I made it! I'm happy Do you guys think I should play snare at all next year, should I practice traditional. I really wanna play it especially if we get those drums.

I made it as well! Me and the center snare also are the two candidates for section leader. They usually assign it right away, but with a new instructor they want to see who steps up and takes charge.

My school doesn't have tryouts.

yay for me.

but really the only way to be better than the guy next to you is to practice. 30 min a day could be the difference in wether or not you make it.

I usually practice 30 mins a day or an hour and 30 mins a day

well as long as we're on the subj congrats to u..and normally we don't hold tryouts like the dude above said..normally u have to practice and prove you're the better choice..but this year we did have tryouts..but it went basically teh same way as always..and i made tenors so go me

I usually think its funny how all the good players practice for maybe an hour tops (on the tryout material) and then practice other stuff instead and will make it...Then you see the freshman and sophomores who never practice and expect to develop the chops within a week or two to play the tryout piece. They end up in a practicing fury (which is debatedly good or not) and still don't make it and don't understand why. They don't seem to understand that it takes practice year round to get the spot they want. [/rant]

Back on topic, in our drumline it is usually pretty clear who is going to get what spot. Our BD would never kick someone off an instrument they're already on. I could easily predict who is moving to what spot, our tryouts are more a chance to gauge who is better than who etc...

@ Joe, Congratulations on making a spot on the tenor line!
If you really wanna play snare next year (and your line uses traditional) than i'd say practice traditional as much as you can..I myself am absolutely horrid at traditional but I mainly use matched, hence why I could never make a corps/college drumline on snare unless I started learning traditional.
If you want a greater chance of making a corps on 1 instrument, would be to stay on that one instrument and exponantially grow your knowledge and playing ability on that, thats the best way, but if you want to play snare (also very fun, im sure) than go for it, you will have a sufficient amount of knowledge on 2 instruments than.

It's never a bad thing to be versatile. It's good to be able to play a wide range of percussion instruments (including timp, marimba, tambourine etc...). Just like it's a good thing to be able to play multiple instruments in general when applying to a music college. I would say even if ur are going to stay on quints, learn trad. Im terrible at trad but i am still trying to learn it.

ok, i useed to be really good at it then i stopped because i didn't practice enough so i didn't practice it and kinda forget muscle wise lol

then it should be fairly easy to bring it back...its always easier learning something the second time, especially concerning muscular memory