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Why should you complete your Branch Insignia?

The Branch Insignia program allows a New Cadet to become familiar with Culver. When you complete your Branch Insignia, (earn your branch) you are no longer a beginner, you are a full member of the Corps of Cadets, and you have an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to lead and direct others. As a branch holder, you perform duties that are complex, necessary to the function of the Band Company and that offer a little additional challenge. Instead of sweeping floors, making announcements, and so forth, you help organize and direct others to do so, supervise them, and report on their work. Completing your Branch Insignia makes you a full member of the Corps of Cadets, and specifically, a full member of the Band Company. Please remember that as a Bandsman, you are the first on the field and the last off the field. And as a New Cadet in the Band, we expect more of you than we do of other mere mortals! A word to the wise: if you do not earn your branch by the end of your first year, you will be moved to another unit. We do not have “black stripers” in the Band.

Culver Band, circa 1909

BAND IS BEST!!

In the Band Company, you may begin work and pass any of the three Specialty Tests at any time. You do not need to wait to complete the Seven Basic Tests. Specialty tests vary from unit to unit, depending on their need for training, and the traditions of each unit. Some tests are easier and some are more challenging, but all of them are needed to earn your C.M.'s. These tests contain information used on a daily basis in rehearsal and as a member of the Band Company. The three tests are: 

• Music Theory and Conducting
• Culver Band History
• Musical Proficiency

Two of these three areas are basic to the entire music world. They are fairly simple for most people. If you don’t read music well, the two musical specialty tests will give you a "crash course" in the basics of reading written musical notation, and a new world will open to you. This booklet will address the three specialty tests for Bandsmen new to Culver.

The Music and Art Building, September,  2000

What’s the bottom line?

The bottom line is this: you will get out of the New Cadet System what you put into it, and the same is true for what you do not put in to it. There are many so-called reasons not to do something- laziness, fear of failure, a cool self-image, peer pressure to be apathetic or acceptance by certain attractive peer groups. Most of these reasons are no more than negative and counter-productive excuses where conspicuous self-centeredness drives an individual to “not do” something.

Getting Started

Music is a language. It has signs and symbols that tell you to do or say something in a particular manner. We use the same skills reading music that you use for reading any other language. The symbols are different and have different meanings from, say, English or Spanish, but in all written languages, the idea is the same. This will help you to do two things:

• Learn to read music if you cannot.
• Become familiar with the musical signs and symbols you will use as a Culver musician. 

If you have trouble getting started, there is a book and tape set that will help you with the basics. See the Band Director for the book and tape set as soon as possible.

Thanks

For their help in preparing this text, special thanks is given to Mr. Dave and Mrs. Mary Weirich and C/Sgt Jeff Kuhns and C/Sgt Steve Golden for helping to proofread this manual; to Mr. John Clendenin for his knowledge and support; to Mr. Matt White, Mr. Dave Scott and Ms. Debra Singleton of the technology department for their technological assistance (especially the graphic Ledbetter in Eppley Fountain); to Mr. Bob Hartman for his help with his unique historical perspective and program notes from the 1992 CD booklet.