Suggestions for the Battery
Certain ideas can help open doors to major accomplishments and should also help make things easier. These are some quick tips for both battery drill and battery composition alike.
Suggestions for Battery Drill:
- The center snare establishes tempo with his feet which the drum major will follow. This is because the slow speed of sound will inhibit the inverse of that. If the snare line is not playing the tenor or bass line will take responsibility for tempo. This is why only the center snare needs to watch and communicate with the drum major while the rest of the drum line will just listen in. This allows less room for error, rather than twenty people interpreting the conducting pattern from over fifty yards away.
- Subdivisions on the field should come from the centers alone on short rests. Long rests (two measures or more) the entire battery can subdivide a single measure before entering. This allows the center to establish the correct tempo and the others to line up mentally before playing together.
- Listening situations dramatically depend on facing. Have your members put their shoulders into the form to allow them to listen in on curved and angled sets.
- Battery members don't have to always be connected the same way. They also don't have to be connected at all. Simply having your drum line moving back and forth in the same line is not interesting and there are points to be had by becoming creative.
- Be careful when having your drum line 'follow the leader' around a form. Their listening situations will change with every single step of that move.
Suggestions for Battery Composition:
- When the snares or tenors play a rimshot don't just have the bass drums clicking their rims. Rimshots are usually accented, compliment that volume with a full bass unison sound.
- When writing for tenor don't force them to play on a drum to the left while leading with the right (and vice-versa). This is called a shift and it will severely impede their momentum.
- Don't use the snare line as a default. Writing for the snare and adding tenor and bass afterward disallows potential variety.
- Tenor features don't have to have sweeps.
- Choose tenor sticks or mallets carefully because certain ones will sound great for experienced players but will lose all quality on inexperienced players.
- Leave enough time for stick changes. It takes young musicians about twelve beats at least to change sticks. Also, if you decide to change implements mid-season be ready to cut out enough music to allow the stick change in unison.
- Plan on using a bass drummer in the snare line next season? Have him play a few snare phrases on his bass in the music.
- Tenor phrases don't have to end on the 14" drum. This becomes predictable and bland.
- Entrances don't have to be made on beat one. They also don't have to be on the beat at all. More interesting phrasing will occur when entering across the entire measure.
- When writing a rallentando or ritardando press rolls do not go at the end.
- Snare and tenor lines don't have to play the exact same thing. Similar things with variance are more interesting than verbatim parts. This goes for bass lines too.
| © 2011 Patrick R. F. Blakley | patrickrfblakley.com |  |