The Pius X Rolling Thunder marching band placed highly at their last two competitions leading up to their state competition.
On Saturday, Oct. 12, the Rolling Thunder played at the Links marching contest, where they competed against other schools both in and outside of their division.
“We earned a division one superior rating at Links,” band director Jared Wilhelm said. “We were top of our class, and second top band for the day regardless of class.”
Following their success, they performed at the Lincoln Public Schools Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 19 at Seacrest Field where they earned another superior rating.
“I was excited at first,” trumpet section leader senior Gavin Wiechman said. “When we got the rating back we didn’t do as good as we thought we did, now there’s a lot more we need to work on.”
Each week leading up to state, the judges’ critiquing and rating of the band’s performance becomes harsher and harsher.
“You can expect that the same performance would be graded five points less each week,” Wilhelm said. “We are trying to do a minimum of five points better each week to maintain our score.”
The judging becomes steeper, after each performance judges’ notes are available.
“It’s always nice to listen to the results from the last competitions,” senior drumline section leader Damien Johnson said. “It’s nice to get compliments but what’s really most important is learning from mistakes and making every run better than the last.”
Some events can have up to eight different judges who all inspect certain aspects of the whole band, so a large amount of feedback is given.
Following every rating, Wilhelm does his best to take the judges’ notes and compile them down to share with his students.
The feedback is then taken and applied to the band’s daily practice, shooting for a different point each day.
“We aim to hit those judges’ comments throughout the week,” Wilhelm said. “It can help us raise our score faster by listening to them.”
One of the big things they worked on this week was articulation and moving together without gaps.
“A lot of the things we need to work on are individual and no individual can do it for everyone,” Wiechman said.
Wilhelm strongly believes in the principle that even if they are doing really good, there is always something they can do better.
“Color guard has practice outside of school on Monday and Thursday nights,” color guard section leader senior Aubrey Bucknell said. “Not just color guard but the entire band has improved a lot this season, it’s looking good.”
The efforts of the band will be put to the test this Saturday, Oct. 26 at their state competition held at Seacrest.
