Saturday morning: usually a time of relaxation and sleeping in. Yet Saturday, September 21 looked a little different for the Northview marching band.
At nine in the morning, groggy students dragged themselves out of their beds for an early marching band practice that lasted about three hours. Then after a lunch break, it was down to business. At 2:30 three buses left for Rockford High School.
Once there, the marchers gave two performances for two different competitions.
The Scholastic Marching Band (SMB) show was first. Schools are grouped into classes based on the average size of the grade. In Class A was East Lansing, Kalamazoo Central, Lakeview, Mattawan, and Northview. After performing, each band was scored based on four captions: Music Performance (30 points), Music Effect (30 points), Marching Performance (20 points) and Visual Effect (20 points) for a total of 100 points.
Northview placed first in all of the categories except for Music Effect with scores of 27.3, 26.1, 17.0 and 16.8, respectively.
In addition to these categories, bands were also judged on the percussion and color guard aspects to their performance. Each worth 20 points, the band scored 19.5 and 16.9 respectively.
Overall from the SMB show, the Northview band brought home many awards. They placed first overall in Class A with a 87.2/100 as well as earning the caption awards for Best Marching, Best Visual performance, Best Music, Best Color Guard and Best Percussion.
Additionally, they were crowned the Grand Champion. This designation went to the band with the highest score in the whole competition, regardless of what class they were in.
Later that day was the Michigan Competitive Band Association (MCBA) show. Though also split based on size of the school, the MCBA show calls these groups Flights. In Flight III was Byron Center, Cedar Springs and Northview. Bands in this show are graded by six judges: Music Field Judge (10% of the total score), Music Ensemble Judge (20% of the total score), Visual Field Judge (10% of the total score), Visual Ensemble Judge (20% of the total score), Music General Effect Judge (20% of the total score) and Visual General Effect Judge (20% of the total score). These all add up to be 100 points.
Northview placed second in Flight III with a total of 84.025. Additionally, they were awarded the Visual Caption Award.
The next marching band competition will be on October 8 at East Kentwood High School.
