lessons in perfection
i must admit that after the rather frustrating 1999 season i had not intended on returning to the Cadets. i had the membership form for another corps filled out, already in an envelope, merely waiting for a stamp. then i got the email.
there was a message from george hopkins in my inbox entitled 'Changes for 2000 and some additional information'. i opened the message, and read it carefully, as usual. george told us that nearly then entire brass staff had now been replaced by gino cipriani- a man who was on the blue devils staff from 1990-1999. my jaw hit the ground. i didn't quite know what to think. the blue devils? its a totally different world out there...
after some conversations and some thought, i decided to wear the maroon and gold for a third season. this was the best decision i ever made.i remember showing up at the first camp a little nervous, and a little excited about what [who] was to come. hopkins sat us down, and played the disney millennium music through the speakers. it sounded like a fairly standard Cadets show, until the last park which was almost pop music. hop explained that we were going to try some small group/solo performances, and 'let you perform.' it was time for rehearsal to begin. we set up the horn arch as usual, and stood at parade rest, like all of us knew how from years past. the first thing gino said to us was 'this will be the best brass section on the night of finals. we will work the hardest, sound the best, and be the smartest.'
i got all goosebumpy inside. all i wanted to do was to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of the1980 spirit of atlanta, the 1986 blue devils, the 1986 suncoast sound, the 1993 blue devils, and all the other great hornlines. this seemed like the opportunity.
gino asked us a question, and we all shouted the answer, just like we had been trained to do: "YES!". gino was more than just a little shocked. at one point he told us to relax. we said 'we are relaxed.' ['relax' to us ment a less formal form of attention] he said 'put your horns on the ground, and sit down.' last year we would have been shot for even thinking such a thing. after an hour of rehearsal gino commented that 'this is the hardest he had ever worked.'
are you kidding me? all we did in 1999 was work and work and run back to our sets and do everything to get better. this man was telling us that our simple rehearsal on this night was more than the blue devils had ever done in the past fifteen years. after our little break, we pulled out 'cadillac of the skies', a ballad type piece which we play at concerts, etc. gino conducted, and as we got to the big hit, he gave us this look and started jumping up and down like he was on uppers or something. i don't really know how to explain it, but this look makes you want to be a better human being, and therefore play four times louder. i was playing louder than i ever had in 1998 or 1999. we got to the end...
'is that all you got?'
are you kidding me?
'let me hear that hit again at your highest dynamic level.'
[we played it]
'you must not have heard me: your HIGHEST dynamic level. melt me.'
i thought i had reached it already.
ONE TWO READY KILL!!
[we played it again, 4 times as loud- apperently we hadn't reached it]
'that was a good mezzoforte...don't worry we will get there.'
i didn't know it was possible to play that loud.as the weekend continued, we learned 'chaos' and got used to gino. this hornline was going to be unreal. we went home with a great feeling.
[incidentally, the 1999 banquet was this weekend, and none of our 1999 brass staff showed up. they were, of course, all invited, but elected not to come.]