Dan Cook, Green Brigade

[letsgiveacheer]

It was announced today that Dr. Dan Cook, the director of the Green Brigade has been named the Director of Bands at Ithaca College. Ithaca, located in upstate NY, has a very prestigious music school and this is a great step up in his career.

He had done an excellent job both with the Green Brigade and the other ensembles he conducts. He is a fine man as well and will certainly be missed.

 

Edited January 10, 2023 by letsgiveacheer

[GrandGreen]

Strange move IMO, going from band of 400 to college of less than 5000.   Maybe gets a big raise, he will need it in NY. 

Judging only from athletic events, he will not be a big loss. 

[El Paso Eagle]

I truly do not understand the world of Band Directing. Good luck to him.

Dr. Christopher Hughes is Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music for the School of Music at Ithaca College in New York. Hughes serves as conductor of the renowned Ithaca College Wind Ensemble while leading the acclaimed graduate program in wind conducting.

[jtm0097]

Move this to the Eagles Nest.

[letsgiveacheer]

He will be the Director of Bands, not the marching band director. Here, he is the third man out of three.  At Ithaca, he will be the top man. Well deserved.

[DeepGreen]

12 minutes ago, letsgiveacheer said:

He will be the Director of Bands, not the marching band director. Here, he is the third man out of three.  At Ithaca, he will be the top man. Well deserved.

[TIgreen01]

Pregame he improved quite a bit. In game he reduced substantially.  All things told, in game matters more to me.  Thank you for your service.  Next please.

[Glory to the Green]

Was it his choice to make the group bigger?  He brought back the High School day, right?  Hope we bring/promote someone that keeps these upgrades while also adding to the in-game environment. 

[Matt]

I always thought the stand tunes left a bit to be desired so hopefully this area will improve.

[SilverEagle]

I vote for letsgiveacheer to be head of the selection committee for the next director.  

Quote

Was it his choice to make the group bigger? 

No. The GB was up to about 400 before he was hired. During his brief tenure it grew to about 415...maybe more. I think letting the band get to such an obese size, was someone's idea about increasing ticket sales. Most of the band is volunteers from the student body. Probably most are local. This brings in family, friends from your hometown, and new friends you made in the student body. So instead of a 250-300 member band (mostly music majors or music education majors) sitting in the stands with maybe the same amount of family and friends buying tickets, you have 400+ member band (maybe half as many music majors or music ed majors) filling up seats that would otherwise be going empty and family and friends numbering somewhere between 800-900 buying tickets to see their child, grandchild, brother-sister, friend perform with a Prestigeous Band.

Dr. Cook did an excellent job of managing such an unwieldy band. The band members seemed to really like him.....as did I.  They did some very excellent programs, but I think he would have produced even more impressive shows if the Band had been of a more manageable size.....with more members from the school of music.

AND if nothing else remains from his tenure here, he has left us with one very important part of a pre-game show......a North Texas based fanfare...... starting at 2:09 on this video.

To my knowledge NO OTHER DIRECTOR HAS PRODUCED ONE, OR HAD ONE WRITTEN AND PRODUCED. And I never understood why.

Also, Dr. Cook, in one conversation that I had with him, confirmed something that I have always suspected.  Just about all the groups that participate in game time have their own directors/sponsors and come there and do their own thing. With little, if any, coordination with one another.

I made a suggestion for a tune that might work well for the dance team. He said "well, I don't select the music for them, their sponsor does. I'll pass this suggestion on to them". Essentially the same thing goes on with the cheer squad. The Band plays the musical prompts that have been played for years because the cheerleaders like them, not because they are ideal spirit prompts. Dr. Cook commented that he really didn't like one of them, but they went ahead and played it because the cheerleaders like it. I just smiled and said "well, I don't like it either, but it appears to me that the cheerleaders like it because the band does most of the work and the cheerleaders just provide a little exclamation point to it."  

A job well done Fessor! Congratulations on your promotion. 

Edited January 10, 2023 by SilverEagle

[Green Otaku]

15 hours ago, Matt said:

I always thought the stand tunes left a bit to be desired so hopefully this area will improve.

 

Agreed. Hopefully we can get rid of that circus sounding song they play all of the time, I've always hated that. Play something to get the crowd pumped. 

[NT80]

31 minutes ago, Green Otaku said:

 

Agreed. Hopefully we can get rid of that circus sounding song they play all of the time, I've always hated that. Play something to get the crowd pumped. 

Agree, play football music at a football game.  Save the concert songs for concerts. 

[GrayEagle]

18 hours ago, TIgreen01 said:

Pregame he improved quite a bit. In game he reduced substantially.  All things told, in game matters more to me.  Thank you for your service.  Next please.

I also like the pre-game in that they can set the spirit that may last through the game.  If they would play 'Let's Give A Cheer' amidst fireworks and smoke when the team enters it will grab everyone's attention positively.  I also hope that they will keep the Marching Band at its current size.  It makes the game seem more like a spectacle.

[DeepGreen]

2 hours ago, NT80 said:

Agree, play football music at a football game.  Save the concert songs for concerts. 

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  We have a winner!

[El Paso Eagle]

One message seems to be commonly shouted, and UNT needs to listen -
IMPROVE THE GAMEDAY EXPERIENCE ACROSS THE BOARD!

[NT80]

One thing I heard/noticed during the GA/TCU game and in SEC games in general is their band's playing trolling noise before almost every opponent snap of the ball.  UNT's band does this on occasion of a big play or 3rd down and I appreciate it, but it really got annoying during the whole game last night by the Georgia band.  Does it really distract a team?

[UNTLifer]

2 hours ago, NT80 said:

 during the whole game last night by the Georgia band.  Does it really distract a team?

Based on the results last night, I would vote yes.

[TIgreen01]

19 hours ago, GrayEagle said:

I also like the pre-game in that they can set the spirit that may last through the game.  If they would play 'Let's Give A Cheer' amidst fireworks and smoke when the team enters it will grab everyone's attention positively.  I also hope that they will keep the Marching Band at its current size.  It makes the game seem more like a spectacle.

See below...

19 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

One message seems to be commonly shouted, and UNT needs to listen -
IMPROVE THE GAMEDAY EXPERIENCE ACROSS THE BOARD!

I thought the guy did an awesome job raising the standard for our pregame performances.  Those were legit best in class, or equivalent to it.  The problem was that he changed what we had been doing in-game for the worse.  Previously our band was much more consistently driving crowd noise---especially on 3rd downs.  Since Cook got here he changed what the band did previously, which was pretty successful at getting me to yell on every defensive 3rd down, to something that didn't and then did that inconsistently.

We need to be great at both pregame AND in-game.  We have the best dang band in the county---or so we proclaim.  It's time they live up to that consistently.