Drumlines

The history of rudimental drumming begins with the inventors of the coolest army knife known to mankind, the Swiss. Round about 1386 the Swiss troops at the Battle of Sempach used fifes and drums to signal troops in battle. The Swiss used this type of signaling more and more as time went on. Since Swiss troops were deployed throughout Western Europe as mercenaries, their signals were quickly adopted by the locals and thus spread the drums and fifes signaling system throughout Europe.

The first rudimental publication came in 1588. The tile of this work, Orchesographie. There were two rudiments in this publication: the Swiss Stroke and the Swiss Storm Stroke. The two strokes were shown in a number of combinations, but the author failed to indicate which hand was to play each stroke.

What is a drumline?

A drumline is the group of students in the marching band that play percussion instruments. Some students march with their instruments, in the battery, and some play stationary instruments on the front sideline, called the pit. Together these two sections keep the tempo and provide a rhythm section for the rest of the marching band.

What is the pit?

There are the two groups that make up the drumline - the pit and the battery. The pit is the front sideline section of the band that does not march. It gets its name from orchestra pits, where symphony musicians are seated beneath a stage during musicals, ballets, or operas. The pit includes a keyboard section, with wooden instruments like xylophones and marimbas, and metal instruments like vibraphones, bells and chimes, and an auxiliary section, comprised of timpani (large kettle drums), hand drums like bongos and congas, and various smaller percussion instruments like cymbals, triangles, tambourines, and shakers.

What is the battery?

The battery is the marching section of the drumline. They are on the field with the rest of the band during a performance and they wear or carry their instruments. The battery is comprised of four sections: snares, tenors, basses, and crash cymbals. Snares are a single drum with metal springs, or "snares", stretched across the bottom of the drum that vibrate when the drum is hit. Tenors (commonly called quads) have 4 to 6 horizontally-connected, shallow drums. A bass drum is a single drum worn on the chest and played vertically, with one arm on each side. Usually in a marching band there are several bass drums, ranging from small, higher-pitched ones to bigger, lower-pitched drums. The marching cymbal players carry crash cymbals, primarily to be crashed but occasionally to be held flat and played like a suspended cymbal by another drummer, or to be used for visual effects.

Where can I get more information about high school drumlines?

There are many resources for general high school drumline information. You can check out MarchingArts.com for all sorts of info on marching bands and drumlines. There are also many magazines available for high school drummers like Focus, published by WGI, and the Bands of America Newsletter which has information about marching bands competing across the U.S. There are so many websites available for drummers - to find one just use a search engine like Yahoo! or Google and search for "drumline" or "percussion". You'll come up with tons of great info.

What are drum corps?

Drum corps, or drum & bugle corps, (we drummers tend to leave out the "bugle" part) is like high school marching band in that there's a battery, pit, color guard, and a horn line (but no woodwinds) performing a marching program in competition. And just like marching band, there are different divisions of drum corps depending on the number of members. You can join a drum corps as young as 14, and age-out at 22, meaning you cannot join or remain in a drum corps if you will turn 23 at any time during the active season. Drum & bugle corps are usually not affiliated with any institution, but most are affiliated with and based in certain cities, as in the Madison Scouts or the Seattle Crusaders. Performers must audition for drum corps. Once they're officially part of the corps, they practice on weekends through the winter, and then begin a spring & summer tour when they compete against other drum corps through mid-August. The biggest organization of drum & bugle corps is Drum Corps International, or DCI. You can find out more about them at www.dci.org.

Where can I find more information about drum corps?

The best place to start is DCI's website, as mentioned above. You can find out about the organization, the competitions, the corps involved, the history of drum & bugle corps, and much more at their website. They also have an email mailing list called DCI Now, which notifies subscribers of drum corps news, events, scores, and other info. To find out about a specific drum corps, simply use a search engine to look up their website. Most drum corps have very in depth and informative websites.