doogiempt

This is my personal favorites list, not necessarily how I think they would rank if competing against each other. HM: 2012: I understand why some people don’t like this show, but I really think they did the best they could for what the show was. 12. 2001: I feel like this show is underrated. A great brass line playing some classics. Just a really fun show all around. 11. 1985: This show was ahead of its time, IMO. Such a difficult music book requiring intense focus from the membership. 10. 2000: My rookie year. A powerhouse show. Undefeated season. A less than stellar finals run through 😕 9. 2015: Wow, what a brass line and book! Say what you will about the concept, but this was a monster corps! Those mellos / French horns...ok, I may be a little biased since I was their tech that summer... 8. 2013: One of my favorite musical books ever written. The drill was ok - some wow moments, but nothing like the next show on my list... 7. 2011: Absolutely brilliant design! I would have placed this one higher if the performance level matched the design level (nothing against the corps of 2011 - just took a LONG time that summer to get clean enough to win) 6. 1987: A classic - just such a beautifully designed show. “Class” and “poise” are words that come to mind when I watch this show. 5. 1997: Great music, strong performance in all sections, and some of the best whiplash drill EVER at the end of the opener! 4. 2007: This was such a fun show to rehearse and perform, narration aside. The hornline was our for blood every single day. I think we had something to prove after 06. 3. 2005: There simply wasn’t a weakness in this corps. We won every caption and sub caption on finals night (no corps has ever replicated this), and took home Every. Single. Caption. Award. Also, the baritone solo in ‘Liquid’ wasn’t too shabby 😁 2. 1984: Of the 3-peat, this one takes the cake for me. I love WSS, and the arrangements this year were fantastic! 1. 1993: This show had it all - an amazing musical package (with one of the best ballads!) and ridiculous whiplash drill throughout. I’m still in awe of this corps.

Yes. Hop was upset that he heard a few members before the regional talking about being caught (competitively) by corps that were behind us. After our performance, he lectured us on keeping our focus on the groups ahead of us, and said that we needed to see what they were doing. (I’m paraphrasing) There were many of us vets who were NOT about to sit and watch other corps in uniform (at the time, watching another corps while we were in uniform was a big no-no). Many of us refused to sit in the stands, and instead stayed “under the stands” (in the walkway) at parade rest for the full length of time. My memory is a little fuzzy as to what happened after the corps was finally allowed to leave the stadium, but I remember Hop being absolutely irate that we would disobey him. There was almost a coup among the membership that night, from what I remember. 2006 was one of the roughest summers of my time with the corps for a multitude of reasons. -MT Cadets baritone 2000-2007

As a member of Cadets in 2007 (see my signature), the narration didn't affect me much at all. 2007 was one of my absolute favorite shows to march - the music and drill was some of the most fun and intense that I had the opportunity to be a part of. Some back story for you - After each season, George has us fill out surveys. These surveys cover everything from food, to housing, to transportation, staff, and the show. We are able to give as much (or as little) feedback as we like in the surveys. After 2004, most of the membership said that we wanted to get back to The Cadets pushing the envelope - we wanted to do stuff that nobody else was doing (remember that 2000-2004 were all very crowd-driven shows in terms of design, whether or not they actually worked). So, the 2005 show was born. After 05, we continued in a similar vain. History will show how that worked out for us... So, after 06, we had similar feelings to post-04. We just wanted to play incredible music and march impossible drill. Thus, the 07 show was born. The narration in 07 changed through the camps, spring training, and into the season. Being a member on the field, we were so much more concerned with playing in time, having incredible feet (hello, watch the company front on an angle at 212bpm in the closer!), and hitting dots that the narration that was going on was the last thing we were thinking about. Yes, we had moments in rehearsal where comments from the box would be directed at the narration (speed of speech, volume, inflection, etc), but we were still a drum corps and got rehearsed as such. Having marched many years, I can say that the 2007 corps was one of the most intense and hard working corps I have the priveledge of marching with. The brass line in particular was one of the greats that Cadets have had (2001 anybody??). 2007 will always hold a very special place in my heart. I wouldn't go back and change a thing about that summer.

Darn, so I'm 2 years shy of being a member? But I was soooooo close! :-p

I'm with you 100% Sam, and I truly believe the majority of alumni would agree too. Michael Terry Cadets Baritone 2000-2007

I know a guard girl that marched 05-06 Cadets and 07-10 BD, so she has 4 rings and is probably one of 2 people that were apart of different 99+ scoring corps!

We beat BD in brass at their home show that year :) Concord, CA 7/7/01 Cadets 17.5 BD 17.3 SCV 17.0 BK 15.5

Do you remember in 2006 midseason when we had an AWFUL show (the entire drum break was one huge ensemble tear...even the snareline wasn't on the same beat of each measure) and not only did we still beat Phantom by a pretty decent margin, but we also creamed them in drums? I remember being so confused about how that could happen.

They were carted from warm-ups to the gate too! Ah, the memories haha. And yeah, 06 was a fun year in horn arc hahahaha. I didn't know what was going on half the time.

I remember a few from my career: 2001 - We had a baritone player for spring training and the first few weeks of tour that kept complaining that his feet hurt, but he never sat out. EVER. Finally, the staff made him go to the hospital for x-rays and he came back with casts on both legs. Come to find out, he had multiple stress fractures in both of his feet / ankles. 2005 - About 1 1/2 weeks before finals we had a baritone player step in a pot-hole and break something in her ankle/foot (can't remember what she broke). She sat out for most rehearsals from then on out, but toughed out the shows. We also had another girl (trumpet player) that marched the majority of the season with a broken hip. Both of them had to sit out the victory run because their bodies couldn't handle it any more. 2006 - Due to carrying around the benches all summer (and 6 previous summers of playing baritone) I had some major back issues (believed to be a pinched nerve). I spent the majority of the summer on some pretty powerful pain medicine and muscle relaxers and saw a chiropractor a few times during the summer.

Ah yes, those were the good days! Or in 2003 when we were housed with Cavies and instead of lunch afer the marching block we had donuts and cookies for a 10 minute break. And that was when Cavies were just getting up!

From what I can remember with Cadets: Spring Training days: 7:00 - Breakfast 8:00 - Day meeting 8:15 - Stretch and Run 9:00 - Marching 1:00 - Lunch 2:00 - Sectionals 6:00 - Snack break 6:30 - Ensemble 9:00 - Dinner 10:00 - Hop meeting 11:30 - Free time (dot book work) 1:00 - Lights out Rehearsal Day during the summer: 8:00 - Breakfast 9:00 - Day meeting 9:05 - Stretch and Run 9:30 - Marching Part 1 1:00 - Lunch 1:45 - Marching Part 2 4:30 - "Lunch" 5:15 - Sectionals 8:30 - Snack 9:00 - Ensemble 11:00 - Dinner 12:30 - Lights out Show Day: 7:00 - Breakfast 8:00 - Day meeting 8:05 - Stretch and Run 8:30 - Marching 11:30 - Lunch 12:15 - Sectionals 3:00 - Set-up 3:15 - Ensemble 5:00 - Dinner 6:30 - To show 7:00 - Warm-ups 9:00 - Perform 10:00 - Snack 11:00 - Depart These are VERY generalized and not always true. Like an earlier poster said, a lot of it depends on where you are that day, when you got in the night before, when you perform, etc.

Cadets 05 tempos: (someone correct me if my memory is wrong on these) Kill Bill - 198 (the brass in the back), 132, 176 Liquid - 196 Dancer - 76 Machine - 220 Mirrors - 178, 200 I think Cadets 07 should get some sort of recognition for our sustained fast tempos: Symphonic Movement - 172 Blue Shades - 178 Adiemus - 212

Wow...this is awesome! But, the burning of the Cadets dotbook may not be as important a ritual as you think. Our marching staff burned the bad dotbooks in front of the whole hornline a couple times when I marched. In 2003, they threw all but 2 of the hornline's dotbooks (that's 62 dotbooks) away midseason and made us start over because they didn't think the dotbooks were good enough.

Hey now, Nick, that's how it used to be! Things got a lot better by the time you were in the corps. But, I don't remember getting much help beyond Megh Healy in 2000 and 2001! And Tekk, I hope you know i was only kidding :)