Personally, I don't have a real opinion when it comes to the amount of basses in a drum line. My high school has a big drum line with 8 snares, 4 tenors, 7 basses, and 8 cymbals. I was just wondering if you think that 7 basses in a bass line it too much for a drum line? And also how many basses your drum line has and how many basses you think should be on a drum line.

Well thats about average size for a world class line as far as snares and tenors goes so I would stick with the standard 5 set bassline. The bass runs wouldnt be as interesting as they would be with 5 anyway because its harder to write runs for more than 5 basses.

Just real quick... what exactly is a bass run? are there snare runs or tenor runs too?


5 basses are very popular because the phrasing can eaisly fit into 4/4 music. thats all. if it were a stand still bass ensemble, id really want upwards of 12, as you could then, concievably, play any melody you could think of.
Having five basses is by no means of a requirement to have interesting music. its all in the writing, and if whoever is wrting cant handle that, you need a new writer. not to mention, if you have 7 you also have 5.
if you want 7, by all means have 7. it wont overbalance the rest of the drumline unless your players beleive that p-ff if about 15"-29"

when I set a line.I set the basses based on the ability of the players. if there are five people that deserve it, i take five, if there are 9 i take nine (assuming that the other sections are filled out as well)

My personal preference is 5. Five drums provide enough distinct voices to create musical movement in the bass voice, while still being few enough to ensure that each player will have enough notes to keep the parts engaging.

A good number for a bassline is 5. . .


And I would never take 9 bass drummers if they were all good enough. . . Whats the need for 9 anyways? A melodic statement? So should the tenors get 9 drums then too so they can have melodic statements?

In my opinion I think you can get melodic statements out of 5 bass drums. . If you NEED more than 6 (at the most) because you can't create a melodic statement then I honestly thing the writing style of the person who says they need more bass drums needs to be checked out.


So yah thats just one of my few opinions on a bassline bigger than 5 (6 at the most. . but i would rather stick with 5) I hope I didn't offend anybody, that's not my plans here. Just my opinions on the topic.

I think that five is a good number. Like the others I'm not saying that seven is bad, but I personally like five. We have five basses on our line and they provide more than enough sound to our band. But then again, if you really have that many people that there is a need for so many, then you must do what you have to. I've seen a number of college lines that have more than five basses. It's really just personal opinion and if you can write for them.

world class lines 5
high school lines 4
college lines 6

At one time I played bass number 6 out of 7. You can't really make a "seven is too many" blanket statement without a little more information. PSU's band has almost 300 members, so 7 bass drums is no big deal, but I'm guessing there aren't many high schools with bands that big. As far as making melodic statements and "more than 5 being harder to write for," we had a lot of parts where basses 1-4 were playing more melodic run type stuff and 5-7 played a more rhythmic role. So rather than opening up more melodic possibilities, having more than 5 basses just lets you get more creative in ways you might not even think about with 4 or 5 bass drums.