ZealJ03

I don't think the Cadets should care if they get jumped tomorrow. For some reason Cadet and Bluecoats may be close in score but they're just two different sauces. One is a crowd pleaser the other one is a "sit down and let me tell shove my message in your face for 10 minutes." Silver and bronze are both cool colors.

My argument is that the magnitude of pushing the kids can be amped up more. I'm not saying they're not pushing their kids. They should experiment with going much further. Further than the comfort zone of what you think is possible. You don't have to make it insane. If you run a 5k, run a 7k or a 10k. You don't have to go up to the 20k right away, work up to it in LARGE chunks. The increment has to be uncomfortable.

They are really about taking huge risks and trying to execute those risks to the highest quality possible. That applies to life a lot better than that horrible MBA non profit mumbo jumbo about enrichment. People are already calling it Oprah tarp. That ship has sailed. Oprah Tarp pwns regurgitated Scherezade in the comedy department. As a matter of fact, it could be the most hilarious moment in DCI if the cadets just pulled out one single massive Oprah tarp for their finale.

Make it higher. Try something extreme and forget about BD clean. I have a huge hunch that BD isn't truly exploring what it's capable of. It's not a big deal, you can go back to your current formula if it doesn't work out. I don't know, Play a joke one year and become the Red Devils, or the Blue Angels. If you think BD is already outside the box, take it further. It's the Blue Devils, winning again isn't interesting (same goes for Cadets). You can always do it again.

Yes. If you take risks you will fail more than you succeed. And that's okay. Yes it's difficult. And that too is okay. It's just drum corps placement. The concept of failure isn't that detrimental. You go from 1st place to 6th place, the world doesn't stop. You have next year. The kids are extremely young. Failing in drum corps by losing a few placements in an obscure underground community that most of the world is not familiar with is trivial. You shouldn't teach the kids to fear failure. You should teach the kids to push the notion of what is possible by increasing their difficulty threshold.

I am encouraging the Blue Devils to take a risk in making their shows harder than their current preconceived notions of what is feasible. It's purely for curiosity sake. There are no rule books to taking unknown risks in increasing difficulty. If there was a rule book it wouldn't be difficult. It's like constantly getting As, then getting curious about what other challenges life would present if you pushed yourself and raised your own bar of excellence.

Oh I have no doubt. DCI and every other corps will fold and The Cadets will still be kicking and screaming. George Hopkins is hands down on another planet in terms of being resourceful. That man manipulates heaven and earth to keep that corps running strong. His design staff on the other hand is too old. (Same goes for SCV, BD, and Phantom). They need that young staff, new writers, and designers who are more eager to prove a point. Oprah tarp isn't going to cut it on the innovation theme that they keep shoving down people throats.

I don't think the other corps' caption heads particularly care that BD wins guard. I don't believe they are even attempting to emulate or figure it out.

If it's already difficult, raise the bar 2x or 3x for next year. Difficulty is relative to your own designers comprehension, not necessarily to other drum corps. If they achieve that, make it more difficult. Make it seem that the corps are aiming to clean and execute a show beyond what the staff thinks is possible. It's like, I get it... perfect captions year after year. If you create a show that is that seriously difficult to pull off, you might get 4-6. So what? They've given thousands of members rings already. What's another perfect caption mean anymore. It's starting to look like Constantly Risking Absurdity Part 7.

I really agree with zigzigzag. The Cadets have been that corps that were just different and didn't not give a rats behind about anything in DCI. Both high scoring and low scoring shows had the same amount of bravado. They're showing signs of becoming more concerned about trying to fight for numbers and they are serious losing character and becoming more and more robotic. They used to be more "WHOA" and now they're more "Oh."

The thing that irks me is that Blue Devils seamless perform their program with ease from the get go in the early shows. I think that's an indication that they're really not challenging their kids. Yes they perform well, yes they are amazing, but if the kids are so good I think you should challenge them with consecutive years where the show is hard enough that the beginning of the season is very rough and the end of the season is very refined. There's a sense of reward watching a corps literally struggle through a run through in the beginning of the season and see them conquer a show by finals week. I never get that sense of reward from BD. These 20s comes too easy for them, so my applause seems to be more directed at the designers more than the corps. It's fine, but it has been kind of boring to see a corps that consistently gets 20s. For a niche activity that is dwindling away, this sort of emphasis on what is considered a perfect caption makes it more niche I guess. It almost feels like BD shouldn't compete because the consistency of giving them the best score is so absolute that it is becoming more and more tolerable. Sugar doesn't taste so sweet when you have it everyday. The Cadets need to figure it out. 2007-2009 was some of the most beautiful drill in terms of demand, design, and execution. I didn't think they really cared about whatever was happening with the scores, the audience reaction, or the general perception. 2008's closer just made me chuckle at the fact that whatever watching before me was actually happening. That aura of brashness was a breath of fresh air. They might not have won but the entire DCI community probably acknowledged the kids as being serious Olympians. Cadets please go back to not caring so much. The members are not that weak but I get the feeling that you're starting to shelter them from the judging sheets. Bring back that whiplash drill and crazy hornbook. You guys have been playing it too safe and too cautious and you are dangerously losing your roots of being DCIs biggest risk taker. When you're consistently a high risk taker in terms of excellence, you falter often and succeed less. But that one or two times you get it right, the pay off is totally worth it. The shows have been lifeless and I feel like you're resorting to shoddy methods to just get points rather than truly generating effect. I feel as though Carolina Crown has inherited the Cadets' willingness to take risks with difficulty and not care if you stumble and have a rough year. DCI probably won't last for much longer (I hope I'm wrong) so why not go for the jugular.

This is the flaw of the 2009 Cadets program: It was too technical to perform. The Design team tried to squeeze every possible technically and physically exhausting situations into the program making the marching members overwhelmed to "perform". The program was a clinic in showing you every exposed concept you could throw out there. There were so many instances to mess up or simply get hurt, that a lot of times members played like they were stepping on egg shells. Talking about falling, this season for the Cadets probably had the most instances of members falling or crashing. Even with the preshow material (which was pretty difficult drill), the show was almost always 1-2 seconds shy of passing the penalty time limit. 1) Rumble: The brassline was spread over 90 yards at very high tempos with extremely massive step sizes. Musically, the constantly recurring cold brass entrances made it very easy to tear. Probably 1/4 of the ensemble rehearsals and 1/3 of sectionals time was spend on this 30 second tune. 2) Prologue: Tons of double tonguing and tough articulation statements made it very hard to have the hornline agree not only the drumline but also each other. The ending drill was probably the hardest visual moment in the entire show. 3) A Boy Like That: This was the ensemble nightmare of the entire show. The corps was split up into 2 mini drum corps playing completely different but complementary brass and percussion parts. Transferring and syncing tempo was like directing air traffic with a higher chance of falling apart. Visually, this ballad was by no means any break from the show. The tempo was very fast and was marched 1/2 at double time with some challenging closing drill from a dissolving company front. The color guard had to spin their final ensemble work with no musical tempo. 4) Cool With an entire long sections empty of percussion, the brassline had quite the challenge to maintain tempos while playing mezzo forte hits spreading over 80 yards apart. Tempo was kept with numerous and clever methods of handing off "duts" from one person to the next. The tons of rotating blocks and lines made cool quite the spectacle for rotating drill and matching responsibilities. 5) Quintet/Tonight, Tonight There's one thing about marching curvilinear drill at the cadets... but... there's another about making letters and shapes: there's no forgiveness in being out of the form. 1/2 this tune was played facing the backfield. Unfortunately, there was one evil catch. The drumline would be playing at the back sideline with the hornline behind them. Tempos were kept through listening to the trumpets who had the main melody making it an extremely awkward feeling of keeping time. The ending drill, well... what else was there to say? Endurance training to the max. I'm pretty sure the corps only had 1/4 of the tour shows to be as energetic, "shako-raising", performances. There was just no time to soak up the audience or to really enjoy what was going on musically.

2007 Cadets. Hands Down Most Aggressive/###### Off Statement Ever 1990 Star of Indiana - Lush. Period.

The Cadets closer - - - - - - - - - - - jesus christ

No just fan-flood design in terms of the music selections and arrangements. The show itself isn't anything different than 2005, 2006, 2007. Character-based shows, specifically with the Guard as primary role players and the hornline as secondary ambiance. After watching the bootlegs, Phantom really didn't do anything beyond their concepts and expressions as they did in Faust. It's definitely no Medea or The Zone. Doesn't mean it has to be as out there