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Marching Timpani.


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I’ve been watching old Drum Corps shows and I am disappointed that the marching timpani is no longer around. Thoughts?

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Ask those who lugged those things around season after season how they feel. I sure wouldn't have wanted to do it. 

There was a certain charm of having one per drum from a coordination and musical standpoint and they did make your drum line bigger, but geesh, I always felt for those guys. 

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5 hours ago, OldSnareDrummer said:

Ask those who lugged those things around season after season how they feel. I sure wouldn't have wanted to do it. 

There was a certain charm of having one per drum from a coordination and musical standpoint and they did make your drum line bigger, but geesh, I always felt for those guys. 

True. They just look sick

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  • 3 weeks later...

They looked incredible and sounded great when in tune. The problem was the tympani could be tuned by ear relative to each other, but it was often impossible to hear well-enough to tune to the horn line, especially when giant cymbals were stationed in between. The early move to "ground" tympani was beneficial to sound as well as bodies. I would never change the past, but I do have a fused disc and one leg 1/2 inch shorter than the other. The radiologist says it occurred "right around the age of 15", which was my first year carrying that instrument. We did always have a front row seat during concert, and got to hear a very ###### drum corps closer than anyone (inside the arc as FD would say), and see and hear the crowd sitting within feet of us. Marching tympani were a huge step in the evolution of drum corps, but tympani belong in the pit, being played by a single musician.

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