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Why not get rid of the Drum Line?


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In the band world...yes, absolutely.

I did the reverse myself with my band...we had six percussionists total a few years back when we were rebuilding. I had them start in the pit, filter on to the field during the opener through a drum solo, move back to the pit for the ballad, and then filter back to the battery for the finale of the show. It seems like a lot but it worked well for us when we were real tiny...19 winds and six percussion and six guard total.

Mike

my senior year of highschool we only had 3 drummers(one drummer went to bass guitar and another decided he had enough of the drums and joined me on mellophone. so what would have been 5 drums became 3) and we pited the line. our lead bass drum got 4 basses racked infront of him. our snare had 1 of our newer snares 1 old style snare 1 smaller snare and a coupple of cymbols, and our tennor player had his tenor set, a a bunch of other drums that were in sets of 2 or more. i think we had something like 20 drums played by 3 people. on top of 2 guitar players(i wasn't a big fan of that), and 3 people in the pit. we were a really small band. but it was awsome. we won high drums a coupple of times. and to lines that had 8, 9, or 10 drumers. it works i don't know how great it would be to see a div 1 do that but it could work for a song or two.

but some one else said something about there being more outlets to brass than drummers.

yea to a point i can agree with you. but i know far more drummers than i do brass players. and i would think that there are just as many sources for drummers. i know more drummers than i do horn players. every band had a drummer. but not many bands take brass players unless it is a jazz band or a ska band.

as matty shiner told me once drummers are a dime a dozen but a good one is hard to find(well he said trumpet players are a dime a dozen but a musician is hard to find. he wasn't happy with my playing that. i was a in 7th grade and i hated my trumpet and i hated music. who would have thought i would have stuck with music and gone into a marching band 2 years after that and 3 years after gone into drum corps nd stuck with corps for 6 years now.)

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How come no one has thought of just getting rid of the Drum Line.

It's called "Brass Band."

Bb and Eb cornets, a flugelhorn, Eb altohorns (tenorhorns), baritones and euphoniums, trombones, and usually two Bb tubas and two Eb tubas. And just the proper percussion.

See the movie "Brassed-Off!" with Ewen McGregor.

A British concoction with tremendous tradition. Very strict and traditional in adjudication and "contest" pieces commissioned which each band plays (BORING!). The US Open Brass Band Championships (run by a well-know DCI adjudicator) opened a can of worms in the activity by adjudicating bands on both perfection AND entertainment value (like corps) and let them lay whatever they wanted. NOW we suddenly have brass bands cleaning their chairs and music stands away for on-stage movement and effects. A little BLAST! influence.

http://www.usopenbrass.org/

Groups like Prairie Brass Band and Illinois Brass Band -- lots of corps alumni in those ranks. Half those horns are "bell up" but they still peal the paint like a mini-corps.

Edited by dannyboy
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my senior year of highschool we only had 3 drummers(one drummer went to bass guitar and another decided he had enough of the drums and joined me on mellophone. so what would have been 5 drums became 3) and we pited the line. our lead bass drum got 4 basses racked infront of him. our snare had 1 of our newer snares 1 old style snare 1 smaller snare and a coupple of cymbols, and our tennor player had his tenor set, a a bunch of other drums that were in sets of 2 or more. i think we had something like 20 drums played by 3 people. on top of 2 guitar players(i wasn't a big fan of that), and 3 people in the pit. we were a really small band. but it was awsome. we won high drums a coupple of times. and to lines that had 8, 9, or 10 drumers. it works i don't know how great it would be to see a div 1 do that but it could work for a song or two.

One difference with my band...when our 6 players were in the pit...they played pure pit instrumentation, not battery parts that happened to be located in the pit (I wrote the book, so I know!). We may have won best percussion once or twice, I forget...that award is never important to us...we design our shows to maximize the overall band presentation, not one section.

Mike

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It's called "Brass Band."

Thank you. I was going to say this. Or, if one went with standard American instrumentatio, it could be called brass choir.

A British concoction with tremendous tradition. Very strict and traditional in adjudication and "contest" pieces commissioned which each band plays (BORING!). The US Open Brass Band Championships (run by a well-know DCI adjudicator) opened a can of worms in the activity by adjudicating bands on both perfection AND entertainment value (like corps) and let them lay whatever they wanted. NOW we suddenly have brass bands cleaning their chairs and music stands away for on-stage movement and effects. A little BLAST! influence.

http://www.usopenbrass.org/

Groups like Prairie Brass Band and Illinois Brass Band -- lots of corps alumni in those ranks. Half those horns are "bell up" but they still peal the paint like a mini-corps.

THanks for this info. It's new to me. Who says the left coust is always ahead of the times?:P

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So.........they ONLY play "Pretty Hot And THIN notes? I thought drumlines are ALWAYS looking for "meaty" parts...........no???

b**bs

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This is my first post, and I have lurked in these forums for years.

Please read this.

http://www.geocities.com/marchingresearch/mazsym97.txt

Perhaps this will give you some historical perspective as to why this proposition is the ultimate "tail wagging the dog".

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Phantom Regiment did Orchestral Songs in 1996 with some great percussion features and drum charts.

I don't mind them in mahler.

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