Personally, playing bass drum at a world class DCI level is the hardest thing to me. You are basically splitting between 2 or more guys the same things that one person is playing in the snare and tenor lines.

I agree 100%

If you sit down and look at a bass drum score (with all 5 drums parts written on 1 staff) it is prety much a modified snare part and it has to be split between 5 drums just as clean as 1 snare player would play it. Yes, snares have the chalange of cleaning 8-10 drums and making them sound like one and tenors also have the chalange of moving all over 5-6 drums but my oppinion is that a world class bass line is the hardest.

If you were talking high school then snares and tennors would be equil because of the difficulty of the articulation with multiple drums and the tenors with spliting parts between drums. Yes bass splits are still hard but not as demanding in high school as in World Class DCI.

in the highschool and college range i would say that snare is harder than tenors, just because the argument that tenor music is the same as snares except split across drums is not generally true. snare music is usually very "choppy" in regards to cheezes, inverts, etc...but tenors do also play those rhythms occasionally but...in the highschool college scene not as much...I think that both snare and tenors have things about them that make them hard, but I think in the college and highschool scheme of things, you usually won't find a snare player that has "tenor" chops, nor will you usually find a tenor player with "snare" chops....playing on mylar heads is totally different from kevlar, I would actually say that Kevlar is more forgiving to the individual, but still harder to clean as a line. As for mylar heads on tenors, I would say that it is the opposite; being that mylar heads don't articulate as much as kevlar, making it easier to clean multiple players.

As for bass drums....yeah...they pwn. Splitting 30seconds and six's between two people is freakin hard, and I know that you have to be a certain kind of person to be able to play bass. The level of concentration and reading abilities that is required
is crazy.

Yup I know Snare like the back of my hand, and learned Tenors just for passion's sake. I definitely agree with Bernardo ^ because tenors generally are easier in the fact that they are easier to clean and don't require as many rudiments, hybrids or chops in general as snare until you get into the DCI corps.

I don't think there is one definite "hardest position" on a drumline. Each instrument comes with it's own difficulties that might not play a major role in another instrument.

so i have come to the conclusion that PIT takes just as much if not more chops than all them combined and everything on the line is just as hard as the next. thank you for your input but i have some questions.

How is it easier to clean 5 tenors compared to 9 snares?

Because, Snares have a much more staccato sound. If your marching kevlar heads, and someone messes up, your going to hear it, period.

Tenors march mylar heads. Not as staccato. It's a hell of a lot harder to hear a tenor player mess up, then a snare.

it's like ingredients in salsa or something, everything adds it's own flavor.

i completely agree. snares are extremely staccato (sp). it is extremely easy to notice a mistake among the snare line. and not to mention the amount of rudiments u find in a snare piece.

as to where tenors aren't so staccato its harder to spot mistakes. and the rudimental demands aren't that great from what ive seen. out of all the tenor music i've ever seen the hardest rudiment i've ever seen are paradiddle-diddles. now keep in mind thats from pieces i've physically seen.

but the bass line..it demands snugglebunny especially in world class lines. and especially from the top basses. the bassline, because each drummer is only playing a piece of the rthym, is something where u must be able to subdivide and balance.

its snugglebunny like one dude said. its like ingredients to a salsa they all add their own flavor to the mix.

Dude, you gotta get out more. Try and catch a DCI show this summer and check out some lot sessions.