As a senior this year, I've been put on 4th bass, and I'm also the bass line section leader. Last year we had so many seniors leave, so this year we are stuck with a much smaller group. Our battery is a good size, with 4 basses, 3 snares, 2 tenors, and two cymbals. But with this setup we'd have almost no pit players, so were not marching battery at all this season.

Unfortunately this leaves us with a lot less rehearsal time, as it's all pit stuff. Sectionals is the only time we can get the battery together to rehearse. We've pretty much been solely working on cadences, so we get at them ready and clean for pep band, considering how little rehearsal time we have.

The other day, before the football game, we had a battery sectionals an hour before. The cadences were pretty sloppy, so we needed to get some ready for the game. At the end of sectionals, we had 5 cadences. However, one we knew wasn't totally ready for the game, as our second bass drummer couldn't seem to time the split parts right; and another one was a brand new cadence that we just got not too long ago.

During sectionals, at time things were very unclean as whole, and specifically the bass line, especially with the new cadence. But by the end of sectionals we had everything fairly good. Certianly not perfectly clean, but together enough. However come the football game, it all fell apart. On pretty much every groove, the basses were not only unclean, but at times threw the tempo off completely. And I'm talking about unison parts here, not splits. Eventually I just said for the other basses to drop out if they screw up or get off, as having them keep playing just seemed to make things worse. Everything we had just fine at sectionals had fallen apart. Pretty much every unision groove would be messy and just fall apart.

It seems like the other bass drummers know their parts, but how can I get them to play cleanly, and with a steady tempo? It's fine when they play solo, they know their parts well, but when we put it together, it can't seem to stay together, and gets even worse when we add the rest of the battery in. Nothing I've tried seems to work, and it's frustrating when you work on something for an hour only for it to fall apart when we perform it.

I would try simplifying things. Make runs into eight notes until its clean. Also try having some practices before and after school, or even at someones house. This happen at my school. We had a really young line. Especially the bass line it was made up with people that played in the pit and have never marched. We had to simplify things to make them clean and also came in before school and in classes that everybody could get out of. I would try doing this and see what happens. Also for a cadence you can pick a very easy and optional cadence. Something that you can learn in five minutes and then make it harder later. I hope this helps.

always play with a met
break it down measure by measure and add on when they get it clean at least like 5 times in a row
if theyre having trouble with runs play the check pattern

A met would help, also sub-dividing the met would help too. make sure they understand how all the parts work and fit together. I also agree with making the runs into 8th note runs so its easier then when they get the feel you can start adding more notes to the run like 2's if its a 16th note run.

Oh and make sure they know how to count as well as how the music relates to the feet. Scot Johnson always emphises the 65 35 appraoch where 65 percent is for foot work and 35 is for the hands. Marking time can help too

Hope that helps.