NCBA : two championships?

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azn_rifleguy
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NCBA : two championships?

Post by azn_rifleguy » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:26 pm

I am a little bit confused about the difference between Lincoln's "Review of Champions" and Fairfield's "Tournament of Championships." They are the exact same day, November 17, and they are in the same circuit.

I am familiar about Fairfield's TOC, but not Lincoln's Review of Champions.
Is it like, Lincoln's is in the morning, or something? In the description of both events, they say they are doing Parade, Concert, Jazz, and Field. So that would mean schools would have to decide between two places to go to Championships?

Can somebody please clarify this for me?

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Post by ZJH » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:55 pm

Those are merely names; they do not reflect any type of "championship" for the parade/field season in the NCBA. The Lincoln Review of Champions used to be held in the Spring, and the Fairfield Tournament of Champions has always been held in the fall, as far as I know. The only real championships sanctioned by the NCBA are the Winter Championships for winterguard, indoor percussion, and drum major L-Patterns and Field Conducting.
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Re: NCBA : two championships?

Post by danceswithwood » Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:12 pm

azn_rifleguy wrote: So that would mean schools would have to decide between two places to go to Championships?

Can somebody please clarify this for me?
Yes. Schools have to choose which one to attend ... neither are "championships" ... they're just the last two shows of the NCBA season.

.

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Post by baritoneplayer » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:02 pm

:D In the pre-NCBA days the Northern California Band Review was held in Fairfield in April and was hosted by Armijo and Fairfield Highschools. The Merced Highschool Marching 100 won the Grandsweepstakes award in 1974 and 1976

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Post by supermutant » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:33 pm

Lordy, that makes me feel real old...Not only was I there, but I was teaching at the time :shock:

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Post by azn_rifleguy » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:39 pm

oh.. wowerz.. alrighty..


thank you!

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Post by Cardinal Regime » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:53 pm

At the 1982 Fairfield Band Review, which was in the Spring, my Chowchilla Redskin Marching band not only won the Grand Sweepstakes coming out of little ol' Class D. but our percussion section took 1st with a whopping 97.5. Our band director, Larry Hobson, was more stoked about our percussion score than the band winning Sweepstakes.

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Post by Scentiment » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:53 am

baritoneplayer wrote::D In the pre-NCBA days the Northern California Band Review was held in Fairfield in April and was hosted by Armijo and Fairfield Highschools. The Merced Highschool Marching 100 won the Grandsweepstakes award in 1974 and 1976
Was that they year they had all the band members on swing flags?

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Post by JenKozy » Sun Nov 11, 2007 11:04 am

[quote="Cardinal Regime"]At the 1982 Fairfield Band Review, which was in the Spring, my Chowchilla Redskin Marching band not only won the Grand Sweepstakes coming out of little ol' Class D. but our percussion section took 1st with a whopping 97.5. Our band director, Larry Hobson, was more stoked about our percussion score than the band winning Sweepstakes.[/quote]

Wow. Don't see class D bands winning sweepstakes much, if at all, anymore. Very cool.
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Post by MasterT » Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:51 pm

Cardinal Regime wrote:At the 1982 Fairfield Band Review, which was in the Spring, my Chowchilla Redskin Marching band not only won the Grand Sweepstakes coming out of little ol' Class D. but our percussion section took 1st with a whopping 97.5. Our band director, Larry Hobson, was more stoked about our percussion score than the band winning Sweepstakes.
It's true what JenKozy said. These days, it's fairly unheard of to see a band of a "lower division" taking grand sweepstakes.

But I wonder...was classification at this review by school size? Because a lot of today's band reviews seem to be dividing groups based on band size for level competition (at least, in Northern California).

That would be a reasonable explanation as to why Chowchilla could have taken sweeps. They could have been a big band but with small school enrollment (which I would expect for a Central Valley school), thus placing them in the lower division.

Whatever the case was, they had a stellar performance to impress those pre-NCBA judges (but it probably didn't hurt them if they had size advantage).
Last edited by MasterT on Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by BGRtumpet » Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:57 pm

Is there a good reason small bands get worse scores....I mean they're quieter, but is that it? Or is that we have more scrutiny per person? Or that simpler things like horn snaps look much, much cooler in big bands?
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Post by Hostrauser » Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:08 am

BGRtumpet wrote:Is there a good reason small bands get worse scores....I mean they're quieter, but is that it? Or is that we have more scrutiny per person? Or that simpler things like horn snaps look much, much cooler in big bands?
Bah.

Wilcox's former director, Mr. James Zuniga (now at San Benito HS) produced a fantastic parade sound with Wilcox, and they usually only had about 50 kids on the street.

Foothill-Sacramento HS won Parade Sweeps at the Fairfield TOC in the Fall of 1994 marching only 70 kids or so.

Vallejo HS back in the late 90s under Merlin Chestnut were taking Sweepstakes all over the place with 65-80 kids.

Back in the early 90s you had Vallejo HS, Santa Cruz HS and Del Oro HS, all only about 70-80 kids, all a threat to snag Sweepstakes at a competition.

Heck, even Benicia HS when Roxanna Macheel took over would only march 75-85 kids and put out a sound that put other bands to shame.

Etc., etc., etc.

Size is no impediment to producing a good sound or a good performance, on parade OR field. And being big does not automatically grant a band a higher score. I've seen plenty of small bands that sounded great and large bands that sounded terrible.

And I know I've mentioned it before, but it's possibly my favorite band moment of all time and worth mentioning again: at the 1997 WSMBC (WBA) Finals, Victor Valley HS (with 60 kids) beat out James Logan HS (250 kids) for High Music.

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Post by evil reneguard Diva » Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:05 am

other than possibly a larger GE score (because you can do more with more kids), I see no reason why we break groups up according to school or band size (ESPECIALLY school size) We run winterguard and winter drum lines based on skill, not size...it would seem that it would be better to have groups compete against other with similar skills, not numbers. This week in Merced I saw a band of NINE musicians on the field and IMO, they were every bit as good and even BETTER than some of theo groups with 30-60 band members. Conversely, I have friend who teaches a big band (120) that is not very good at all.....and yet they will be up againt Granite Bay, Foothill, etc.

Size does NOT = Quality.

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Post by Cardinal Regime » Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:39 am

Chowchilla was a fantastic parade band in the early 1980's. PGOK can verify this. My freshmen year in high school (1980) we won Sweepstakes at CCBR and the old California State Championship band review in Clovis. In addition that year, at the All Western Band Review in Long Beach, out of 76 bands, we had the 8th overall highest score. We were competing out of class E.

Although the school was pretty small, about 550, our band marched about 80 instruments plus lettergirls, banner girls, etc.

My sophomore year, again took sweepstakes at CCBR. In the spring we took sweepstakes at Fairfield and Stockton. Again, all out of the smallest size class of bands.

On several occasions we defeated the Merced Marching 100, Clovis High, Orange Glenn at CCBR, and Katella at CSCBR.

My junior and senior years saw more of the same, including a 1st Place in class at the Santa Ana band review.

But today, yeah it seems impossible for a band in class D or E to have that kind of success.

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Chowchilla

Post by EP » Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:03 am

Lest you forget or you might have been too young that Chowchilla was also a power house in the 70's as well.

We used to love doing the Chowchilla roundup (Atwater Falcon Band) parade....

It looks like Chowchilla has found a new director who cares about the music program.

I wish them the best in the years to come and hope they bring back honest injun, there's a heap of living in Chowchilla... I can say that without being politicall incorrect, I'm native american....

peace!

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