Some questions about drill...

[HornlineDiva]

I have ventured into no-man's land to ask some questions. :P

I want to know how drill was taught when there was only a 50 yard line. There was no Pyware, and I don't even know if drill paper existed. I know now, you can buy drill paper in the dusty corners of music shops.... it's basicly your average pyware drill sheet, only blank. Anyway, I don't even know if you could buy those. How did they write the drill?

How did you know where to go? I assume that you'd have to guide off of what you can see. How did the instructors originally teach you where to stand if you didn't have a coordinate? Did they just kind of shove you into place and say "this is where you are.... between these guys"...? I'm not scoffing - that's what I do when I clean my college band. We use a guide system, which frustrates me every single day. I tip my hat to people that managed to clean old-school symmetrical drill, esp. when there were no yard lines. It's 1,000 times harder than the dot system, because everyone is responsible for everyone else. When did yard lines come about?

I'd also like to know when people started using dot books. Surely that was an invention of drum corps - who started it?

[Jocko the Wonder Llama]

I cant speak as to how the big boys did it, but the way we learned drill was the guide method: "You guide off Mike. Stay at a 2 step interval. And stay even with Kim on the other side." Now things got interresting when we had a whole in the line. "Jose Schwartz" was always the name we gave the ghost in the line. (You have no idea how many times that #@*! got me screwed up in drill.)

Some new things I don't like: Amplification, Bb horns, etc. But I DO like the "Dot Books". I never had an easier time learning drill. Plus, I could actually see what pictures we were making! b**bs Never saw my old corps shows. Didn't have video, and the cave painters were too d@mn slow. :P

Just my 2 cents.

[Jd83]

In my junior corps days, the members never saw the drill books. We did have yard lines other than the 50, learned by rote, and the philosophy was dress the form.

We used dot books in CorpsVets. I must confess that I do like using dot books. We also used dress the form in the dot book system and, IMO, it works.

BTW, although I have no drill software, I do have old drill paper. :P

Edited October 21, 2005 by Jd83

[KeithHall]

One spring our corps hired this guy who ran a championship drill team in the area. He comes in, and to this day I remember, he says, "get in a circle, we're going to do the Trooper sunburst!" No lie! Now I was 12 I think and thought this guy won't last the day and sure enough we came back after lunch and our brass instructor was writing drill and the other guy they told to take a hike.

I never saw dot books until 2001 with Crusaders. Even when I taught Patriots, drill was on paper, not Pyware.

[Bob Brady]

You kind of answered your own question in your post!

Generally, there were always several people who were responsible for making sure they were in the right spot, and thus became the "dress point". Once hash marks and all yard lines were used, everything was based on how many steps from a set point you were supposed to be. Correct interval and "holding the form" were extremely important. Good peripheral vision was a must (as I'm sure it still is)

I can remember sitting around a kitchen table, writing drill on common graph paper, then taking it to a blueprint company to have it enlarged. We usually had several copies for people to reference at rehearsals.

[johnric]

OK so heres a dumb question isn't pyware something you cook with??

and how do they do it now that is so different. When I marched everyone had a copy of the drill. so you could know where you "should be at any point". but you always followed the form dressed to the point person and kept interval. Is that not done today???

[MikeD]

I have ventured into no-man's land to ask some questions. :P

I want to know how drill was taught when there was only a 50 yard line. There was no Pyware, and I don't even know if drill paper existed. I know now, you can buy drill paper in the dusty corners of music shops.... it's basicly your average pyware drill sheet, only blank. Anyway, I don't even know if you could buy those. How did they write the drill?

How did you know where to go? I assume that you'd have to guide off of what you can see. How did the instructors originally teach you where to stand if you didn't have a coordinate? Did they just kind of shove you into place and say "this is where you are.... between these guys"...? I'm not scoffing - that's what I do when I clean my college band. We use a guide system, which frustrates me every single day. I tip my hat to people that managed to clean old-school symmetrical drill, esp. when there were no yard lines. It's 1,000 times harder than the dot system, because everyone is responsible for everyone else. When did yard lines come about?

I'd also like to know when people started using dot books. Surely that was an invention of drum corps - who started it?

We never saw the drill sheets the visual staff had...at least I didn't....I would guess on plain old graph paper. We used the guide method to maintain forms. We tended to keep the same distances throughout the drill, so while it wasn't easy, we were at least not usually dealing with variable intervals. Also, we tended to use a 2-step interval, while the band I work with now uses a 3-step. We were even elbow-to-elbow at times.

One brilliant drill guy with the class 'B' corps I was percussion arranger/instructor for from 76-78 kept the whole darn drill in his head...and it worked! He could tweak the corps this way and that..and it ALWAYS worked. I thought it was amazing.

I used large graph paper myself when I was writing drills for the bands I taught in the 70's. Used to go to this neat store in NYC on 50-something and 3rd Ave that sold all sorts of technical paper. Bought a huge clipboard too.

The visual designer for the band I arrange for and teach today uses Pyware and creates dot books for each student...it's a great tool.

Mike

[JimF-LowBari]

I remember a lot of guiding off of or in between people. A lot of effort was put into making sure the more experienced people ended up being the set points. (My first few years the corps was building and always had a lot of rookies.)

In the 70s DCA corps began starting their show from any point on the field instead of on the back or goal line. As the corps marched out to the field you would see DMs or drill instructors go to the first set points on the drill and stand there until the corps got there. Some would measure this point by counting steps and once in a while you'd see a big ###ed tape measure being used.

Think DCA at Allentown really started the line all the fields rule. The Allentown field was always lined as it was the city HS football field. Having lines really showed how off a corps drill was from side to side.

Almost forgot - drum lines then stayed on the 50 yard line so a lot of set points were based on the drummers (2 steps behind and 4 to the right of the last bass drum, etc). And all Hades broke loose if the drummers changed their position around. :sshh:

Edited October 21, 2005 by JimF-xWSMBari

[MiamiSun76]

We never saw the drill sheets the visual staff had...at least I didn't....I would guess on plain old graph paper. Mike

Would you really want to see what Hoffman and Mahon were writing? I'm sure Bobby's were in color. :P

[felixh]

OK so heres a dumb question isn't pyware something you cook with??

and how do they do it now that is so different. When I marched everyone had a copy of the drill. so you could know where you "should be at any point". but you always followed the form dressed to the point person and kept interval. Is that not done today???

C'mon johnric,....everyone knows pyware is the stuff they cook the graph paper on after they finish the drill to make sure it's ready to go.......geeez you must be old!!! :P