Do you think that a drum instructor is absolutely necessary?
Couldn't a self-motivated line learn and succeed without the need for an instructor?

Because our instructor has been with us for 8 years, but the thing is that he graduated from our school 8 years ago.

I don't feel like he has that much experience, and he's always a corrupt douche to everyone. If your nice to him, and you frown at him with sad puppy dog eyes than you'll get a drum.

Theres a chance he might be leaving next year and we might not be able to a new one before drum camp.

So...again the question is couldn't a self-motivated line learn and succeed without the need for an instructor?

I've never seen a line function at anything more than a basic recreational level (read: sloppy) without an instructor.

Ever stood in front of a line? It's definitely a different experience than standing in the line. You can see and hear things from in front that you'd never notice from the player's perspective. A competent instructor will make good use of that vantage point, finding and correcting flaws and errors that the players might not even be aware of.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. What about individual instruction? Arranging, rearranging, and watering? Acting as the voice of authority? (Don't try to tell me all your peers would always listen to a student captain.) Dealing with the teen angst and drama that high schoolers inflict on those around them? I could go on, but hopefully you get the point.

You may be unlucky enough to have an ineffective instructor (to put it nicely). But believe it or not, even the worst instructors I've seen are typically better than no instructor at all. I've seen plenty of lines with bad instructors that look and sound halfway decent, but I've never seen a line without an instructor that isn't a total bag of... (And for those of you on these forums whose line doesn't have an instructor, please don't bother responding. I probably *do* mean your line. Either you agree or you're in denial, or maybe you just don't know any better.)

If your current instructor is leaving, instead of trying to go it on your own, you might consider taking the opportunity to put out feelers for a replacement. I don't know where in Florida you are, but there are a whole lot of competitive programs in the state. There's a pretty good chance the staff at a nearby school or college knows someone who'd be willing to help, whether they're an aspiring instructor or just someone with experience who's willing to volunteer their time.

A drumline should have an instructor, even if its not for the whole season and just for part of the season, a line without an instructor is basically a lost path..unless your band director gives your section A LOT of 1 on 1 time, but thats usually a very rare thing.

You COULD go without an instructor for a season, as long as your parts are at a basic kind of level and cleaning the parts up for competitions/games/etc are pretty easy.

If you fear your not going to have one before band camp than just try and go with the flow up to band camp, use your, and encourage others on your line, to use their common sense and percussionist (not drummer) knowledge to learn their parts. If your director gets an instructor after band camp than your line should be prepared to be drilled hard, because sloppy habits can easily be formed throughout band camp and he (or she) might need to fix that.

The idea behind an instructor is that they have enough percussionist knowledge to instruct the line on learning their parts and teaching them how to play it as clean as they can. The instructor takes on a leadership position to instruct the line as they could be considered an external part of the marching band because it is the one of the 3 sections of the marching band (not including auxiliaries) that is usually more independent. You cant rely solely on a drum captain to know exactly what your doing wrong, your going to need "eyes in the stands" thats focusing on your line (or section if you include the pit) 100% of the time.

That deserves a quote.

Alright guys I get the idea.
Drum Instructors are, of course preferred, but they complicate a lot of things that don't need to be complicated.

I'm not talking about playing-wise. I mean...whats the line between a Band Directors decision and a Drum Instructors decision?

f***ing snugglebunny.

I disagree. Speaking for myself, as an instructor, I give the students the direction and detail they need to do their jobs well. If there's any complication, I assure you it's necessary.

I dont think they complicate things, even though it may seem that way. What might seem to be complicating things just might be another way to fix bad habits or petty mistakes that people aren't used to.

Our line had no instructor this year, we functioned as a family and we all added suggestions as to what we thought was necessary to get the job done.

That said, we weren't all that great compared to the other lines around us and more importantly, we weren't as good as we wanted to be at the end of the season. I think we functioned to the best of our ability and put out a quality product at the end of the year, but having an instructor that knew what they were talking about would have made us many times better.

All of us were running on high school band experience. We had two seniors, 4 sophomores (1 never marched), and a fish. That's not much experience at all. A drum instructor can see and hear everything from a better perspective and has the experience and wisdom to see a problem and know how to deal with it effectively.

From my personal experience a line with no instructor can function just fine, and end up just fine. But a line with an instructor has way more potential and is much more likely to fulfill that potential by the end of a season.

Like I said, I didn't mean complicate things playing wise.
I'm talking about like for example:
Getting drums.

Our drum instructor wasn't around during concert season, and I'm just a freshman, so how could he observe me and sum up my abilities for next year? So he says he only wants one snare because "no one else can play snare."

Now my band director loves me and knows that I'm amazing, but I hear from one person that the Band Director decides what I play next year, and another person says that that's the Drum Instructors responsibility.

It's just so complicated and it doesn't need to be. I'm good. I'm willing to get better. I want to play snare. That's all it should be, isn't it?

Our line functions like a family, and for the past few months we've been writing our own cadences, practicing, and we sound awesome. Me and the other guy seriously sound like one snare. Our quad player is the man so he doesn't need any extra work. So far we only have 1-2 basses for next year practicing with us, but they sound pretty good too.

much like this guy said our line hasn't really had a steady instructor. my rookie year we had an instructor which was a dude who had literally just graduated from our school. and he's pretty freakin good ,and knows enough to instruct the line. no complaint there

however now he's off to college and such so this past year we had no instructor. We functioned as a family as the dude i quoted said.so our line didn't function nearly as well as it did my rookie year, but it did function well enough to get 1's at competitions etc.

this upcoming year we are goin to have an instructor that just got here for concert season like the dude who started this topic. and already i see improvement within our line including myself. so i agree a line can function decently enough with out an instructor but its full potential can be brought out and possibly raised, with one.