Choose music that challenges your students, then prepare every band to grow through it.

Most contest problems are decided before the first rehearsal.

You hear them on stage in the spring, but they were already in the folder.

• The second band is playing music that's harder than it can handle.
• The slow piece hangs on an oboe solo, and nobody in the band plays oboe.
• The percussion section sits out half the program, standing in the back with nothing to play.
• You own one original score, and the judges need three.
• The metronome never came out, so the band can't hold a tempo on its own.
• The band practiced sight-reading every week, but never learned your state's sight-reading procedure and rules.
• None of these are talent problems. They're planning problems, and every one of them can be caught on paper before a student learns a note.

What you'll have when you finish

It's written first for the director doing most of this alone: one or two directors, every band in the building, and not much help. If you have a bigger staff, every system scales up.

Twelve steps: choose the program, then prepare every band

1. Step 1Audit the band you'll have on contest dayEach section's limitations, instrumentation holes, and three questions to ask of every section.
2. Step 2Know what judges hear, and pick the gradeThe six things nearly every sheet scores, why clean beats hard, and the 90% test.
3. Step 3Read every score for landminesWhat to look for at grades 1 to 2, 3 to 4 and 5 to 6, percussion included.
4. Step 4Build the programThe march, contrast and order, with real Texas Honor Band programs and what a typical band plays.
5. Step 5Plan every band you teachA goal and an owner for every band, because your second and third bands are your program's future.
6. Step 6Get the music, and know your state's rulesPerusal scores, parts and judges' scores, list systems, and cutting a list to ten real candidates.
7. Step 7Map the cycle backwardFive phases counted back from your contest date, for a 12, 8 or 6-week cycle.
8. Step 8Plan every rehearsalA goal for every block, a four-week goals grid, and knowing when a piece isn't working.
9. Step 9Sectionals, hearings and percussionSectionals with the same shape every time, hearings heard live, and percussion without a specialist.
10. Step 10Musicianship, metronome and recordingsStudents who make musical decisions, the metronome out in stages, and recordings students judge.
11. Step 11Clinicians, leaders and sight-readingA clinician who comes back, real roles for student leaders, connections outside the band room, and sight-reading stepped up.
12. Step 12Contest week and the debriefA contest day plan to the minute, students reflecting on the pre-contest performance, and your own reflection after.
13. ExtrasEvery state's rules, a cycle checklist and further readingA 50-state table and map, a one-page checklist for the cycle, and the books I'd hand a colleague.

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