United Alumni
Percussion Section - Drumline Plan

Priority

The members take priority over the music. In other words, new music will be written with each individual member's abilities in mind.

Direction

Back to Basics  ~  Fresh Start  ~  Realistic/Attainable Music

A simple approach will yield tremendous results.

• Embrace who we are. No delusions of grandeur. Playing difficult music poorly = bad music.
• Rebuild based on current abilities (improve playing skills only within reason).
• Easier, fun music, if played well, will naturally sound impressive.
• If you know you sound good – then you feel good about what you are playing.
• Attract new members by sounding good.

New Music Philosophy (applies to some exercises as well)

Sectionals

Monday nights will be for sectionals (this may change during spring and/or summer)

• Snares and basses alternate. Snare rehearsal will be when lower horns practice. Bass rehearsal will be when upper horns practice.
• Quads, 11:00am - first Sunday practice of each month.

This schedule is subject to change as needed. Please pay attention to the corps calendar on the website.

It’s only about once a month, so please make it a priority. Plus, you will be getting more individual attention.

But if you can't show up for sectionals, please send an e-mail saying "Can't make it". I don't need a reason.

Teaching Focus

1. Playing with Confidence (“own” the drum)
2. Playing Cleaner
3. Light Syncopated Rhythms (learn how to understand and play them)
4. Improve music reading skills

Multiple Parts

Q: How do you make music that is easily attainable by everyone?  ...  A: Multi-part music.

New music will be split into 3 separate parts for snares and quads (a.k.a. Multi-part music). What does this mean?

• The 1st snare and 1st quads parts will be the most challenging.
• The 2nd snare and quads parts will be easier. They will simply have less notes than the 1st snare and quads (less complex rhythms, less rolls, less flams, etc).
• The 3rd snare and quad parts will be easier still, by having even less notes (simpler rhythms, less or no rolls, less or no flams, etc).

There may be exceptions, such as when it may be necessary, from a musicality standpoint, to have some members playing accessory instruments. Hopefully this will eventually be handled by new, inexperienced members.

Advantages:

• Because 3rd is based on 2nd, which is based on 1st... if someone wishes to move to a higher part (which is totally optional), they don't have to re-learn everything. They just need to learn how to add the extra notes.
• This may attract members of varying skills. If a greater or lesser skilled person wishes to join the line, they may do so without displacing existing members. They just join the part that best suits them. No one gets pushes aside. No one gets held back.
• New music will be written specifically for the capabilities of the members within each part. If your part is too difficult, or too easy (boring) - LET ME KNOW!
• A nice side effect of this is actually seeing accents and dynamics come through much better. But most notable is that the line will sound cleaner.

New music will be written for multiple parts. Existing music will eventually have new parts, but this will be less of a priority so as not to overwhelm anyone with too much new music.

Most of the existing quad music will be considered "Quad 2". Most of the existing snare music will be considered "Snare 1".

Note: Side tenor players will become 3rd snare (although some existing tenor parts may still need to be played until new 3rd snare parts becomes available).