The band is under the direction of David Roth

This Saturday, several band students attended All District Band auditions, a highly competitive individual event. Two students placed high enough to qualify for the ensembles. They will perform in January.
Shyla Register qualified for all district honor band on contra-alto clarinet.
Alex Dawson qualified for all district honorable mention band as an alternate on percussion.
Here are the rest of the results:

Miracle Plotner: 26th of 42 flutes
Ainsley Vandenburg: 35th of 42 flutes
Kaylee Wilbers: 38th of 42 flutes
Shyla Register: 51st of 54 clarinets
Richard Walker: 13th of 14 bass clarinets
Shyla Register: 1st of 3 contra-alto clarinets
Alex Dawson: 5th of 15 mallet percussionists
Anthony Kitsch: 2nd of 3 jazz bassists

Some more information, if you're interested:

366 students traveled to Warrensburg to compete for a spot in one of two West-Central District bands: the (more prestigious) Honor band, and the (secondary) honorable mention band. The qualifying students were given music folders to prepare their music for the district bands' performance in January. It's very difficult for students from smaller schools like ours, because the spots in those bands are frequently occupied by students from schools with bigger bands and more resources, like Harrisonville, Ray-Pec, Warrensburg, Pleasant Hill, Grain Valley, Knob Noster, Boonville, and Smith-Cotton. Still though, the ones who dedicate dozens of hours of practice time to the audition music rise to the challenge and qualify for the bands.

The auditions involve the individual musician entering a room with 3-4 judges and playing, from memory, every note their instrument is capable of, twice. (Lowest to highest, then back down). The judges then pick 2 major scales (from a list of 9) for the musician to play in the full range of their instrument, from memory. After that, the student plays 6 prepared pieces, which can each last anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. It is an arduous process to say the least, which is why most students don't even try. (Even I was scared to audition until my senior year.)

At the end of the day, the students are ranked in order of best to worst, and the top few on each instrument get to be a part of one of the all district bands. There is also an all-district jazz band, a separate ensemble with a similar audition process, which is why our bass guitarist was able to audition this year.

Today, 10/26, the Butler Bear Brigade attended the first annual Royal Regiment Invitational marching band festival in Harrisonville. Here are the results of the 3 bands in our class:

1st place (64.8 points): BUTLER
2nd place (55 points): Sherwood
3rd place (51.9 points): North Callaway
 

There were also awards given for more specific things.
 

Best soloist: North Callaway
Best color guard: Sherwood
Best percussion: BUTLER
Best music: BUTLER
 

Our overall score was based on a combination of judges' scores in the categories of music, marching, general effect, color guard, and percussion.
 

Thanks to everyone for your continued support of the Butler Bear Brigade!

On October 12, the band travelled to Odessa for another band competition. Of the 5 bands in our class, Butler got 1st place! For context, two years ago the band placed last at all our competitions. I’m so happy to see the amount of growth these kids have shown in such a short time.  

Here are the scores for each band: 

1 Butler 58.17
2 North Harrison 57.33
3 Northern Heights 57.25
4 Cole Camp 55.17
5 South Calloway 54.75 

Thank you all for the support you give to the band. It means a lot to us!

 Picture by Sarah Anne

September 28

The high school band traveled to Mount Vernon Saturday to compete against 3 other marching bands. We placed 2nd out of the 4! Here are the rankings and scores:

1. Aurora 63.00
2. Butler 48.77
3. Strafford 45.65
4. Warsaw 43.23 

The bands were given scores in categories of Music, Visuals, General Effect, Percussion, and Color Guard. Each category had one judge, and the judges scores were combined to result the ranking we were given. 

We battled against the weather a little bit... we were rained on during our warm-up. Fortunately, after the last home football game the band boosters invested in some plastic rain ponchos to protect the kids and their uniforms! The rain eased up though, and we were able to perform after a short rain delay. During the performance, some large gusts of wind blew some sheet music away, so some kids weren't able to play our last song. They powered through it regardless! 

23 bands performed, divided into size-appropriate classes (which is why we only competed against 3 others). It was great for the kids to see some really strong bands from schools like Harrisonville, Cassville, and Mount Vernon. Missouri Southern State even brought their band to perform before the awards were announced