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Percussion usually does nothing for me - I've tried many times to get into WGI percussion but it always bores me. That being said, I've LOVED the sound of SCV's percussion these past few years. I think they have a unique timbre to their sound. Are they the only ones in DCI playing Dynasty drums?

Going a step further: drummers, what might you suggest non-drummers look/listen for when attempting to appreciate drumlines? Aside from metric accelerandos/decelerandos, I have no idea what's considered impressive.

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Hmm that's hard to pinpoint. I guess the drum book will either support the rest of the musical book or it won't. Maybe ask yourself, how would that hornline impact be affected if the drums weren't playing, or how would that trumpet lick be affected without the accompanying snare parts. For me, as a drummer, I find most hornlines to be quite impressive and enjoyable even though I'm not paying attention to the technicality of the parts.

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Cleanliness (relatively easy to discern), ensemble-style writing (where rhythmic patterns move from instrument to instrument,and phrases are made up of contributions of all the battery and pit instruments), and expression; is there musicality in the way that phrases are shaped?

Visuals are fun, but only a few lines really make an art of them (Cavaliers and Vanguard among them).

Plie's and other dance moves, not worth paying attention to at all. Those are for the guard judges who get assigned to Visual captions.

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What Slingerland said. I'd add in musicality, dynamics, it's much harder to play low and soft and be crisp, any DCI line can stand there and ram some notes, but not all have the musical aspect I like to hear...this year to me, SCV exemplifies musicality. They have a ton of notes, and play very dynamic with a clear quality of sound...plus they don't dance around, and I dig that.

Another example, find a YT clip of Star in '93.

Edited by JKT90
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As a non percussionist, I view percussion as "second" to the Brass (sorry if I'm offending any percussionists). Percussion is background noise to me that accompanies the brass and adds color, timbre, and texture to the music.

When it comes to drum breaks, I adore stuff like BD 2012, Cadets 2013, or Bloo 2014 (if any drummers can tell me if there's a certain unifying thing in all those drum features I listed, that'd be awesome) but otherwise, I just look for a percussion section that comes out a lot in the big hits, has rhythmic variety, and plays with boldness.

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No one mentioned swagger. I appreciate everything that is suggested above but I also love a drumline that isn't just acting like they think they're nailing it (like many do) but one that truly KNOWS the hammer is hitting the nails dead on and the swagger is genuine.

THAT gets my attention.

Now I need to watch SCV's drumline more closely...

Edited by luv4corps
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Percussion usually does nothing for me - I've tried many times to get into WGI percussion but it always bores me. That being said, I've LOVED the sound of SCV's percussion these past few years. I think they have a unique timbre to their sound. Are they the only ones in DCI playing Dynasty drums?

They have one of the few caption heads who knows how to tune effectively. SCV plays with incredible musicality and uniformity, better than most if not all, but it's their approach to tuning that makes the instruments SING.

Edited by hughesmr
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They have one of the few caption heads who knows how to tune effectively. SCV plays with incredible musicality and uniformity, better all most if not all, but it's their approach to tuning that makes the instruments SING.

Agree. Rennick's lines sound better in that regard than any line I've ever heard.

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I am not a drummer but can do "drumspeak" pretty well which comes in handy during rehearsals. BITD I created a cassette tape of "just" the drum solos I pulled from my DCI LPs from 78-84, and used it to get in the zone before a show; at the top of the heap was North Star 79-81. I still have the tape and listen to it every so often.

I pay attention to tuning...for example, I love SCV's, and utterly dislike Pacific Crest's this year (too low!). I also pay attention to musicality; for any millennium drummers I recommend you listen to '84 SCV's drum solo "Musica Bohemia" (it is on YT under "Ol' Skool 6") which pretty much set everyone on their ear because they didn't ram notes. There is a video posted of SCV at San Antonio from last weekend, and the dome acoustics really bring out the drum book.

When I worked visual with Impulse I often had the drumline play their book so the hornline could hear all the nuances that were happening, and had the mm's cue off of certain gahks or runs. At one point I had them listen back for when the tenors had an incredible hi-to-low lick that set up the last few counts of production; this helped illustrate how the two units (brass & drums) had to work together.

Visuals: I love a good snare ripple like North Star used to do back in the day. I am not a huge fan of high sticking but that is the direction technique has gone.

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