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Awesome! I go to woodstock. Are you performing October 7?

The man is a genius. I had the honor of working under his instruction with our band as a guest at Lassiter HS ahead of the ‘06 St. Pete Super Regional. It was an honor and a pleasure and we may not have made finals without his criticism.

You don’t realize how far ahead of its time Lassiter was.

I lived about two miles down the road from Lassiter during their BOA runs. They'd rehearse every day except Wednesday and Sunday. Could hear their band director (Alfred Watkins) tearing them a new one over the long ranger when he needed to 😅

Instilled a whole lot of discipline in us

Eh...I think pcep 1999 is better

Agreed, but I’m not surprised by the comments - being hard on ourselves was kind of the culture of the band there - nothing less than perfection was acceptable, it was very cut throat and competitive.

Here's a man of good taste. Tip of the cap, sir.

...and to those deservedly amazing shows we can now add Hebron 2021.

@@k.coleman8483 💯

@@samtegethoff7225 It was WAY more back then. I remember before BOA purged their web forums, there was an old thread from Spring 2003 where kids from Lassiter and PCEP were comparing notes on rehearsal schedules. Both bands had very similar schedules, but I believe PCEP had a more involved Summer schedule (probably to prepare for the fact that Michigan gets too cold to have efficient outside rehearsals in the late-season), while Lassiter had a more intense Fall schedule. Lassiter was doing 3-4 hours per day pretty much every single day except game days and competition days from Labor Day until Grand Nationals...so roughly 20-25 hours per week depending on the week. Any Saturday that didn't have a competition had an all-day rehearsal.

This year (2002) we did 3 hours after school 4x a week, plus Friday night football games, 12 hour saturdays, plus an additional 2 hours a week section rehearsals before school, plus the hour class during school which was divided among sections. I think we did 4-6 weeks during the summer that were 12 hours 6 days a week. It’s been 20 years so I can’t remember exactly.

@@RQRyan PCEP was very similar back then 06' grad. 3-4 hours a week, Friday night football games, 12 hour Saturdays unless competition, June camp, pre-camp, band camp, tech days, but we did not work on our show during the school day, instead we did our regular concert band stuff. God I even took lessons every Tuesday from like 8-9pm and I practiced my solo literature almost every day and put in a big block of practicing in on Sundays. I'm a band director now and I can definitely say the kids were built differently back then.

Agreed. Mr. Thompson was one of the assistant directors when I was at Lassiter.

I agree. I've been crossing my fingers for a while now.

@@burdrchitect1680 i go to lassiter and theyve dropped practice time to only 5 hours a week. so sad

@@samtegethoff7225 Wow!!😔. I honestly feel like music education is slowly dying. Although Texas is keeping it alive even with this plandemic.

Mind you this was before Kell High School opened. The Lassiter student body isn’t as large as it was then.

A. Watkins was truly the primary reason for the Lassiter band's success back then. As a director, he was and still is to this day admired for all of his accomplishments. He definitely was a hard ass when he needed to be and would have us run the show 5-6 times a night trying to make it as perfect as possible. I was in this show and can honestly say without that man, we wouldn't have even been a part of this competition.

The director who I believe's name was Alfred Watkins retired in 2012. The next director everyone criticized because they thought she wouldn't be what Watkins was. They can't really compete at BOA competitions because I believe the director chooses not to go that route and there's not a whole lot of Regionals in their area.

@@andrewthepokerchamp there are still regionals in the area. The biggest is Power Springs which is right in the their county district. I think they just haven't adapted to the new age style of BOA. Also I heard that they cut rehearsal time because parents complained.

Andrew English there’s one in Jacksonville, AL not far from them and they only went once the entire time I’ve been at JSU

@@MusicNerd2014 they really dont do BOA anymore. Let's not forget that Atlanta use to have a huge regionals at the Falcons stadium, but the last big Atlanta Regional was after the Mercedes Benz Stadium was built, but I think they cancelled it probably due to cost of the venue, now they just have Powder Springs Regional at Mceachern High which is in the same school district at Mceachern.

burdrchitect 1 yes but the next big regional that’s close and last regional Lassiter ever went to was the one in Jacksonville, AL

I have Harrison H.S winning their next one

Kennesaw mountain is next

Jaylen Smith I wish them well. I did see the BOA Regional Results. Last night. I have faith in an old high school bandmate that directs Harrison High School, so I'm pulling for them. I wish you and your band the best, however.

@@biak8318 How about Walton?!! lmao

@@biak8318 Walton placed 16th at St Louis BOA Regionals last year dude.

Wes Bush couldn't agree more

I agree. Lassiter 2002 and Spring 1993 co Champs!

Mark B there was no sound engineer! I was in this band. The only time we used synthesized sound was the two tall boards next to the pit during their solo midway through the third piece. Everything other sound produced by a brass, woodwind or percussion player in that band. I will never forget the experience I had during this year of high school.

Correction, 3 walls

Yep, sound engineers weren't a thing back then. Miss those days.

@@gtjackets09 Correction, we *did* have a sound engineer if you want to call it that. He was on the far left (from the band's perspective) of the pit. I can't remember his name. I never knew him that well and he wasn't in the A band originally. I think we pulled him from the B band (yes, our program was large enough to have a second smaller band at the time). As I recall, he didn't have much to do but adjust the sound levels for the pit (we had mics), the woodwind bridge going into the second movement, and the french horn break, and boost the midi panels and synth keyboard (yes, we had a synth keyboard during the percussion break as well), but he still attended every practice wore a uniform and helped out a lot with moving gear into position. You can see him around 2:44

Thats cuz Watkins retired

its not because of her try again, yall treated her like shit from the jump never gave her a chance, yall were bad before she even came TBH. so dont say it was her cuz i know for a fact its not. lmao

Kelvin K I do know that we are not as good as we used to be but I still strive for excellence and hope to do my best for the marching season, no matter who our director is.

Marshall as a former alumnus of Lassiter high school, I stand by our band program! Thank you Marshall for saying that. It just shows dedication every student has to strive for excellence, no matter the circumstances.

Mr. Watkins retired the year I graduated (2010) before leaving, he trained assistant band directors to take over for him. I can tell you as a LHS band member when I was in high school, we won EVERY competition we went to. We went to east coast regionals in Hoftstra, New York in 2007 during my sophomore year (we were the only band from the south) we won every award including 1st place, and broke the record for regional band competition that year. Even after Mr. Watkins left, the band retained the level of excellence that he impressed upon the school. We are still the best band in the county and the state of Georgia.

+Christopher Morris Poor poor Chris, your band must have never even made finals at Nationals!

Terrell Walker No, most haven't. But I do have a master's in music from new England conservatory and generally, we got in trouble if we presented the same or similar music from a previous year. That, and I can appareciate a final product and still maintain having my opinion without having competed at GN.

Perfect, then spend this energy on improving the band that you're affiliated with so that we may share our opinion about them.

+Terrell Walker For the sake of accuracy, the only opinion I shared about Lassiter is that I enoyed the end product while disagreeing with the method. Everything else in my original post was a general observation that isn't difficult to prove. If you have twice as long to perfect something, odds are it will be more "perfect" than if you had half the time. Try not to take this so personally, though I realize how difficult youtube makes it to remain objective (it would seem).

I wonder what motivated Terrell Walker to respond that way.