. But i agree with picpride007 (whom i know very well ). It will be fun to see what really happens, and see what other bands are there instead of just the Utah bands. Like she said, good luck to everybody at BOA, and if you are going to Arizona regionals hope to see you perform. Yay BOA! But even more yay for EXCELLENCE!
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Post by torin93 on Oct 31, 2007 12:01:00 GMT -5
This is going to be my first BOA competition and im so excited. Once you get their it will probably fine just dont worry. I go to MPHS (Mountin Pointe) so I will be performing. Good luck to you all ;D
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KUguardgrl13
Band Nerd
I'm a sister in the bond of this kinship I am fond[F4:687065693]
Posts: 442
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Post by KUguardgrl13 on Nov 2, 2007 23:39:53 GMT -5
yeah, BOA bands are a lot like DCI i think. not in terms of talent, but definitely as far as type of show and music. you probably saw Broken Arrow one youtube. their show this year is called phantasy and it makes no sense to me whatsoever. also, BOA bands do use a lot of electronics. except us. we haven't had any since two years ago and that was to amplify an acoustic guitar during our ballad. this was our first BOA in like 10 years and we won't do another one for atleast three because we only go to an out-of-state event every three years. anyway, i don't think our show was all that abstract: Call of the Dragon-chinese music and a giant chinese dragon prop complete with pagoda house. also, i think our music was pretty challenging. what shows did you watch anyway? do you do Tournament of Bands or something?
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Post by trumpetskickbrass on Jul 25, 2008 23:10:41 GMT -5
I hate BOA. And I will never like it. We work so hard, and then all BOA does is push us down. I dont like that you have to be sooo...FLASHY to get go ratings from the judges. What happened to good old fashioned marching band of just playing great music and hauling arse across the field?!? Apperantly thats not what a lot of people are appreciating anymore. BOA has screwed our band over so many times. I think this past year, the band that won, had their whole colorgaurd jump out from within a big flower prop. and before that, the band that had won, CRAWLED and DRAGGED themselves across the field. they litterally got on the ground and did that. NO joke. My BD never wants to become that kind of band to succum to something like that. And i dont blame him one bit.
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Post by NinjaBaker on Aug 6, 2008 13:53:07 GMT -5
^ AMEN! That's why UIL is so much better (and why we seem to excel at that). I love being a good old fashioned marching band. Plus... it's a pain in the rear to have to crawl on the ground...
Oh, you forgot about the "flower band"s electric car... did you see that?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2008 21:54:57 GMT -5
Ugh. I'm going to a HUGE BOA fest in November (Zia Marching Fiesta), and my director has said a lot of what you're saying. I think they're going for a "Corps" style but taking it way too far. We are primarily an entertainment-oriented band, and we have a very down-to-Earth demographic to entertain, primarily cowboys and hunters and the like. Basically, our marching is an extension of our pep music.
As such, we are likely to get downgraded for artistic merit and literature, marching "'60s television" instead of "Reflections in Glass", and personally, I don't care.
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KUguardgrl13
Band Nerd
I'm a sister in the bond of this kinship I am fond[F4:687065693]
Posts: 442
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Post by KUguardgrl13 on Aug 16, 2008 15:04:24 GMT -5
yeah, i thought our band was gonna stay true to the non-BOA style, but sadly that's the direction our new bd is taking us. new, flashy sound system for the pit and a really abstract show with the band doing movement stuff. that's the one thing i liked about our old bd: he promised to never let us go down that road. oh well. our music is really cool this year, arranged by the same guy who arranges for phantom regiment!
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Post by Lprdgecko on Aug 17, 2008 12:06:49 GMT -5
Our band is definitely not a BOA band, but our BD still insists on having us go to at least one BOA competition per year. This year we're going to 2. I think the first one is local, but the 2nd is in Indianapolis, and I think we're just going there for fun. We went my sophomore year and we did "bad" (according to the scores), and EVERY SINGLE BAND did some form of a wave effect or a hand-push thing. Yeah. (No offense to any bands who do that, it was just the common trend.)
Oh, and there were a lot of park and play bands. That annoys me too. (Again, no offense to any band program who does that too)
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