Essential Elements to Prioritize in Your UIL Area Marching Competition Rehearsals

CHRIS MCLELLAN
Oct 17
6 min read

Preparing for the UIL Area Marching Competition is both thrilling and demanding for any marching band. With high stakes and fierce competition, it is critical to maximize your rehearsal time effectively. This blog post details the essential elements to prioritize in your rehearsals, ensuring your band feels confident and prepared.

Understanding the UIL Area Marching Competition

Prior to developing rehearsal strategies, it’s important to grasp the UIL Area Marching Competition's structure and expectations. This competition serves as a qualifying round for the state competition, marking a pivotal milestone for many bands. Judges evaluate performances based on criteria like music performance, visual performance, and overall effect.

Being familiar with the judging rubric is essential. For example, music performance accounts for 60% of the total score, while visual performance contributes 40%. For 2A and 3A groups, there are three music judges and 2 visual judges. For 4A, 5A and 6A groups there is a woodwind judge, brass judge, percussion judge and 2 visual judges. Understanding where your weaknesses lie and concentrating your efforts on these areas can significantly impact your final score.

Establishing Clear Goals

Setting specific and achievable goals for each rehearsal is vital. Align these goals with your overall objectives for the competition. If the band struggles with a specific musical section, set aside focused rehearsal time dedicated to improving that passage.

Breaking larger goals into smaller, manageable tasks can create a structured rehearsal environment and allow for measurable progress. For instance, aim to improve a challenging 16-bar musical phrase within two rehearsals. This approach boosts morale and motivation among band members.

Focusing on Music Fundamentals

While jumping directly into the performance can be tempting, emphasizing fundamental skills is essential. Prioritize areas such as tone quality, intonation, and rhythm accuracy as well as phrasing, dynamics, and articulation. As an adjudicator, the most common musical issues at the region contests tend to be minor intonation issues, lack of articulation consistency, unclear technical passages, balance/blend and individuals sticking out, and ragged releases.

Incorporate warm-up exercises that specifically target these skills. For example, a 10-minute long warm-up focused on long tones can lead to a noticeable improvement in tone quality and articulation exercises with a focus on matching syllables will clean up some of those more complicated passages. A strong foundation in these fundamentals enhances overall performance and makes it easier to tackle more complex musical elements later.

Visual Coordination and Marching Technique

Visual performance is a significant factor in the UIL Area Marching Competition. It is essential to prioritize visual coordination and marching technique in your rehearsals.

Focus on key aspects such as:

Marching Style: Has a judge commented on a lack of clarity in your marching style? Whether bent knee or straight leg, is it obvious? Do judges comment that they can hear your feet in your sound? Now may be the perfect time to review those fundamentals and focus on the inconsistencies.

Posture and Body Alignment: Ensure all members maintain proper posture while marching, which contributes to the overall visual effect. This is one of the most common issues I see as an adjudicator. Are students balanced? Is foot timing an issue on slow tempo backward marching moves? Do students lean into step-offs? All of these common issues are a result of problematic posture and alignment.
Foot Placement and Timing: Work on consistent foot placement and timing for a cohesive visual presentation. On slow tempos, use the 8th note subdivision on the backfield metronome and focus on crossing the ankles on the upbeat. As a clinician, I often find that metronomes are only used on the quarter note, which is great for faster tempos, but slower tempos require more check points, so consider trying the 8th note subdivision approach.
Formation Changes: Practice transitioning between formations to ensure smooth and precise movements during performances. Use plus one/minus one foot placement when repping a set. Practice the set plus one step to focus on arrival and transitions. Arrival at set is a common issue especially when some students may only have a short distance to move while others have a larger distance to cover.

Dance Elements: These must be clean as well! Often times I see bands where they are attempting a ton of choreography, but it lacks detail and clarity. Unless your band is very fluent in this area, I suggest not adding more of these elements prior to Area. Focus on cleaning what is already being performed and be detailed in your approach including timing, foot placement, upper body shape, leg shape, and distance between legs on lunges and grand plie.

Incorporating these elements will help produce a polished and professional visual performance.

Music Rehearsal Strategies

To maximize the effectiveness of music rehearsals, consider the following strategies:

Sectionals: Divide the band into smaller groups for targeted practice. This method allows for individualized attention and helps address specific challenges within each section. For example, if the brass section struggles with a particular passage, spend a dedicated rehearsal time focusing exclusively on that group. As a director who had the luxury of 6 directors in rehearsal, we would split into six sections for music warm-up which allowed for targeted fundamentals and music rehearsal for each section. For example, the six sections we split into were: 1) Flutes/clarinets 2) Saxes/Horns 3) Trumpets, 4) Low Brass, 5) Percussion 6) Guard. Use your staff to your advantage!
Full Ensemble Rehearsals: After sectionals, reconvene as a full ensemble to integrate the work done in smaller groups. This ensures that all parts fit together harmoniously.
Recording and Playback: Use recording technology to capture rehearsals. Listening back is an effective way to identify areas needing improvement and helps musicians understand how their parts fit within the ensemble.

Just Listen!: Many times we are consumed with the entire show at once. Take time to turn around, don't watch the drill, just listen! You will hear things that you didn't know were happening. This is a key technique to helping your band sound just as good on the move as when they stand still.

Incorporating Staff Feedback

Feedback is critical in the rehearsal process. As directors, when we stop our group we want to give immediate feedback. However, are there other conversations happening at the same time? Are members of your staff also addressing issues within a section while you are talking to the entire band? Consider trying this process: Head director discusses full group corrections and/or successes first, then gives the on-field staff 30 seconds to make corrections in their area of the field. By incorporating this type of process, you ensure all staff members can contribute to the success of the group and it eliminates confusion or missed information.

Mental Preparation and Visualization

Mental preparation is just as important as the physical aspect of practice. Encourage band members to visualize their performance, imagining themselves executing each movement and musical phrase flawlessly.

Dedicate a few minutes at the beginning or end of each rehearsal for visualization exercises. I also used this technique on the bus as we approached our contest destination. The final 15-minutes of the trip was silent, visualization time which helped getting our minds prepared for the task at hand.

Final Touches and Polish

In the final week(s) leading up to the UIL Area Marching Competition, focus on refining the performance. This includes polishing musical dynamics, enhancing visual effects, and ensuring smooth transitions.

Encourage band members to pay attention to details, such as the appearance of their uniform and instrument. Let's face it, taking pride in all aspects of your performance lead to a better outcome.

Preparing for Success

Preparing for the UIL Area Marching Competition requires careful planning and prioritization during rehearsals. By concentrating on clear goals, fundamental skills, visual coordination, and providing effective feedback, your band can enhance its performance and improve its chances of success.

Remember, the journey to the competition is just as important as the destination. Embrace the process, support one another, and enjoy the experience of making music together. Focusing on the one-day-at-a-time approach with clear goals that are attainable as well as providing effective feedback will help your students perform at their highest level. After all, isn't that what it's all about?

Chris McLellan retired in 2021 as Director of Bands for Springtown ISD and currently serves as Executive Secretary for UIL Region 7. Additionally, Chris is a clinical teacher supervisor for Tarleton State University and the University of North Texas Band programs as well as an active mentor and clinician for numerous band programs across Texas. Please visit mclellanbandconsulting.net for additional blogs, resources and contact information.