Drumline Funny
Pompeo Mixon
Once on tour maybe in Canada or upstate NY, back in the days when drum corps did many parades-sometimes in a single day, we had finished warming up and had a few minutes before line-up. So our line was kind of chilling-it was a hot July day and it was a parade with many units including drum and bugle corps, drum and baton corps and other stuff. I believe that Les Chatelanes de Laval were nearby. Anyhow, this drum and baton corps of young kids (probably 10-12) was near us in the grass.
So we watched as these little kids knocked over their biggest bass drum, which wasn't very big, and then they all started just banging on it with no rhythm or reason. It was a frantic beating of the drum that was almost like a ritual. After about a 2 minute pounding with all sorts of implements they stopped and went about their business. The look on some of the kids faces was frenzied. That was one of the laughs of tour and we often pondered what it was all about....
One of those HSs bands regularly ended their school year with a neat, extended weekend trip to bustling Victoria BC, at the south end of huge Vancouver Island, for the annual Victoria Days celebration, which always included a massive parade.
Warming-up our band's roughly 20-person drumline, standing in a shallow arc, as always attracted spectators: many, of course, from other bands [some 60% of which were local]. One of those local marching band's drummers had clearly never seen 'American style' rudimental drumming and, as we soon started working simple, common 16th note 32nd note roll patterns/grids, his mouth and eyes opened and, in full uniform, he dropped to his knees, centered in front of the arc and...
Once, in Kitchener, a beligerent and drunk guy insisted on trying to cut through the middle of the snare line as we were marching back to the busses from retreat. The snares circled up and as I looked back over my shoulder, all I could see was a sea of blue, sticks flying and Randy Wickstrom jumping up and down smacking this guy on the head.
I got a job at a HS program-it was a bad band program to begin with-but I needed the money as a poor college student doing drum corp corps on the side. My job was to convert this show band drum line into a 'corps style' drum line. The band director was keen to see me do something about their 'legendary' cadence known as "Captain's Cadence." The band director stated that the rest of the band could not march to it and it was simply horrendous.
It began with a few counts of the triple player hacking and banging out a foul series of riffs with much rim clanging. (Since he was the 'captain' it was his duty to start this mess) Then at a certain point, the rest of them began hacking out some terrible stuff-but none of it was a "part"-everyone was sort of improvising. I remember a cowbell. And this was their cadence of which they were quite proud.
They refused to stop playing the Captain's Cadence (at a city band festival, they played the new cadence a few times, but then busted out in Captain's cadence as a 'surprise') and eventually Cato was arrested (not for playing the Captain's Cadence, but that may have added to his sentence) and sent to JC. The next drum captain was an even worse player than Cato. Fortunately, by that time I had found better gigs.
One of the kids at the school I teach in starts playing rimshots when she's tired. I first noticed when we were in a parade last year(she was an 8th grader marching with the high school then) and her part was mostly 16ths and she was just wailing away quarters with both sticks. Subsequently she marched a few minutes without them...
The BD board had one...I think it got linked to on DCP. Unfortunately, the search function on the BD board seems to have gone missing, so I can't find it. And the search engine HERE won't accept words under 4 letters....so searching for TOM Float or SAM Signorelli gets rejected (that needs to be fixed)
I think I didn't mention this one before because I've tried to block it from memory. I had arranged a show for a High School band a few years ago, a big swing show. The closer was 'Big Noise From Winnetka' and had two extended drum solos. Not terribly hard, but loud and fun. The band was huge with almost 350 marchers, about 40 in the drumline.
The Spirit of Gold Drumline consists of musicians from a variety of universities and backgrounds. While the drumline performs with the rest of the Spirit of Gold marching band during the regular football season, other opportunities also present themselves such as playing during the basketball season under the title of Dore Slam and gigs off campus. The drumline stays in form throughout the year by getting together outside the normal rehearsals as well as doing video assignments online. The members of the drumline also get together and have fun outside of rehearsal creating a real family atmosphere. All the work and dedication, as well as bonding, does pay off though, and this represents itself in a commonly used phrase among members of the drumline: "It is fun to be good."
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The Vanderbilt Athletic Bands accept all persons willing to put in the effort to make the band successful. The purpose of the Placement Assessment is to make sure everyone is placed in a role that allows for success without undue stress. The Athletic Bands move quickly, and we understand that our members are students. Every year, we have members who have never marched before and quickly become valuable members.
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