One time at band camp...

...3 kids got heat stroke and one had to go to the hospital. Well not really but kids have fainted at band camp before. Band camp for most bands is the week before school starts(the hottest week here in Florida) and it is intence. At Cypress Bay, percussion has a week worth of "mini camp" which is 1-9pm. Then all summer there is 3 hour practices every day twice a week. Towards the end of the summer, there is a one week percussion camp also 1-9pm and then finally at the end of the summer, there is band camp. Band camp is a week long 9am-9pm series of practices. In the heat. I think the term should be "band athlete" instead of "band nerd". Watch this video if you have never heard about what band does and what we do to train for the show we perform.

Mrs. Stoklosa, if you don't watch any of my videos(I do have a lot) at least watch this one its really interesting.

Snare drum

Snare drum is a bad ass instrument. Its loud, its fast and its intense. It high pitched because it is tuned extremely tight and because of this it is a very loud instrument. The tight nature of the head gives the stick a lot of rebound off of the drum which makes it easier to play very fast things on it. Even though its a single drum, apposed to all of the other drums I talked about that have multi-surfaces to play on, its still just as difficult to play due to the amount of notes that are usually written for this drum. Heres an example of how even though its only a single drum, a lot of different things can be done with it.

Tenor drums

The tenors drums are also great to listen to on their own, since they have 5 drums its easy to get a good sound for various types of music due to the different pitches offered. They are also extremely fun to watch because they incorporate a lot of crossover and other moves the get to a drum with a certain hand. Sometimes these are necesary, sometimes they are just for show but they are extremely fun to watch when played fast. Their weight also adds another factor of awe to the drum. On average, the drum weighs around 45-50 pounds. Don;t forget that the players are also moving while wearing them. Tenor players have to have a great deal of endurance to be able to march while carrying the drums and still maintaining a high level of playing. Heres an example of some intricate playing but notice how together the players are. You don't hear anyone playing out of place, even at extremely fast tempos they still manage to remain together.

Bass Drums

Even though there is no way that I could pick a favorite drum because they all compliment each other so well when played together, each drum(or line) sounds great on its own as well. The bass drums sound great when tuned right and even more then sound great, they feel great as well. I love being able to FEEL each note as I play it. Since there are five basses of various sizes, it allows for a variety of sounds and rythms that can be put together to make up different musical selections. For example, this is an example of a bass drum line solo played by the Blue Knights bass drum ensemble which is part of a drum corp.

Cymbals

I love cymbals. They are an extremely simple instrument yet they can be so interesting with different visuals, different sounds and split parts. Cymbals are the pimps of the drumline, they are flashy loud and everyone loves looking at them. Cymbals are almost always polished to be extremely shiny. This makes all of the spins and twists they do with their cymbals catch the eyes of the audience even more. Since they are large and heavy its not really possible to play extremely fast music, but what cymbal lines do is split up the music just like bass drums do in order to get out all the notes and also getting different sounds from the different cymbals. When a whole cymbal line is in sync and playing together I find nothing more appealing, I love cymbals. Here is one of my favorite cymbal lines.

Drumset

I love the drumset. But of corse every percussionist does. It can be adapted for so many different types of music. It can be used from anything from soft jazz to hardcore screamo rock. It's very versatile and very fun to play. I talked about technique in a previous post but with drumset very little technique is necessary to play. You can bang and throw the sticks and still achieve a pretty high level of playing depending on the type of music. But even with this lack of necessity for technique the drumset is still very challenging to play due to the multiple instruments played at one time, a high level of limb independence is necessary to sound good on drumset.

Favorite Instrument?

I have tried to figure out what my favorite instrument is but I don't think I could even narrow it down to just one. The drums compliment each other so well(when the music is written by an experienced musician). The high pitch and fast playing of the snare drum, the various sounds that come from the medium voice tenor drums and the deep voice of the bass drums that sweep up and down the line making you feel the music with the vibrations caused by the low pitch of the drums.


As for the other instruments other than the drumline, its also a close battle between all of the instruments. The deeper voice of the marimba with the high pitch of the xylophone with all of the accessories that can create an awesome atmosphere and mood for the listener make listening to the front ensemble of marching percussion wonderful. Here is an example of all of the keyboards along with several accessories and a few drums playing.

Marching Season By Yanni, Arranged by Chris Brooks

I love this piece, I keep going back and listening to it over and over, I can't get enough of it.