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@repercussionistblog
Hello!
Just remembered I have a blog with a dedicated domain, and a lot has happened in the 3 or so years since I’ve updated this blog. I’d like to start making more frequent posts with advice to people about band things. Keep an eye out for new content!
Funny enough...
I make that list of "box six" shows, and lo and behold over the weekend, WGI passes a rule saying "box six" now is only for shows 98 and over. Guess this blog has more pull than I thought...=P Not sure what I'm talking about? Check out my page, just a couple of posts down, where I review all 7 shows in WGI history to achieve a 97 or higher!
Hello all
I'm hoping to have a bit more time to post here now that I have a nice laptop again and I'm back fully in corps season. Especially since it's summer-camp time for HS kids, and a lot of show music to learn. What are some things you'd like to see me post about?
WGI PIW "Box Six" shows
So everytime I watch MCM 2011, I see a comment that says "So surprised this show didn't get legendary status." But it got a 97.05. "Box six" is defined by a 97-100. In history, there are 7 shows to get a 97 or higher (by comparison, there are 18 shows to get a 96). SO I watched them all and decide to make a critique of each show. 1999 - Blue Knights Airborne: A Brief History of Flight Score: 97.1 First of all, the line is marching Premiers. Lets just get that out of the way first and foremost. The show feature large props with propellers around the floor, as well as a big hangar-like box on the back of the floor. The opening of the show is very in your face, loud, a lot of playing. The propellers in the back are spinning the entire time, while the battery is dressed almost like mechanics or pilots, white t-shirts with army pants and boots. After the opener, there is a very entertaining segment where the battery goes into the the hangar, and the extra performers take large props and build a fake biplane on the floor, before lifting it up and running around the floor with it and then tossing it onto the ground. The whole time, the pit is playing very xylophone rag-ish music, kind of adding to the whole Charlie Chaplin goofy vibe of the segment. The battery then comes out with bomb vests on, and the propellers are turned from vertical to horizontal to simulate helicopter blades. They start the segment with a dynamically cool roll with rubber-tipped sticks and I'm assuming a sample, blending the helicopter sound with the roll. Very cool effect, and very intense segment after that. Following the helicopter portion, they have a dancer dressed as a butterfly run around the floor, before the battery emerges again from the hangar wearing bomber jackets for the big finish. They finish right up against the front of the floor, a cool effect as they push forward and the propellers are pushed behind them, almost literally propelling them forward. I don't think this show holds up well against these more current successful shows, but still an entertaining look to how far this activity has come. 2005 - Riverside Community College Manifest Destiny Score: 97.0 This is RCC's first appearance, having THREE box-six shows. An entertaining sort of show, the drumline is dressed in all gold, I'm assuming simulating the gold rush, but nothing in the show is particularly prevalent to showing a theme besides "play beats." We see RCC doing all of their classic tricks and being goofy, adding that West-Coast feel. There's a lot of incredible little features throughout the show, including a xylophone and snare feature where the xylo pushes out onto the floor to duet. After they finish the show, the battery puts their equipment down and takes part in a 30-second dance block to "Like I Love You" by Justin Timberlake, including a full battery moonwalk. I think this show was entertaining and a calling card for most of the mid-2000 RCC shows, but nothing was too memorable about this show aside from the "victory lap" at the end. 2009 - Rhythm X Touch Score: 97.263 This show claimed the highest score record from BK99. Featuring 10 snares, and an insane quad line, Touch was a musical and visual masterpiece. From the acoustic guitar and pit building to the first big impact, you knew this show was something special. There's so many parts of this show that build and then drop off, and then build again. It's like a constant roller coaster ride. They also use "touch" in many senses of the word; from the tenors rising out of an impact playing 15 inch heights with the sound of a 1 inch tap, to during another tenor feature where the cymbals touch the tenors all over, to a bass run where the last note by bass 1 is played with his finger. The show builds to a huge loud climax before the battery walks into the pit and everyone hugs and embraces each other while the acoustic guitar player walks onto the floor, joined by a bass drummer touching his arm on the last note. It's an incredible show, emotional, powerful, intense, and I think expertly crafted and arranged. A definite jump in quality and maturity from the box-six shows that preceded it. 2011- Music City Mystique Mantra Score: 97.05 This is the show that prompted this list. When this show first came out, I'll never forget how all of my friends in the activity freaked out. They were throwing down beats and doing goddamn yoga. Featuring a giant "drum" on the back of the floor, and multiple silk panel props across the floor, the show was very spiritual in nature. The pit book in this show is incredible, and never fails to inspire me as a mallet player. Every second of the ensemble is fantastic, but the tenors take the cake as most of them have beards and shaved their heads bald, going with the whole spiritual monk kind of theme. The middle section where the front ensemble plays is one of the best pit moments in WGI history, where they come in cold out of nowhere and play an accelerando part that constantly pushes and pulls in tempo, while the rest of the ensemble fills the floor behind them doing yoga and tai-chi-like movements. The ending of the show gets a little more Indian, with really groovy drum rhythms, before building to a big loud climax ending with a singular bass drum note and low drone monk-like note. Truly a masterpiece in terms of music and show design, despite not being particularly mind-blowing or innovative. 2012 - Riverside Community College The Gift Score: 97.085 This show remains top 5 most viewed on WGI Fan Network and very well deserved. It tells the story of a war. The floor is complete with those anti-ship blockers that you see on shores when an invasion is happening (see Normandy). The show is intense, very emotional. The battery is playing the entire show and RCC's fantastic tenor line is shown off yet again. At one point the battery has a really cool body break where they use their sticks as guns and pretend like they're in a fire fight. Near the end of the show, the basses carry a fake-casket draped with a yellow and black striped flag with one hand while playing with their other hand, and the show ends with the battery on their knees surrounding the casket, as a final voiceover says that a soldier fights for the freedom of people to do whatever they want, and that is their gift to you. Very powerful and intense show, very very good playing, and I think very deserving of winning that year. 2013 - Riverside Community College State of the Arts Score: 97.425 This show had the honor of being the highest score in WGI history...for about 3 minutes. And it's also the only show to achieve "box six" status and not win first place (although at the time I think it should have). It is narrated by Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk on creativity, and outlines the main ideas of his talk, and how kids creativity is being squandered. Decked in all black and grey, the battery starts the show out in front of black desk-like props, before the tenors and snares all put on snares and play matched grip for a beginning feature. Everyone playing uniform together, highlighting the conformity. Slowly, the show gets bursts of color. The black desks flipped around revealed colorful graffiti, patches on sleeves and sections of drums were pulled away to reveal different colors, and cymbals were decorated with zigzags of color, as the narrator talks about being creative and having original ideas. It's again not a very mind-blowing spectacle, but the message behind the show and their fantastic playing and marching is well-deserved of the score in what I think is one of the strongest WGI years ever. 2013 - Rhythm X The Man In The Arena Score: 98.263 Beating their old record by exactly 1 point, X had a fantastic show. Also outlined by a speech, Teddy Roosevelt's speech about how credit doesn't go to the critic, but to the man in the arena, the one actually putting himself out there to critique and willing to risk failure. The ensemble is dressed as gladiators, the floor is a giant oval with black posts lining the outside. During the first battery break (which is barely audible to start off, incredible dynamics), the pit is doing pushups. Another section, a cymbal player is alone on the floor doing a one-handed pushup to show willingness to fail while daring greatly. The ballad is a choreographed partnered-up fight scene, complete with confetti throws as blood sprays on punches, all set in slow motion to a gorgeous slow piece by the pit, I believe Rachmaninoff. The closer, "Survival" by Muse, finishes strong with the loud falsetto note "Yes I'm gonna wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!" which...they do. I think this show isn't as complete musically over Touch or Mantra, but as far as overall production, I think it packs a punch and entertainment the entire show, and has a more complete design. It's hard to say which show is the BEST show in WGI history. There's shows like Inspired (Rhythm X 2010), Memento (RCC 2007 which is a guilty pleasure and got a 96.95), or even Pulse this year, that you could argue are better than these shows. But at that point, it then becomes preference, and is no better than a bunch of judges giving their opinion and we're back to square one. If I had to make an order... 7. BK 1999 6. RCC 2005 5. RCC 2013 4. RCC 2012 3. X 2013 2. MCM 2011 1. X 2009 I just think you don't get much better than Touch.
By Candi-Cane on DeviantART
It takes an entire ensemble to make a show come alive;
From the center snare to the actors and rack players, the lead weapon to the member of the flagline, the trumpet soloist to the auxiliary player,
it takes everyone giving it everything they’ve got to make a show happen. No one person can make the show, and no one person can be done without. No role, no performer is insignificant.
Don’t ever forget that.
Carolina Crown 2013 | E=mc^2
words cannot express how much i miss this. those were the days my friends.
FOV14!
Happy for my friends in FOV this winter! I can’t wait to see the show
Reminds me of the blue knights show
Percussion blog, but Field of View is in my circuit. Show looks very colorful and impressive, can't wait to see it!
Atlanta Quest. Percussion Independent World. SAPA circuit. Our show is entitled "VILLAIN" In every story there is a Hero and Villain. For the most part, the Hero is the favorite and rightfully so, they embody what is good, unbending, righteous, and what we all strive to become. But what is the Hero without the Villain?
Sounds great! I saw AQ in Dayton last year and you guys were on fire (pun intended). I'm sure this year will be nothing different, look forward to catching it on Fan Network.
Our show is called Rise, and it's about rising above all of the negative things that could be holding us down in our lives. It's really cool :) We're also using music from Disney's Paperman in our closer!
That sounds really cool! Sounds like Boston from this past DCI season. Best of luck!
What's your indoor show?
The competitive season has already started in many parts of the country, and personally, it's a show week at the high school I teach. So let me know, what's your show and what circuit are you in? Our show is tentatively called "The Classics," and it's a Box-Six percussion show. It borrows from many pieces of classical music like Night on Bald Mountain, Mozart's 40th Symphony, Beethoven's 5th, and even the Nutcracker Suite. The drumline acts as a bunch of unruly students being forced to put on a symphony and play classical music but keep continuing to break out of that and put their own styles and takes on things. Drop me an ask or reply to this post!
How to Learn a Run
Part of being a mallet percussionist is learning how to play fast runs. Mallet players always want to play them, they compliment phrases nicely, and they're flashy. However, when you hand someone a run, they struggle. Being that I just got back from a drum corps weekend where we broke down a lot of runs in the show (including a 4 measure long 16th note run at 155bpm, with inside independents), I'll share some tips that help me out when learning runs! 1. Write in your notes
This is typically something you should take 5-10 minutes doing anyways. Sight-reading music is great, but writing in notes helps you know exactly what notes you're playing. It's hard to tell from far away sometimes, especially with notes above and below the staff, if the note is on the ledger line or off, or if the accidental from the last measure carried over, or just little reminders that it's a Bb, not a B natural. Now, you don't have to write in every note, but you can. I found that writing starting notes, ending notes, turnarounds, and jumps in, and assuming everything else is linear works for me. If a part repeats, like measure 40 above, write in the pattern, and then it changes on beat 4, write in the change. 2. Don't play it No but seriously. If you're playing a run and can't get it, literally put the mallets down and just visualize it. Figure out the shape, use all of those notes we wrote in, turnarounds, accidentals, jumps, figure out where your hands go. going through it with just your fingers or just airing through it can sometimes help you figure out muscle memory. Too often does an instructor say "Okay, go back to C, look through what we just played," and people immediately just start hacking. Literally look through. Sometimes the mental aspect of it factors in a lot. Just knowing the shape of the run helps. 3. Slow it down Naturally, we see a fast run and immediately want to lay into it at show tempo. We tend to learn it wrong, make bad habits and wind up playing wrong notes...not to mention get chopped out quicker. Play it slow. Go through it way under tempo. Try to get through it continuously slowly. Once you get it at a reasonable tempo, throw in a few reps of the actual tempo, see how you're doing. If you can move your hands in the shape of the run, sometimes it happens. Wrong notes here and there but you get close. 4. Break it down There are parts of runs sometimes where you nail a measure, nail a measure, but can't nail both measures. Or you can't hit a turnaround or skip in a measure. Break it into two chunks. 1e+a 2e+a 3, 3e+a 4e+a 1. Play them separately but with rests in between. After that gets comfortable, do them like you did, and then add the run together. 1e+a 2e+a 3, 3e+a 4e+a 1, 1e+a 2e+a 3e+a 4e+a 1, with about a beat of rest in between each phrase. It helps a lot. I actually have my front ensemble play a variation on Green/Krauss scales called Sprints, which is literally that. CDEFGFEDC rest CDEFGFEDC rest CDEFGABCD, and then when you do the final run at the end, CDEFG rest GABCD rest DCBAG rest GFEDC rest, and then the whole run fast up. So it kind of breaks that C-to-high-D run down into it's own thing. Definitely a good technique. Also what can help is doing that, and then adding on the next sixteenth note partial everytime you get comfortable. 1e+a 2, 1e+a 2e, 1e+a 2e+, etc. Helps build continuity. 5. Don't abandon the approach Too often, people will do all of this, do everything right, and then still when they're learning it and they go too fast too quick, they freak out. They tense up and squeeze and lock their wrists and play from the elbow and get no organic rebound and are working for every note. No technique in the WORLD teaches anything completely arm based. Think about your technique, it's there for a reason. Keep loose, keep the right grip in your hand, stroke from the wrist, use your arm as a shock absorber almost. When playing on a keyboard, there's no rebound like a drum, we create our own rebound with our stroke. So in order to do that, you have to have that piston stroke and bring it back up and let your arm breathe and let the mallet bounce up. Also all too often, people think FAST RUNS = NO FINGERS, PUMP PUMP PUMP. Not entirely true. You should make sure you have your clear fulcrum on the mallet and your back fingers around the stick. There can be breathing room cause you're not squeezing, but keep your fingers on the stick and let that shock absorbing bounce happen but control it. If you do all 5 of these things, I can almost guarantee you'll be able to play any run. Note: most of the things I just said are mental. Obviously chops are a big part, but if you make chops the only variable in the equation and do all of the other work, you will be fine. Coming soon: How to Play Chords Easier Than You Think!
Carolina Crown 2008 Finis
This is one of my absolute favorite shows of all time. Doing this after Triple Crown really cemented Crown's legitimacy and set them up for their first 2nd place finish in 2009. What's your favorite part of this show?
Hey!
I made this blog in a rush of creativity and inspiration (during a snow day) but then I had a 9-5 day of work where Tumblr is blocked on the network, 5:30-9 rehearsal, coming home to do laundry, another 9-5 day and now heading off to drum corps for the weekend. Needless to say, I don't have much time to come up with content. However! Once life slows down a little, I will definitely make a bunch of posts and get this blog up and running. Send me an ask or submission on what you'd like me to do for my first posts!!
