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Post by Allohak on Oct 25, 2019 20:37:55 GMT -6
Ok, saw an example of what I was thinking about just now at the Indy Super. Grove City - big, lush sound, but drill and uniforms are very collegiate (company front, what?!). Is that an Ohio thing, or a “them” thing? It's more complicated than that.
BOA style, to the degree that there is such a thing, gets rewarded just fine in OMEA. Mason won every caption when they appeared in OMEA earlier this year (except guard, which Miamisburg took).
The funny thing is that MSBA was created specifically because the OMEA system was not giving groups who wanted to compete on a regional/national level the tools to succeed because it wasn't rewarding things that BOA-style shows were moving toward (curvilinear drill, themed shows, etc). Some would say that even decades later, OMEA has been slow to accept less "traditional" aspects of the activity. One could argue that Mason won every caption (again, sans guard [and deservedly so - 'burg's guard is phenomenal!]) because they, despite their style differences, were recognized by the judges to be stronger in each area than the other groups in attendance. Similarly, any BOA GN Finalist-calibre program could perform in any circuit and be scored well because so much of the activity, regional style differences aside, is translatable to "who plays the best", "who moves the best", and "who has the best show" (for whatever "best" means in any case) and those groups consistently play, move, and design among the best. I hope that last sentence made as much sense in print as it did in my head  |
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Post by N.E. Brigand on Oct 25, 2019 21:25:48 GMT -6
It's more complicated than that.
BOA style, to the degree that there is such a thing, gets rewarded just fine in OMEA. Mason won every caption when they appeared in OMEA earlier this year (except guard, which Miamisburg took).
The funny thing is that MSBA was created specifically because the OMEA system was not giving groups who wanted to compete on a regional/national level the tools to succeed because it wasn't rewarding things that BOA-style shows were moving toward (curvilinear drill, themed shows, etc). Some would say that even decades later, OMEA has been slow to accept less "traditional" aspects of the activity. One could argue that Mason won every caption (again, sans guard [and deservedly so - 'burg's guard is phenomenal!]) because they, despite their style differences, were recognized by the judges to be stronger in each area than the other groups in attendance. Similarly, any BOA GN Finalist-calibre program could perform in any circuit and be scored well because so much of the activity, regional style differences aside, is translatable to "who plays the best", "who moves the best", and "who has the best show" (for whatever "best" means in any case) and those groups consistently play, move, and design among the best. I hope that last sentence made as much sense in print as it did in my head Absolutely. Once you reach a certain level of accomplishment, any band circuit will reward it. And yet even at a lower level, OMEA put Kings's dirty BOA-style show ahead of North Royalton and Medina. And they put Worthington Kilbourne's kitchen-sink BOA-style show and Central Crossing's diffuse BOA-style show ahead of Marysville and Hilliard Davidson. OMEA is every bit as capable of narrow aesthetics as BOA is. Put down a trap, throw in some tarps, play some narration, and you're golden! (He said, cheekily.)
Also, we have just one Grand Nationals Finalist quality band in Ohio (and fewer than ten Semifinalist quality bands), so I spend most of my time thinking about differences at a level or two down from that. I have no idea what Mason scored on the 300-point OMEA sheet, and I don't think that sheet would really be capable of handling *two* BOA finalist level bands, even back on Sep. 28. 299 vs. 299.5? A 60 in BOA is an 240 in OMEA, give or take. In mid-October, the best OMEA bands score about 285. Mason was already better than that. Can't breathe! On the other hand, BOA's sheets are not very good at differentiating between most OMEA bands. I generally can tell which OMEA band will score to within ten points between 210 and 270, i.e., where at least 80% of Ohio's bands will score, but in BOA, that works out to less than ten points of difference, and not very consistently differentiated at all. So I can see that Band X will score 220 and Band Y will score 240 in OMEA, and BOA gives them both a 59. And I get it: if you have 100+ bands to fit between 55 and 65, it's a struggle. But there needs to be someplace for all those bands to be judged, and BOA certainly doesn't have that bandwidth.
Anyway, I have Grove City in about sixth place musically today, and I figure that even after tomorrow, their music score still will be at Finalist level, but as I said a month ago, it won't be enough. And the BOA judges may show my prediction is all wet. One way or the other.
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