It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything percussion related. It’s not for lack of passion or interest – my focus has been elsewhere of late and I started an indefinite sabbatical from teaching a couple years ago for a few different reasons. But my knowledge, my skills, my desire to learn, and my need to take in and relay information are all still there.
Last night (6-21-2015) was the Moonlight Classic drum corps show in Sacramento, CA. I didn’t watch the field shows and instead decided to roam about the “parking lots” to watch as many drumlines as I could – both battery and pit/front ensembles. I missed the Open Class lines but was able to see several World Class lines: the Mandarins (from Sacramento, and of which I’m an alumnus), the Vanguard (Santa Clara, CA), Phantom Regiment (Rockford, IL), and the Blue Knights (Denver, CO). Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see Pacific Crest (Anaheim, CA) or the Blue Devils (Concord, CA) warm up.
Part of a long, ongoing trend that I’ve noticed in the last, oh, decade or more, is a shift in focus on what and how the drummers are playing. I could go on and on about the various changes I’ve seen take place since I marched, but I think my overall point can be made in a statement I made to a friend after seeing Vanguard play:
“Of all the lines I’ve seen tonight, they have the best understanding of basics.”
Now, I said this without having seen the Blue Devils or Pacific Crest, as I said, but I stand by my statement.
I should note here that by writing this opinion piece, I’m not trying to tell any instructor how to do their job. Everyone will do their job in the manner in which they best see fit. But as a teacher and instructor, I have my own priorities, and part of those priorities is to ensure that my students gain proper skills they’ll retain once they leave my ensemble. That means there should be a great emphasis on basics, because basics show in everything else a person does.
I have seen a decline in starting and ending phrases well, a lack of balance between control and fluidity, and a lack of refined control. And, while “it’s only June,” which is the reason used by many to justify any dirt we hear, I have always found certain things to be unacceptable, even for June.
By June, drumlines should exhibit a good understanding of basics. And while everyone’s basics might vary slightly, there are some common concepts I think most instructors would agree should always be there: similarity of technique and rhythmic execution.
Rhythmic execution relies on proper placement of beats, which relies on control in order to properly place those beats, which relies on fluidity in order to place those beats in a controlled manner at any given tempo with very little effort.
Starting and following through phrases should be better than they are from drumline to drumline, especially with the super prevalent use of “long ranger” metronomes (for the uninitiated, basically a metronome hooked up to a portable loudspeaker). Starting a phrase requires a clean attack. Proper follow through means correct placement of the notes that form the opening rhythms without deviating from the tempo. So, it is disheartening to hear a snareline start a straight 8th note phrase on a single hand, or a series of hand-to-hand 16th notes, fairly decently only to flub it by the fourth note. That indicates a change in stroke, grip, thinking, focus… any number of factors can account for this kind of dirt. But when it happens repeatedly, or, worse yet, consistently, then there is an underlying problem that needs to be addressed.
Then, we get to the end of the phrase, where drummers seeem like they sort of give up. Kind of like a hornline that can’t strongly hold a note until the cutoff. Drummers that don’t properly finish phrases indicates they’re probably not thinking all the way through, lose steam, worried about the next phrase, don’t have the control to place the final notes after playing a series of other notes, etc. Whatever consistency they might possess throughout the phrase gets dismissed towards the finish to create dirt that just shouldn’t be there.
The observation that the starting and ending of phrases are consistently average or below average from drumline to drumline tells me that there must be more of an emphasis on the middle of phrases, which are generally cleaner. This is akin to car having a bad start at a race, catching up and maintaining a good speed during the middle, and finishing last or even crashing at the end of a race. If one were to listen carefully, one should notice a stronger presence of playing in the middle of phrases.
When we listen to music, we’re constantly listening to the middle of phrases. It’s the meat of music. It’s what we remember most. So, cleaning the beats of the middle phrases isn’t a bad thing, but not at the expense of starting and finishing the whole phrase.
Diddle patterns comprise much of battery books these days. But diddle interpretation and refined control – the proper amount of openness, the clarity of the second beat, the technique needed to properly execute – varies from player to player. This is very surprising seeing as how the writing trend has been very “fast hands friendly”: battery books have been written with lots of diddles/power diddles, paradiddle pattens, and rolls, so you’d think that refinement of diddle control, both individually and as a group, would be more of an emphasis. Of course, refined control isn’t limited to just diddle patterns. Refined control must be applied to everything played – battery and front ensembles alike. Phrases can largely be cleaned as players continue to play together, eventually becoming in sync. But that can only take an ensemble of players so far. Togetherness in interpretation and feel must be accompanied by proper and similar technique – whatever that technique is – from player to player. Too much variation in technique from player to player leaves too much room for error. Note that I said “similar” and not “exactly the same”. Everyone is built differently, so everyone’s body mechanics will differ from one another. But it is still possible to employ a general technique across the board and adapt it for each player’s body mechanics.
Basics are simple. And they can be boring. When I marched, one of my instructors – who became a mentor and good friend, and is the friend I made the comment to about Vanguard’s wonderful understanding of basics – made the drumline do some very, very elementary things. We played through the note tree over and over and in different variations. We had timing exercises that consisted of nothing more than a count of 16th notes that started on different beats of a measure. When we did these exercises, everyone in the line could play. We had some hands. But he made us do it anyway.
It only helped.
There are some drumlines that have very simple exercises that emphasize a certain technique or basic rhythmic pattern upon which everything else they play is built. I think these exercises are essential. Showy, flashy “exercises”, also known as parking lot pieces, are fun to play, sure, but they’re the test of how well one understands and executes basics. Again, this applies to battery and front ensembles alike.
After Vanguard’s battery finished played their opening exercise, which was nothing more than a series four counts of 8th notes on each hand, I turned to a friend of mine who was filming. I just smiled and said, “I love 8th notes.” Listening to a drumline play crisp, clean 8th notes is a beautiful thing. I can’t say that about very many drumlines.