I've been checking out the new video coverage of WGI 2008 on vicfirth, and I noticed something in Fountain Valley's line which I've seen before but it was very pronounced in this case: the drums in each section are not all the same height. Taking a look at this line, they've got an issue that lots of high school lines have to deal with, all of the kids have pretty big height differences. The oldschool approach would be to have the short kids playing at their armpits and the tall kids playing at their knees, but in this case they chose to set the drums heights individually. This is a great idea for educational reasons, the kids all learn the correct technique without having to suffer because they're too tall or short, relative to the rest of the line. The downside is, it doesn't really look that polished. But of course, it's only high school and the education is what's most important right? So what are your thoughts? Do you think it's better to have an uneven drumline for the sake of learning? Or is the look more important.

In any case, and especially at the high school level, I don't think it's ever a wise decision to compromise correct posture, positioning, and technique for the sake of a look.