So Houston Band members and spectators:
I want your predictions. WWHI
"What Would Happen If":
The High School Showbands broke into three regional Superbands?:
North Region: Jeff Davis, Sam Houston and Wheatley
Southeast: Jack Yates, Stephen F. Austin and Jesse Jones
Southwest: Westbury, Worthing and Fort Bend students
WWHI each region worked on the fundamentals: sightreading, precision marching, clarity in strength as well as leadership and band marketing skills then performed seperate FIRE shows at the Juneteenth Parade this summer? At the conclusion of the parade, WWHI they all got together and blew the Bajesus out of some songs. What would happen if they all got together in a gym and had a SUMMER SMACKDOWN blowout against one another and invited HUMB and GHASB?
This summer is the summer for Houston Bands to be revived by helping one another. As a result, TSU and PVAMU will have stronger and better bands. After this summer, Houston will be the prototype for American Marching Bands, not ATL or New Orleans.
More information available from your band director.
NOTE: Southeast Region will begin Monday, June 6 at Yates high School 6pm . Week Two will be at Stephen F. Austin. Not only will you become better musicians and leaders for your own bands, but awards and prizes will be given daily and weekly to those students who perform the best.
This CAMP experience will be like none other.
Replies
i don't see it happening, because like everything else their are too many egos involved...
IMO New Orleans (maybe ATL) do well be cause of the individuals in charge...
it's not some sort of group effort in the N.O.
in the AtL the schools within the district or regional area help like elementary band director helps middle school who helps high school so the kids have a pipeline, i think that has to be done on a district level though...
I would love to be proven wrong
In Houston it has to be a group effort. Most of the show style schools in Houston (HISD) had been phased out by the district and their messed up hiring practices...there have been schools that went from 100 piece on year to nothing the next.
With the new generation of directors we have in Houston comes the knowledge that there is strength in numbers. The bands will prolly never get back to 100 plus for each, (most schools in HISD have dropped from 5a to 4a...blame charters) schools like Davis and Worthing prove you don't have to have 100 piece bands to make noise.
What is needed now is help in the middle schools....some do not HAVE programs...
Any alumni who want to come blow your horn• Dont. This is for serious musicians only. Also any high schooler who is "COLD" on their instrument, we gone shut u down & truly make u cold. In other words, come ready & u gone be challenged in every musical way possible.
Anybody who thinks playing your instrument well and trying to get better is boring is probably trash on their instrument.
Thats why our bands are in the condition that theyre in
because there arent very many to choose from. The only schools with adequate with adquate feeding middle schools are Austin and Sam Houston. The other bands have to pretty much fend for themselves.
One of the issues is that the students in the high school bands skills arent quite up to par to be honest. Very few of our bands can actually blow and sound decent. The purpose of this camp is to handle all of the playing issues like that so that when the middle schoolers come in, they already know to get they shid together. In the case of no feeder, students need to devise various ways to recruit students from within the school and assist with a beginning or non varsity band.
This is not a full summer camp but only 2 maybe 3 weeks at the most. The band directors have been extremely innovative in designing activities for our students. Numbers at this point arent a priority for our bands because we all are small, some are like extra small, some are extra extra small. But small doesnt mean the band is trash...
Prime Example: Worthing's 23 member band was handing out a$$ wuppins and lollipops but for some reason I couldnt see any lollipops. LOL but Im serious.
On top of that, kids will come up with various fundraising ideas for their own programs. As you know funding is being cut around the board to Houston schools. Shid, our bands were already operating with a $10 budget so now we are teaching our students to be self sufficient in building a budget themselves.
I guarantee it will be anything but BORING !!!!!!!
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