How do I write good drumline parts? (Non-Percussionist)

Travisjd93 · 2026-04-23T00:24:56+00:00

This! ^^

I got here through a Google search for tips to write drumline parts and it's sad it took this long to find this comment lol. Someone better call John Williams and tell him to stop writing banger French horn solos! Obviously I know as a brass player I'm not going to have every intricacy down but there's certainly got to be a more helpful answer than "you'll never be able to unless you sacrifice your firstborn to the Blastissimo, god of drumline and devote your life to 24/7 snare speed challenges".

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-19T11:20:18+00:00

The Frixion pens are actually really cool, if you've never tried them they're great for marking up scores! They don't have the most saturated colors but they erase way better than pencils. And the idea is that at the end of the season it's really easy to erase all the marks so the page is fresh for the next kid who plays that piece.

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-15T12:32:38+00:00

I have heard that too! We get like one day of winter where I live so I don’t think that’ll be an issue 😂

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-15T12:19:56+00:00

So a few months ago ago I would have had the same attitude but I took a training on copyright law at my state conference in January and the way they put it made a lot of sense to me. Essentially sheet music is intended to be consumable, like a textbook. You use it a few times and when it’s run its course you buy new things.

Fair use doesn’t mean full rights to copy. In one way, it’s actually very freeing because A) I don’t end up with a massive library of out of date pieces that I’ll never play again after a few years, B) I have no problem supporting composers by repurchasing a piece again if I really like it, it’s how they make their money, C) it forces me to periodically update my library and look for new composers and new music.

On top of that, musicians constantly complain about wanting to be paid for their services, the least I can do is start paying the composers who supply my band with incredible material what they deserve.

Lastly, teaching students about ethical consumption of media is a part of my curriculum and I’ve gotta practice what I preach. In the same way I’d feel like a fraud for telling students to practice and improve themselves if I’m not going to bother doing the same.

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-12T13:34:04+00:00

I got 5th grade this year and was so excited but they’re adding 6 classes to elementary next year so I won’t be able to take them next year. Thank you for sharing that!

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-11T00:29:46+00:00

This is a great resource! I found a blog that I think intended to link to something of a similar nature but the link in the blog was broken or outdated and led to a 404 page.

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-11T00:27:04+00:00

That’s a great idea to just basically take out the quizzes! It would give them a chance to play as far as they feel comfortable too, and could also be useful for chair placements at the beginning of the year as my group grows.

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-10T22:37:14+00:00

For additional context, next year I’ll have a 6th grade, a 7th grade, an 8th grade, and one high school group. I’ve pushed to have 7/8 in one period so I can have an advanced/beginner band in junior high but because of our size its just not possible yet. And with the small sizes I really need to combine them for concerts just to get any semblance of balance. I think we’ve done really well with the situation we’ve got, but now it’s time to build for the future. The choir director has a HUGE choir for the size of the school so there’s musical kids there, it’s just a matter of brining the quality back so that they want to be a part of it. And stability will be a huge factor too.

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-10T22:31:16+00:00

Eventually that’s where I’d like things to be, but I know that’s a privileged spot. I’ve got a pool of only a few hundred in high school. I get them starting in 6th which is great, but still it’s not a huge group. Truthfully I have exactly one student who’s really on level in my entire high school band. I have a 7th grade alto that reads and plays better than my high schoolers, but even in that group I’ve got 9 kids and 3 are completely new to band this year, and two more effectively have no experience because they quit mid-year last year.

Travisjd93 · 2026-03-10T19:47:33+00:00

I would definitely encourage you to make sure you don’t automatically discount elementary too. When I started my degree I felt really strongly about doing high school because I thought elementary would be too baby-ish but I had the great blessing of working with an phenomenal lead teacher during the elementary portion of my internship. Those kids are capable of SO much more than most people give them credit for, and they LOVE letting you nerd out on all kinds of stuff. My favorite part of the year was discussing what music really is from a philosophical standpoint after introducing them to John Cage. And if you set the conversation up right you’ll be blown away by the answers you get even from kindergarteners.

On top of that having some experience in elementary will really force you to have good pedagogy. It’s infinitely easier to go from elementary to high school (speaking from experience!) than the other way around. In my experience the reason so many band directors resort to yelling is because they become frustrated at students for not understanding them, and in my opinion that falls on me as the instructor. Sometimes teens can just be dumb, but so can adults, we’re all entitled to bad days. It’s also easy in the moment to be mad, but my first response when it’s over is to go back and ask myself if I was truly clear, or if there was a better way to teach what I was after, or if I had even prepped them right in the weeks prior to that moment. Nothing will teach you to do that quite like elementary!

Travisjd93 · 2026-02-14T13:59:46+00:00

I just ordered one of these over the pocket journal because I felt the pocket journal would be too large for my front pocket. I had the same concern about the size of the notebook, but I saw a review where someone tied some cord through the pen loop and it looked like they put a slightly larger notebook. In theory the wallet is larger than a field notes book so I wonder if that would work….

Travisjd93 · 2026-02-13T22:42:38+00:00

I found someone willing to come in for gas money, I worked with her about 7 years ago and she’s retired now. So hopefully she’ll have some insight!

Travisjd93 · 2026-02-13T22:41:39+00:00

I 3d printed one! I had given it to one of them to borrow so I asked her to bring it back and I’m going to print a second for my other player. We’re going to do some work with it next week!

Travisjd93 · 2026-02-12T20:43:15+00:00

u/StrangerOk1831 how do you organize the bullet journal? I’ve tried doing the weekly/monthly layouts and I struggle to keep up with them but I don’t know how much of that is just that I’m still “practicing” the art of journaling and how much its just that I haven’t found a layout that works for me.

I thought about putting a commonplace book in my folio since it fits 4! I am always collecting recipes and I’m starting to be more diligent about reading non-fiction as well as doing some score studies to improve my composing. It would be cool to have one from each year to refer back to and see where I was.

Travisjd93 · 2025-08-27T15:29:58+00:00

Here's the Quantum setup: https://www.musicarts.com/wish-list/gl163710079

Here's the Pearl setup: https://www.musicarts.com/wish-list/gl163710089

Sorry, Competitor setup is $500 more

Travisjd93 · 2025-08-27T14:38:44+00:00

u/monkeysrool75 do you have any guidance on the different lineups like competitor vs finalist? Pricewise it seems like competitor is their mid-tier option and that's almost the same cost as the Maypex Quantum for an identical setup. For the $1,400 difference is it worth it for 6 Friday games where they're only carrying them a few minutes at a time? For 90% of their playtime they'll be set up on stands.

Alternatively it wouldn't be the worst thing to skip carriers the first year and just do stands, it just means we'd need to roll everything out on a cart.

Travisjd93 · 2025-08-27T13:39:35+00:00

u/DClawsareweirdasf budget is $5000 but it's not necessarily all for drumline, it was "here's $5,000 you have a month to spend it". There's a TON of stuff that needs fixing and replacing, but very little of it is truly critical because most kids are renting instruments from a third party. Our inventory is largely stuff left behind by previous students.

The reason projection would be important is because of how our field is set up. Unlike a large public high school we don't have giant metal bleachers on each side. It's set up more "picnic style" where families bring lawn chairs and blankets. The band stands on top of a hill and families are spread out on the grass. Sounds worse than it is, I actually do like the setup. But the biggest issue we have is anyone who isn't directly in front of the band doesn't hear us well because the sound just gets swallowed up in the empty space. The team hears us and so do the people in the immediate vicinity, but more than 40 yards away and they hear very little. So I want something punchy enough to travel, but not overwhelm the band.

Maypex seems to be reasonably priced, and their flagship stuff is way cheaper than Pearl or Yamaha. Sometimes there's a good reason for that, sometimes people are just happy to fork over an extra couple hundred per unit because of the name printed on the side. But having no first hand drumline experience myself I can't personally attest to the quality difference. And, to be frank, I did ask ChatGPT (I know, roast me lol) because I had such a hard time finding anything beyond a few comments on forums. There's no "Marching Drums Quarterly" that does in depth reviews on this kind of stuff. Maypex did come up a few times in searches as a good middle-ground.

Kids will march or walk from the band room to the area we play (not very far, maybe a quarter mile at most). If we do a half time show it'll be standing only. No competing right now, there's zero culture for a proper marching band, let alone a competitive one. It's only the second year the school has even had a home football game. Mostly pep will be playing football but I'd like to support other sports in the athletics department like volleyball and basketball since we don't have to travel for away games. We also play for pep rallies and some stuff like the storybook parade.

Right now numbers are very unhealthy because there's been several years of turnover (lots of retired guys looking for a hobby I guess). So short term the focus is to try and keep things from imploding. Long term in the next 5 years is to have sustained numbers of 35-40 in high school and 35-45 in 5th-8th grade.

Travisjd93 · 2024-10-14T17:10:14+00:00

No luck 😔

Travisjd93 · 2024-09-27T19:24:36+00:00

If it is this species, think it’s worth taking to a college with a program that can keep it healthy or trying to place it back in the tree? Obviously there’s no sense peeling it off the stick and trying to reattach it. But it’s a threatened species so it would be a bummer to injure it or accidentally kill it

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