The New England Scholastic Band Association or NESBA as it is more commonly known, is a sanctioning body for marching band

Marching band

Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...

, winter percussion, and winter guard

Winter guard

Winter guard is an indoor color guard activity, derived from marching band or drum & bugle corps. Unlike traditional color guard, winter guard is performed indoors, usually in a gymnasium or an indoor arena...

 contests in the New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

region.

Marching band

Each fall, NESBA holds several marching band competitions, in which anywhere from 10 to 40 bands from across New England compete. The bands are scored individually on a scale of 0-100. The scores are broken down into 5 subcategories:

• General Effect Music - a grade of the overall impression of the musical selections
• Ensemble Music - a grade of the quality and arrangement of the musical selections
• Performance Music - a grade of the execution of the musical selections
• General Effect Visual - a grade of the overall impression of the drill and visual aspects of the show
• Performance Visual - a grade of the execution of the drill and visual aspects of the show

Each subcategory is given a grade from 0 to 20, and the 5 scores are added to get the total score. Medals are awarded on the following scale:

• Bronze: 45.00 - 74.99
• Silver: 75.00 - 84.99
• Gold: 85.00 - 94.99
• Platinum: 95.00 and above

In addition, caption awards are given to one group in each division for the following categories:

• High Auxiliary - selected by visual judges for the best colorguard and other visual effects
• High Music - selected by the music performance and ensemble judges, and given to the band with the highest aggregate scores in Performance and Ensemble Music
• High Percussion - selected by all music judges for the best percussion and pit ensemble