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.

If your instructor is worth his weight he doesn't need to be around you during concert season. Ask any of the older guys on here and I'm sure they will say the same thing. A well seasoned instructor can generally gauge abilites rather quickly.



If you're as good as you say you are and your band director realizes that then he should be able to override any decisions made by the instructor.



That's disturbing. Just because he's "the man" doesn't mean he should cease from trying to improve. You can always find something to improve upon.

So, here's what I've drawn from my conclusions...it's only April and you've got two snares who sound like one, a tenor player who is "the man" and a couple of bass drummers who sound pretty good. What you really need now is an instructor who is going to give you an unbiased opinion. I went to my first drum corps audition when I was 15. I thought I was the hottest thing that ever picked up a set of tenors. On that fateful Saturday afternoon I proceeded to have my butt handed to me on a platter. Dennis Delucia told me I needed to work much harder while Bob Dubinski said the same thing but in a much more graphic, vulgar, and embarassing manner. Moral of the story is this...sometimes we, as players, aren't as good as we think we are and it helps to have a seasoned professional bring us back to earth. Get an instructor and learn from him/her.

That's really not what I meant. He's been with us from the beginning (he's a Junior.)

Theres no one else on the line who can play quads like him so he has no worry to getting his quads next year.

And I'm not trying to toot my own horn, trust me, but I am without a doubt the best snare on the line right now. If there were actual auditions, then I would have a snare over the other guy so easily it's not funny. But we don't have actual auditions.
If the drum instructor thinks you should have a drum than you get one.

This is part of the problem. Last year he let this chick have a bass who had absolutely no drum playing experience or marching experience. And she was bad. She was on the line this year too. She improved, yes, but she never should have had a drum in the first place.

I'm not the best high school snare in the county. But more than likely in the school. And you probably think that I just have a huge ego for saying that, but in all reality it's actually the truths lol.

this guy has a really good point. No one is as good as they can possibly be so your quad should practice just as much as anyone else and then some. everyone has room for improvement. my instructor says this to us all the time. i bet you even the more well known drummers such has Tim Jackson still practice tryin to improve in any area they can. so practice practice practice.

Read my last post.
Also this is hardly the issue.

haha lol my bad dude didn't see ur post there

It's np.

yea dude now that i read that post i totally understand what u mean by "he's the man"..my section leader is also a junior currently and is about to be a senior..which this'll be my 3'rd year under his command if u will...so basically he's "the man" of my line cuz u can't count on him to have his part down to the T by time band camp comes around..totally got ya man

What is it with Tenor players and always being the best?
Like I said I'm the best snare drummer, but he can do things on Quads I've never seen before (in person.)

what do you mean by

Haha it's the same thing with a lot of lines.
The Tenor players are always the strongest and the baddest.

ah i got ya..one of our snare players ...he played quads my rookie year..he's a lot like the guy u describe..so yea i got ya

I just want to say, reading this seriously made me do a double take. Never should have had a drum? If somebody has the potential and drive to improve themselves from knowing nothing at all about drumming, that's something that definitely earns my respect.

I wouldn't view your directors' choices so shallowly, there's a lot more to creating a line than who starts out with the most skill. Were it me, I'd rather have a motivated beginner on the bass line over a cocky and experienced slacker any day. There could also be any number of other things at play in determining who plays what other than pure initial skill.

Not to mention, high school band as a whole is supposed to be a learning experience. The competitions are important as motivation and recognition but the point is to spread the myriad gifts of music and life lessons taught by band. The policy at our school is that if you're willing to put in the time to go the huge extra mile and learn a new instrument, you'll be embraced for that. It's not guaranteed that you'll get what you want just by asking, but it means something to have a goal and pursue it ardently. This concert season I've been helping out underclassmen who want to switch over to drumline this year with the basics, and the ones who have seriously put in time and effort aren't shabby, they stand a good chance of making the line not simply because of skill they've worked up but because they're showing a potential to grow and a willingness to devote themselves towards furthering that growth.

No I totally get where your coming from, but I meant that shouldn't you start off with some kind of skill? She could have played pit, or cymbals, but bass?

She's the reason the line never got to anything real fancy, because he had to work around her. She's definitely a cool person and everything, but this year she still wasn't good enough to do much. We helped her a lot, even referred her to Vic Firth, but by the end of this season she could still not read music, do bass splits, or much more than just simple rhythms. The judges at competitions had a knack for saying how boring our bassline was. And that's because our instructor had to write AROUND her.

reminds me of one of the dude on our line...i mean he's like guaranteed pit...absolutely no talent on the drum...but unlike ur chick on bass he's not willing to listen to us and learn..never practices or anything so unless he takes a strange curb he has little potential

It sounds like you are pretty convinced you do not need an instructor, since your quad player does not need any work, your snares sound as one, and based on your signature your are already guaranteed a snare spot for 2009.

You can't teach someone who already knows everything so...enjoy!