To alleviate some of the forums of "HELP I AM GOING BACK TO TEACH MY HIGH SCHOOL LINE" I thought that I would try to put a good summary in a single post. I've learned a few different techniques lately because I have elementary school children, and it has carried over well to everywhere I have gone.

A Good starting point for a program is Thom Hannum's book Champion Concepts for Marching Percussion, it provides a good base, proven warmups, and cymbal technique. If you have plates, I also recommend Jeff Kozol's plate video, it takes Thom Hannum's guide and expands on it.

For your attitude towards the students, do not try to be the Drumline Nahtzee, a lot of times when that happens, it turns people off to the activity, whereas if you are a nice guy, a lot of times they will have more ambition to learn and strive to be a better performer.

Having chops is a non-issue, some will argue this, but this is why, you are not there to play the music, you are there to teach it, and know what is best for the line. As long as you have a good understanding of music, and knows what fits where, you should be alright. If you have the chops, then it is all the better to you, use it to your benefit.

Equipment is a big part of any Percussion Line, but sometimes you have your limitations due to a poor budget. Do not show your dismay to the students because you are playing on Yamaha FieldCorps snares with plastic heads. If they know that you think the equipment sucks they will not treat it good, and justify the reasoning of, the equipment sucks anyways.

And the NUMBER ONE rule...

DO NOT WRITE ABOVE YOUR PLAYERS

You are not a DCI line, you do not have to play cheese fives at the drop of a hat. Write for the lowest person, if something is easy and clean, 9 times out of 10 it will score better than dirty and hard.

I hope this helps everybody...

Derek

I thought your review was really good. I might have to take those thoughts into heart.

Yeah and DON'T BUY CADENCES! Write your own cadences, they will be much more personal and you know exactly what the line will be capable of, and somewhat challenging to improve their playing level. We have been using the same cadence for three years (gasp). Every year I rewrite it and make it more and more challenging. Also if you write your own cadences throw in a bunch of visuals. The drumline is at LEAST 50% visual!

If your talking about Drumline the movie.

PsYkKoSnarE, that is 2 wrong assumptions to make, some canned cadences are fine. Some people just do not have the talent to write, and the drumline should not have to suffer because of that. The visual thing is also bullflop, a visual here and there is fine, but stickflips and walking the dog is excess garbage when you are teaching... Remember DO NOT OVERWRITE THE PLAYERS, I cannot stress that enough

Derek

I was always told to write just above the player's ability level. That way they can improve their abilities. But I totally agree with not writing too high so the students can't grasp the meaning behind the notes.

You can improve your players abilities but there is a certain point. I especially learned this with middle schoolers. What you can do is keep a player motivated and ready to feel a groove. If they think the music is cool enough then they will practice it more than usual.
I would also recommend "Up Front" from tapspace.com.
That book has everthing you need to know about front ensemble. I am mighty glad that I bought that book. Is a good book to have around your pitsters.

Now if you have an unmotivated drumline you may want to add some stickflips and some of that stuff but not much to the affect of the player's musicality. Tricks should not get in the way of the learning process of music. It should be after but can be used as a tool for motivation.

Drumlines are 50% visual, to a CROWD'S (not other drumline's) persepective (how do yuo think the movie drumline did so good). And do write your own cadences, or personalize canned ones. Sometimes I create a whole cadence just from stuff we already know and play well, maybe with slight alterations.

I said throw in a buynch of visuals, but I'm not really talking about that many. I mean a simple little break where everything else stops but snare, and the snare plays a little R LL B.S. LL B.S. LL R LL B.S LL B.S LL will be cool for young lines.

Psykko you have no clue what this post is about. This post is about TEACHING, to make better players... I could give a crap what the crowd thinks. chsgirl explained it perfectly, so I see no reason to explain again.

I'll debate what you said anyways... You are right about the visual thing, just in the wrong way. The best visual to have is STICK HEIGHTS, not that flipping garbage. A drumline that has perfect stick heights will look better than the garbage lines of backsticking because they think they can accomplish it. Please don't reply to this with some quote about Drumline the movie. I could not even watch that the whole way through, If you want to compare it to some movie you watched, watch Hard Corps and then tell me something.

Derek

heheeheehee....He said "bullflop".

Some good stuff there man. I like that you took the initiative to start this post. You rock dude.

EnsErmac, I really think you did a great job with this post and I think that alot a lot of instructors need to be told this if it's their old high school or not. I do want to add something to you post that I really think that you missed and that is explaining what is taught. Many instructors tell their players that they need clean rolls or this has to be this without explaining why it has to be like that. I know when I was first starting to instruct I was really stupid, I wrote music that was too hard and taught stuff that just because everyone else did it. When I started my freshman year of college as a percussion major, I learned alot a lot of teaching stuff from my percussion professor and it really helped, he taught that when you teach a concept you also need to teach how it works and why it is used. This is really important about a drumline(excluding pit) because compared to other percussion ensembles, it is a really limited. You have to teach that taps are this high and accented taps are this high because it's apart of musical expression. You play opened rolls because they're easier to project than a buzz roll. Sometimes things like this are totally left out and remember that when you're an instructor, you're a teacher, and teachers need to have the knowledge to teach.

I agree stick heights are the most important thing. But are you talking about the standard stick heights 3 6 9 12 or monkey arms, stuff like that? Good uniform stick heights are a MUST and once you get those all down, you got to throw in a few little tricks, not just backsticking. And if your job is not trying to please the crowd then what exactly are your performances for? Are you performing for yourself? Your fellow band members? The football players?

But back to teaching:
Lalo Davila is one of the best teachers out there, if not the best. I suggest buy his book Ziggatabuzz and start from there.

After attending BOA's Drum Instructor Academy I more and more am believing in ignoring stick heights first... check out the sound they make and focus on downstroke, upstroke, tap, and full stroke (especially with younger players). Older players could use this too. Then once it comes to musical playing, the height of "tap" should be at a set dynamic level and go from there.