UIL band competitions are currently occurring where bands including wind ensemble and symphonic wind and the goal of UIL is to receive all 1s as the highest score is 1 and the lowest score is 5. Band members prepare by getting ready with 3 pieces of music and continuously practice them. They also have pre-UIL as they get ratings from judges and give commentary to band members to tell them how to improve their piece and how to make it better. Band members are very stressed out to get really high scores to impress judges and have a good reputation.

The wind ensemble director cares more about how the music sounds and feels rather than the ratings provided, which is to the and student’s benefit as they are learning to produce good music based on sound and not based on the judge’s ratings at UIL competitions. UIL is for band members to perform in a group and follow along correctly together to create a symphony and a continuous beat to appeal to the judges.

There is also symphonic band and they are the intermediate band and they play easier and less complicated music than wind ensemble, at UIL competitions. Symphonic wind is a larger group of band members that play the music but they are not as advanced as wind ensemble. There is a UIL sight reading group where band members are given a new piece of music they have never seen before and they have to play it and read it as they go along, and there is one judge that will give them a rating based on how good they performed the piece.