Cavaliers - 6 basses

[Spandy]

Not DCI, but at WGI 09, Infinity Percussion started their show with their whole line on basses. That's 24 bass drums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uSoVQy3cb8

Edited May 4, 2012 by Spandy

[GeneralTsoChicken]

What poor design on such a cool concept.

[boxingfred]

Not DCI, but at WGI 09, Infinity Percussion started their show with their whole line on basses. That's 24 bass drums.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=-uSoVQy3cb8

I wish they would have used them ( the basses ) more. I wanted to hear some serious bass runs.

[actucker]

I wish they would have used them ( the basses ) more. I wanted to hear some serious bass runs.

With as many drums as they had in there, there was no way they were going to achieve any kind of clarity for complex split parts. There's no room in the natural range of tuning to get enough intervalic separation. That's why you don't often see more than 6 bass drums any more. As the parts evolved, so did the approach to fielding a line.

I know you may or may not have been at all serious in your post. Just thought I'd make my feeble attempt to contribute to the conversation.

[DBYoung]

and '82. To top it all off, they marched 6 in '84, but with only five guys in the line.

One word - "Beano!!!"

Beat me to it, but here is the vidoe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHVQGct5vCg

[HornsUp]

The Racine Scouts, several seasons ago, did a feature called "Indian War Drums" written by their CD Paul Chaffee. It used 16 bass drums, virtually everything they could scrape up. This meant about half the people they had on the field played a bass drum, and had to cart them around all summer in addition to their regular horn or drum.

Which reminds me - - - Two weeks ago, there was a Tundra cartoon in my Sunday paper. There was a field full of cows wearing bass drums. The explanation was that the farmer had run out of cowbells.

[mckdan]

I seem to remember that a corps in the late 70's and early 80's, The Offensive Lions, from Canada marched 8 basses.

[bluecoats88]

I know this is senior corps but the bushwackers had their top 3 basses carrying triple stacked drums and their bottom 2 with double stacks during the drum solo. During the bass solo from what I understand the parts were written so they split not only down each line but also down each drummer's individual 3 drums.

[Jeff Ream]

Crossmen used 6 basses many years, and I know in Westshore I marched in many 6 bass lines.

the reason can be visual, it could be musical. having that 6th tone out there can create some cool writing. I'm sureif Cavies are doing it, they have their reasons and it'll work out well

[Jeff Ream]

I know this is senior corps but the bushwackers had their top 3 basses carrying triple stacked drums and their bottom 2 with double stacks during the drum solo. During the bass solo from what I understand the parts were written so they split not only down each line but also down each drummer's individual 3 drums.

92 and 93. not sure if video is out there, but man...93 finals....holy hell. pure quality