Non-Drummers View

[JKT90]

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

Love how the tenors are tuned...talk about some range.

[Peel Paint]

I'm not in a good position as a brass guy to understand the technical aspects or demand of percussion playing, but I did learn to get a good sense of how clean the line is by closing my eyes and asking myself: Does this drumline blend perfectly to sound like one drummer?

[OrlandoContraAlum]

I will take a swipe at this as a non-percussionist...

In some ways, it's like porn... you know it when you see (hear) it! :)

Seriously, wayyy back in high school we would do singing runthroughs and everyone would sing the drum breaks and fills. If it's cool, you kinda learn to sing it.

There have been some really good suggestions already made. I would add/amplify the following:

• Does the percussion book (not just the battery, but the Front Ensemble as well) add to the music, or does it feel "tacked on", perhaps playing notes for the sake of notes?
• I enjoy a good funky beat, syncopation with the hornline, stuff like that
• Clean, crisp bass drum runs and upper bass rolls. To me, this is the easiest thing to look for. Does the bass drum line sound like one dude on a huge set, or does it sound like sneakers in a dryer? Are unison hits truly unison?
• Clean snare rolls will always impress me more than a ton of ratamacue-flamadiddles-gockSPOCk stuff. That may just be me though...

As far as some examples of really tasty drum stuff:

All of Cadets 1987. I can't think of a more musically ingrained book than that one. I was walking back to the showers after rehearsal one day in August 87 and got the treat of watching the Cadets drumline doing a full marching runthrough. I could tell exactly what the music was for each section because the battery book was that well written. Specifically check out these time-stamps (if you have Fan Network):

• 3:12 - 3:23 - good stuff with a great unison hit at the end
• 4:30-4:50 - good example of nice front to back writing with quieter, nuanced stuff
• 7:38-7:50 - some incredible bass drum runs here
• 9:58 - The roll from the snares at the midpoint of the musical phrase is awesome

Other great Cadets examples include all of their drum features from the early 00s (specifically 2000 and 2002), and the drumline work in Malaguena in 2003. Check out the transition into Dancer in the Dark in 2005 (5:20). They didn't due the normal gig of the drumline being tacet during the ballad, and instead, starting at about 6:47 they start jamming, in contrast to the ballad stuff in the horns. One of my favorite percussion moments ever. Finally, listed to the open rolls during their show last year, it's the at the really loud climax of the show, and Jeff Prosperie went nuts for them at Finals.

Other examples: 2003 BD and SCV - Different styles, but really, really tasty material. 2004 BD probably were the best usage of amps in the first year, by using a bunch of instrumentation for effect that could not have been done before.

There have been a lot of other really, really good lines, but this is already TL;DR. Hope it helps somewhat though.

[wackywords]

Seems to be a general consensus that Rennick has since really good lines and I agrees. One of my favorites was actually 2001 crown. He had those guys playing some pretty clean notes. The corps was 12th that year but I wouldn't be surprised if the line was in the top 6 that year

[cowtown]

Going a step further: drummers, what might you suggest non-drummers look/listen for when attempting to appreciate drumlines?

The pretty pictures on the bass drum heads

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.

so very true, dancing pits gives me this keytar from the former soviet bloc dinner show vibe

[2muchcoffeeman]

The view of a former DCI battery drummer who is not a musician or educator:

There's a reason why it's called Drum & Bugle Corps. In most other musical settings, percussion is not featured as prominently. So, in DCI there is a healthy dose of drums for drums' sake. And that's why drum corps is beautiful.

In my view, good drum-corps percussion is, in a musical way, "visible" and "invisible" at the same time. It's invisible in the way it provides the skeleton on which to hang the melodic elements of the music, which is to say the brass, mostly. When percussion is written well and performed as intended, much of it goes unnoticed, yet if it were missing, the whole musical production would feel flat, lifeless. There are those who say they pay little attention to percussion and that it is secondary to the brass, but what they're really saying is that they rely upon the percussion to do its job and when it's done well, it makes the whole musical production work.

Good percussion is "visible" in a sense that is more internal to the drum line itself. The writing, the licks, the demand, the exhibition of drum rudiments played with clarity at the ensemble level -- these are the elements that exhibit mastery of the instrument. As a player, this is the mojo that draws drummers to auditions and sets them to drooling when they watch high-caliber drum lines play. There is a feeling a player gets when the entire line is snapping off 32nd-note rolls with crystal clarity and musicality. You can feel the pulse of each individual stroke, and because there are 8 or 9 or 10 drums of the same type being played, it is an actual physical sensation -- you can feel the air being moved in those quick, precise waves. I imagine that, to a drummer, it's the same sensation felt by a horn player when the entire line is executing a note in exactly the same way. The sound just explodes in your head in a way that it can't when a single person is playing. All the sound waves line up, with a power (amplitude?) that a solo player can't match. That's the elusive drug that hooks a drummer. They keeping seeking that sensation of power matched with clarity. There's nothing like it.

[BRASSO]

Is it me, or do the snare drums in Crown sound a little muddled and clackish to the non percussionists here among us ? I'm not referring to the wack-a- mole drum playing show segment on the car mufflers, but the snare sound in general. Is it the way they play, or is it the drums temselves, or perhaps the tuning. It just sounds different than the others to me.

[OrlandoContraAlum]

The view of a former DCI battery drummer who is not a musician or educator:

There's a reason why it's called Drum & Bugle Corps. In most other musical settings, percussion is not featured as prominently. So, in DCI there is a healthy dose of drums for drums' sake. And that's why drum corps is beautiful.

In my view, good drum-corps percussion is, in a musical way, "visible" and "invisible" at the same time. It's invisible in the way it provides the skeleton on which to hang the melodic elements of the music, which is to say the brass, mostly. When percussion is written well and performed as intended, much of it goes unnoticed, yet if it were missing, the whole musical production would feel flat, lifeless. There are those who say they pay little attention to percussion and that it is secondary to the brass, but what they're really saying is that they rely upon the percussion to do its job and when it's done well, it makes the whole musical production work.

Good percussion is "visible" in a sense that is more internal to the drum line itself. The writing, the licks, the demand, the exhibition of drum rudiments played with clarity at the ensemble level -- these are the elements that exhibit mastery of the instrument. As a player, this is the mojo that draws drummers to auditions and sets them to drooling when they watch high-caliber drum lines play. There is a feeling a player gets when the entire line is snapping off 32nd-note rolls with crystal clarity and musicality. You can feel the pulse of each individual stroke, and because there are 8 or 9 or 10 drums of the same type being played, it is an actual physical sensation -- you can feel the air being moved in those quick, precise waves. I imagine that, to a drummer, it's the same sensation felt by a horn player when the entire line is executing a note in exactly the same way. The sound just explodes in your head in a way that it can't when a single person is playing. All the sound waves line up, with a power (amplitude?) that a solo player can't match. That's the elusive drug that hooks a drummer. They keeping seeking that sensation of power matched with clarity. There's nothing like it.

This... is perfect. Even as a horn guy, this makes total sense. And, if drummers are making sense, well.... :)

[Cappybara]

Is it me, or do the snare drums in Crown sound a little muddled and clackish to the non percussionists here among us ? I'm not referring to the wack-a- mole drum playing show segment on the car mufflers, but the snare sound in general. Is it the way they play, or is it the drums temselves, or perhaps the tuning. It just sounds different than the others to me.

I like the snare sound of Crown. Personal preference. Considering the way Crown's been scoring, I probably have a pretty bad taste in drumlines.

[2000Cadet]

I will never claim to be a percussionist but I have been around them long enough to know what sounds clean and what sounds dirty. I love listening for stuff like that as well as their technique, notes, stuff like that.