Catagory: lessons
Drumline, according to Kelley
The_Thing asks:
what are the greatest challenges you face as a new, young, high school drumline instructor? particularly interested in financial situation of your drumline, talent, skill, ability, and motivation of your students
To tell the truth, the biggest challenges that I’m facing this year arise from personal commitment. We’ve got a few really great guys (and girls) on the line that are really stepping up and trying to make the line as great as it can be. Unfortunately, there are also a few individuals who are making practices tough for everyone. As it is now, Jason Parker (my old instructor’s little brother) is running the battery while I’m in charge of the front ensemble. After rehearsal last night Jason and I took some time to discuss the players on our separate parts of the line whom we believe are causing problems. We were lucky to get a huge influx of students this year, including some transfers from a school across town. One of these transfer students (who we‘ll call “Joe“ for the rest of the article), however, is being particularly unruly—showing up late to practice, not showing up at all, talking between and during exercises, not paying attention, as well as other things. The worst part is that Joe was section leader and center snare at his old school.
Now, how do we deal with this? We’re sort of facing a double-edged sword. If we cut Joe to a different position on the line then there’s a chance that he might quit which would be detrimental to the line because he really is a good player; if we leave him in a position of power, though, we risk losing control of the line because everyone else will be looking to him as to how to act. I’m a firm believer in leading by example and if he’s being unruly then it’s likely that the others on the line will be unruly as well.
Course of action: Jay came up with the plan of leaving Joe as the section leader, but delegating some of his responsibilities to other students. Right now Joe is the acting section leader in that we rely on him to help us out as much as possible. Jay, who is also giving Joe personal lessons, is trying to instill as much discipline in him as possible so that he can be a positive asset to the line. But as it is now he is not in charge of keeping tempo and setting heights during rehearsal. We’ve delegated this responsibility to the snare player on his left. What I’m hoping this will do is teach Joe to focus on the aspects of drumline with which he is having the most problems. Once he begins to display the attributes of a respectable and able captain then we will re-instate all of his responsibilities. This method also allows other students on the line to experience what it’s like to be in charge of the line, giving them more confidence.
As far as skill goes on the line, all I’ll say is that we’re working with quite a few new students. To my surprise, though, the middle school band program in the county has really stepped up. A lot of our kids coming in are better prepared than I was when I started on my high school line. Most of the students in my front ensemble are pretty musically literate and aware of music theory. We’re not expecting to play a lot of notes this year, but we’re only losing two people after this season. If we get as many new students next year as we did this year we will have an extremely strong line. We’ve also got a lot of kids taking lessons from either Jason or myself, which has already helped the line out considerably.
As to our financial situation, we’re pretty much on top of everything. Our equipment is in great condition. Jay and I have compiled two lists of equipment that we’ll be needing, the first being things we need immediately (mostly new sticks and back-up heads), the second list being things we’ll need in the long run (snare heads, padding, T-keys, etc.). In the past five years or so we’ve received and entire line of Yamaha SFZ’s as well as a full melodic percussion line (marimba, bells, xylophone, and vibraphone) and several new auxiliary toys so we’re not really worried about finances.