Check the corps website at http://dreadnoughtsdbc.googlepages.com for the information currently available. We'll be updating the site as we get more time, and will be making a show announcement shortly.

Fresh off the press (and on the corps website):

XX: A 20th Century Celebration
"XX" pronounciation in IPA: [wi.'gIn.ti]
"XX" pronunciation phonetically: wee-gin-tee (hard G)

The 2008 Dreadnoughts are proud to announce our 2008 program. "XX" is the Roman numeral representation of the Latin word viginti, meaning "twenty." The program will feature four selections of music from 20th Century musicians running the gamut from classical to popular, orchestra to piano, light-hearted to intense.

The show will open with "The Adventures of Mutt Williams" from the John Williams score to this summer's hit movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The fast-paced theme will propel the program into a light-hearted but action-packed beginning that is certain to have fans on their feet by the last chord.

From there, the corps will move into Karl jenkins' "Cantus Inæqualis" from the first Adiemus album. The irregular, 5/8-based themes in this song will appeal to the music students in the audience while the calm, soothing melodies and lush sounds of the hornline will calm even the staunchest of "dinosaurs."

Following the mellowed mood of the Jenkins piece, the corps will go take a step into the jazz world with a Harry Connick, Jr.-inspired take on the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound Of Music. This song will also allow the percussion to trade off taking the spotlight after the brass highlights from the second tune.

Closing out the program will be our rendition of the Charles Griffes "Scherzo" from his Fantasy Pieces for piano. The catchy tune will allow the audience to easily fall in love with this oft-overlooked classical piece while showing off the corps' footwork before bring things to a close on a powerful note (some pun intended).

We certainly hope to see you over the summer, and we offer our best wishes to every corps competing this season.

The Dreadnoughts are also proud to announce the new corps logo (viewable on the site's main page). Here it is in case you don't wish to check with the website.

***Update***

I'm currently sitting in the bleachers of the stadium here at Marianna High watching the brassline in their visual block (I just came from watching the percussion's Vis block over on one of the practice fields across the street, on-campus). The corps has the entire show learned visually at this point, and the goal is to have the opener and ballad (The Indy piece and the Jenkins piece) completely on the field by tonight's ensemble. If we manage to get that done quickly, we'll start fielding the third piece (which includes the percussion feature) before the day finishes.

Musically, the corps is doing wonderfully. We've done some combined standstill run-throughs the past couple of days during the last hour of Music block, and the show is definitely going to be a huge crowd pleaser. I really think the audience will be just as wowed by the notes in the percussion book on the third piece (the jazzy Do-Re-Mi) as they will be with the ridiculous amount of runs (and hopefully cleanliness of the same come tour) in the brass during the Indy opener. Once we get some more kinks worked out, we may post some audio from the show as a sort of preview if we get the chance during one of those combined Music blocks. However, to do this, we need your input, folks. Leave a post telling me which song you'd like a clip of. Come Finals week, I'm sure we'll have the entire show up for you, but for now, just let us know which song you're dying to hear.

Signing off for now, folks!

(But seriously . . . I'm bored and don't have much to do over the summer. Let me know which you want to hear of the four--if any--and I'll throw together an arrangement over the next week or so).

I'm dying to hear the Indiana Jones piece and the percussion feature!

What a fine logo! Good luck to the Dreadnoughts this season!

So, the entire show is now on the field and fairly polished. We're glad to have the extra time to finish up our preparations and tweak a little before opening night in a few days. The kids are all excited to be nearing the end of everydays as well. Tonight's chicken patty night; everyone's pretty ecstatic. Chicken and rice gets old quickly.

Anyways, I got suddenly busy with the work at Memphis and make-up lessons back here at school, so I didn't actually get time to work on those arrangements, but I'll probably have them done by the end of the summer :p

Wow, you actually run it like you expect to do well.

I think the Scandals start all days tomorrow.

Oh, we know we'll do well. And we don't have to resort to shady tactics

It's almost here. We've just started lunch, and since it's a big day and a loooong drive, we'll be heading out to the field for a miniature performance for all the Marianna folks who have made our stay here possible and enjoyable. The short performance will take about an hour and a half as the MHS band performs some selections before and after the corps, and the staff will break down the makings of a drum corps show for the audience.

Following the final, uniformed run-through for the crowd, the kids will have the remaining 1½ - 2 hours to pack up, get their uniforms loaded onto the truck, make sure their instruments/equipment are ready to go, and finish the last check of our everydays facilities. It's then off for tomorrow's first FDC show! The kids will be given the chance to sleep 'til around noon to make sure they're well-rested, followed by a short ensemble block and the trip to the stadium. Once the debut performance is over, we'll begin a normal tour schedule.

We hope to see everyone out there having great shows. Bring your A game; the Dreadnoughts certainly will

After much silence the past few weeks, we're proud to say that our additions to the visual program are coming around and showing some results. The Dreadnoughts are currently ranked 1st in Division I, and we still have plenty to clean and add as far as the show's concerned. It's going to be a tough competition up through Finals week, but we know the fans love our product, and hope the judges think it's competitive enough.

The Dreadnoughts have stayed on top for the past week or so with very little changing, and we hope we can keep our momentum up through Finals night. We've got a new ending for Finals though that is going to require the redoing of about a minute's worth of music and drill . . . hopefully it won't kill us when we unveil it SAturday night *cough*BD'04*cough*

After a strong showing in the Division I Preliminaries, the Dreadnoughts fell back to second for the remainder of Finals week. However, a Silver Medal for the 2008 season is the highest placement the Dreadnoughts have received since our move up to Division I in our second season. Taking the Div I bronze medal in our inaugural year behind a tie for first (as well as the Div III gold) was amazing, but to have proved that our hard work that year (and in those subsequent) was no fluke is the greatest achievement we could have made. Many thanks to everyone involved with the Dreadnoughts this season, and we hope to continue to provide crowd-pleasing, well-executed shows for many seasons to come.