Category: The Band Director

Desire & Success

George Hopkins, Director of YEA! and The Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps posted this on his journal today and it’s pretty smart:

DESIRE IS THE STARTING POINT FOR SUCCESS

The first thing that will contribute to reaching your goal is that you simply want to reach it badly enough.
You must learn how to desire with sufficient intensity to be successful.

If you have the desire you have the power to attain success.
You can really have anything you want in life if you go after it.
But you have to want it.

As a drowning soul desires air, as a shipwrecked person craves fresh water,
so must you feel that intense, eager, insistent, demanding, ravenous desire for your success.

Your desire for success must be so strong within you that it becomes the very breath of your life.
It must be your first thought when you wake up, and your last thought when you go to bed at night.

You can have anything you want if you go after it with intensity.

~The Daily Guru

Area D Marching Contest

The phones and emails are a buzz…the order of performance for the Area D Marching Contest just came out. We perform at 10:15 am at the Round Rock ISD Athletics Complex on Parmer Lane. Here’s the order:

1. 9:00 Robert E. Lee (San Antonio)
2. 9:15 Leander
3. 9:30 Bryan
4. 9:45 McArthur
5. 10:00 Akins
6. 10:15 Stony Point
7. 10:30 East Central

****BREAK****

8. 11:00 Ellison
9. 11:15 Pflugerville
10. 11:30 Madison
11. 11:45 Round Rock
12. NOON Harker Heights
13. 12:15 Smithson Valley
14. 12:30 Westlake

****LUNCH****

15. 1:30 Georgetown
16. 1:45 Reagan (San Antonio)
17. 2:00 Temple
18. 2:15 Bowie
19. 2:30 Roosevelt
20. 2:45 McNeil
21. 3:00 A&M Consolidated

****BREAK****

22. 3:30 Judson
23. 3:45 Westwood
24. 4:00 Sequin
25. 4:15 Anderson
26. 4:30 Belton
27. 4:45 Cedar Park
28. 5:00 Churchill

Hope you can make it out!
~C

We did it again!

Today, the Stony Point HS Band performed in the UIL Region 26 Marching Competition and once again, earned the illustrious division 1 rating!!! Congratulations, Tiger Band!!!

Thoughts provoked

My friend Estelle, a band director in the DFW area, wrote this in her blog the other day:

A few of the kiddos at the HS are really stressed these days. I think at times we put too much pressure on them. Too many adults forget that they are in fact kids. We ask them to be mature, act like an adult, always behave, learn this, study that…. but when do we let them be kids? We pressure them with adult tendencies, but deny them adulthood. Where is the balance?

This really spoke to me. In order to teach kids to be good adults, we have to almost jar them into adulthood. Or do we? Sure is something to think about.

Contest, contest, contest, contest….

Hey guys!

I’ve been quite quiet lately…it’s a busy time of year. It’s competition time for band so every moment has been focused on how to make the organization better and cleaner for competition. In fact, we had our first festival competition yesterday at Blinn College in Brenham and we not only won Top Percussion and Top Soloist (clarinet) in 5A, we won 3rd place!!!

Next week, we have a festival sponsored by USSBA at Shelton Stadium (Hays HS) in Kyle. What’s really cool (for me) about our going to this contest is my kids get to march on the field I spent my entire high school career marching on.

After that, we have UIL 26 Region Marching contest at the RRISD Athletic Complex. This is the big ‘un of the season. Let’s hope the feel of last year’s success will be remembered so we can continue in the success and let in a great tradition. If that does happen, then it’s off to…

…the UIL Area Marching contest aslo at the RRISD Athletic Complex. Our band has only been to this contest once before. Neither Brian nor I were on staff that year but according to Matt (who was on staff) and the kids who went, it was Christmas in October because it rained and rained and rained at the Region Marching contest. There were very few bands that didn’t advance that year so was it truely earned then? Probably not…I’ve seen the tape on show. :mrgreen:

So, those are all my Saturdays in October. I think we’ll probably be meeting as a staff most Sundays to review our work so far from the tapes and plan our next week. I’m going to try to squeeze in the Grey’s Anatomy nights and maybe even a Halloween party in there, too.

Speaking of Grey’s Anatomy, I’m loving this season! The fantasy scene at the start of this past week’s episode was just…well…SEXY!!! 😛