Drum Corps International

So this post is a little off topic but still related. I thought that I would talk a little about another way to participate in percussion and that is by marching in a drum corp. Drum corps were started around the 1900's and have a very strong military history. By the 1960's they started becoming prize based copetitions and sponsorship opertunities. They have slowly evolved to what they are today, and that is well oiled machines to say the least. Drum corps are all about military precision. Everything from the hight that each foot comes off the ground to the angle of their instruments, everything that happens in drum corp is uniform and precise. 

To participate in a drum corp you must meet very specific qualification that are both mental and physical. Some qualifications include your sex, there are a few drum corps that are all male. Tryouts start around august and are usually only a weekend long but there may be several cuts depending on the corp your trying out for. Once you find out you have made a corp its around April and that when "move in" is. Basically after move in, you dont go home for the rest of the summer. Practices are in the hot sun usually 9am-9pm everyday except for Sunday which is laundry day. "Oh yea their just band geeks how hard could it be to go out and march for a couple hours". Most people that do drum corp loose 10 pounds. In the first week. Marching for a drum corp is EXTREMLY physical and demanding. You will see in the videos how much these people work(and how skinny everyone of them is). After about a month or so of this routine, the drum corp goes on tour. Just like rock bands, they go around the country playing shows. Except instead of luxury hotels, they sleep on gym floors.  

If you have never seen a marching band or never plan to, watch this video. It is amazing even if you know nothing about music or band. 

Cavaliers 2006 - "Machine" (Finals)

Percussion members for a drum corp are at the highest level. I think unless oyu know about percussion it will be hard to appreciate this video but its pretty cool anyway. 

Blue Coats- 2008 Drum Feature

Busy like always :/

So this week is again packed. Like always. Tuesday and Thursday I have drumline practice like always but I ALSO have concert band practices which go from 3:00 to 5:00. Drumline practice starts at 5:30. So in other words I will be at school from 7:30 a.m. until around 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday. YAYYY!! and then Friday right after school we have practice until around 6:00 p.m. Then short break to go home, shower... and then off to Orlando at 6:30 for WGI Orlando. We will get up there around midnight and check into the hotel. Then the next morning we go to the competition and unload the equipment, have a short rehearsal and then perform. (We automatically make finals because there are 3 people in our class.) We will have a short break and then have another short rehearsal and then perform our show in finals. After the final performance, we load everything up and then go to retreat(where they announce the scores and hand out trophies) after retreat ends at around 10:00 p.m. we will leave to come back home and get to cypress at around 2 a.m. 

WGI stands for winter guard international. Winter guard is the color guard version of our winter percussion but it was formed before percussion so they just added us on to their competition venues. WGI is international, meaning more people will go to these competitions. In the local circuit(SFWGA- South Florida Winter Guard Association) we are the only group in our class, which means we win by default every local competition. WGI regionals are a big deal because we actually have competition at these venues and have a little more push behind us the practices before because of that same reason. 

Lava Flow

So since concussion is over percussion class (4th hour) is going back to more of a curriculum type class in the way that we have assignments to prepare and turn in(or perform). My current assignment that i have a couple of weeks to do is a solo called Lava Flow and it's pretty hard for me. Playing a solo isn't what most of you think, there is a lot to playing drums. Technique, timing, different rudiments(sticking patterns) and a lot of control. It's more complicated than it seems. Here's a video of the solo i have to do. All of the flips and back sticking he does is written in, which means I will have to do it too :) yummy. 

I can't walk!!!

Well I can still walk.. but it hurts. A lot. 

Shin splints. Tendinidous. What ever name you want to put on it. It feels like knives are in your shins and calves, and whenever you take a step someone twists those knives. I've had this pain since last indoor season but it never was this bad. It hurts when I start doing anyhting physical, specifically marching up on the balls of my feet during indoor. The extra weight of a drum might help make them worse too. But they feel like a constant muscle burn.. times 30. When I finish marching the show I collapse because my legs hurt too much to put any weight on them anymore. 

I got really frustrated today though. About a week or two ago I went to the doctors for the second time for this problem(the first time he just gave me asprin and told me to sit in a wheelchair for 3 months if I wanted them to go away) and finally thought I was getting somewhere. He gave me a referal to a physical therapist and told me they would probably do ultra sound therapy and it would heal them reletivly fast. Well today was the physical therapist apointment and it did not go well. The paper said I had tibia tendenidous(tibia meaning leg). I sat down and the physical therapist asked me if i did anyhting to hurt me knee. I told her it was my shins not my knee and she said "OHHHH that's what tibia means". She takes measurements gives me a little rubber band and shows me some exercises that make it feel like I was just marching. She bbasically told me exactly what I already knew but I think she stole some of my brain cells in the process. Needless to say I'm not going back and still have shin pain. 

How I got to 5th

So I was on flubs for marching season :/ I wasn't happy about that but atleast I was with my friends at my school. So now marching season is over and winter season is starting. Yay I get to move up to a real drum finally after all my hard work.  ... or not? Two of the kids that were on the cybal line with me last year wanted to try out for bass. and they made it. I didnt get the chance to tryout.. again. cymbals. again. Ok I'm the section leader I'll make the best of it but its kind of tough because everyone is brand new. 

a couple weeks into the season now we already have a lot of the show learned. Zack, my friend from cymbals can't be in percussion anymore due to grades. His mother pulled him out. Theres no one else to play 5th except for me. So I'm finally where i wanted to be this whole time, but only because they had no choice. So I'm making the best of it. I had to relearn the whole show, learn all new music, and bust my butt. It's really hard. 

Back To Work

Concussion is over :( but we made over $4800 in ticket and concession sales :D. But now the fun is over and we are back to the hard work of learning more and perfecting our winter drumline show. So I never told the full story of how I got to where I am. So during the winter season of my sophmore year(last year) I played the cymbals. It was alot of fun and i really enjoyed it but after that season, I decided that I wanted to move up to a higher position.  I started practicing for the tenor drums but then my whole world fell in on me. They decided the boundaries for West Broward. And everything was over. All the friends I made. All the work I put in. Gone. I was going to west broward. But I decided i wouldnt let it happen. 

The reassignment process started online, you fill out the form and submit it and wait for a responce, I decided i was going to be the first person to enter my form, so I stayed up until midnight the day before it was going to open... it wasn't open. But i couldn't sleep, so I stayed up that night and kept checking. 1 a.m. 2 a.m. all night until the next morning. Finally its posted at 8 in the morning, I fill out my form and go to school. I feel fine, theres no reason they could deny me.. my father died shortly before freshman year and when i joined the band it was the first time I felt okay since he died. A month goes by and we get the letter. "Your child has been denied due to over population at cypress bay". I know it's overcrowded. But I have a reason, some people got reassigned because their siblings go to cypress... well between middle and high school you were separated anyway so why is it so important that you get reassigned and I'm still being ripped away and being thrown face to face with a meltdown. 

We apeal the decision and get a hearing date. I figured they appeal everyone just to see who is actually passionate about going.  When we go in and sit down the guy looks at us and says "I dont know why you are hear.. Cypress is full." He didn't read the letter from the school social worker, my mother or my percussion director. He just told us to leave. Some of the other people there told him wait read this theres a good reason and he just sshhhh'd them. I was once again heartbroken.

Go to psycologist, blah blah blah fast forward, another hearing, fast forward, I do band camp at both schools(which is extremly physical and burnt me up. Meet my girlfriend of 7 months and then comes the tricky part and the downfall to alot things. drumline tryouts. I still dont know where I'm going so I cant tryout for the drumline (NOOOOOOO!!!!) I'm heartbroken. Once again. It's my junior year and after all my hard work, I can't march. 

(I'm trying to speed up so I dont get boring)

My friends are also in the exact perdicament as me except they are bound for Western get denied, they are out of cypress... Crap what does that mean for me. I call the apeal office after our second hearing which i waited outside for while my mom talked so I didn't break into tears. They don't know yet. I keep calling and calling and calling. I'M ACCEPTED!! I'M GOING TO CYPRESS!! But the drumline is already set... My percussion director doesn't want to see me sit on my ass bored as hell for a whole season... he makes up drums. (By the way, if I had been able to tryout I would have made bass drum and had more experience) 

These are flubs. They are completly made up. (They are broken in this picture but i dont have any better pictures) I will finish this entry later on, its getting a little long.

The X Factor!!

So you all know what marching band is, a whole bunch of kids on the field playing instruments. Now take out all the boring stuff, make it a smaller floor and put it indoors. You have a winter percussion show. Winter percussion is a marching show that consists of only percussion instruments like the snare drums, bass drums, tenor drums and cymbals. As well as all of the non marching percussion instruments like xylophone and other keyboard instruments. We compete locally and on the national circuit and put a lot of time into our show. 

Here is one of my favorite shows. "Gone" by Rythme X. Click on the link and click watch in high quality if you want to watch it in better quality.

"gone" by Rythme X

This year, our show is "The ex Factor" Its a show based on words with the root "ex" excite, expand, exhale and a few others. For those of you who think its not that hard, I've seen the movie drumline and i can do that. Your wrong. We spend about 15 hours a week practicing and perfecting our show. It is the most demanding thing in the world to play music, carry the weight of the drum, remember where to move to, how many counts to move for and what the move is supposed to look like. 

The reason the blog is called Percussion from behind 5th is because this year in our winter percussion show I play 5th bass, the biggest and heaviest of the bass drums. I was on cymbals at the beggining of the season but due to another members complications I had to switch up to bass drum and relearn all the movements and all the music in a week for our first show. We have now gone through our first 2 competitions, this past saturday and the one before it. We are doing very well for this early in the season and we are all excited to see where we go with this show.