My school just ordered 3 sets of Yamaha tenors, which is awesome. The problem is, I've never played tenors. All I really know about them is what I've seen my old instructors and drum corps play.

Based on what others have told me, we should use the vega tenor stick and Remo smooth white ambassador heads. Are these wise choices?

Not necessarily.

If you're going to be using "big block" tenors (sized 10-12-13-14), the Vegas are a really comfortable implement. They're not the only good choice out there, but they're a common favorite. If you're using a smaller set of drums (8-10-12-13), I think you'll find the Vegas and most other snare-length sticks too long. The 'airspace' over a small block set of tenors is a few inches smaller from side to side and a long stick can make it awkward to get around the drum, particularly when crossing over.

If you've got small block tenors, mallets may be the way to go. (The Vic Firth MT1A-S are my favorites, by far.) Not only are they shorter, making it a little easier to get around the drums, the rounded head takes a little bit of the excess brightness off the sound. If you want the sound of a stick, I find the Vater MV11 snare stick works well for getting around small block drums.

Moving on to heads, Smooth White Ambassadors are great heads... for a bass drum. Being thin single-ply heads, they'd get eaten alive on tenors, though. (They're not marketed as marching tenor heads for good reason.) You most likely meant Smooth White Emperors, which are decent and durable, but wouldn't be my first choice for the four main drums. They make an excellent spock head, though. They take high tension really well.

There are actually a few good head options out there, depending on what size drums you have and what sound you're looking for. If I had to blindly recommend a head to someone, I think I'd lean toward the Remo Renaissance Emperor. It's articulate, but still has a lot of warmth to its sound. It's very tonal, so you'll have to pay close attention to tuning. (When I marched 'em in drum corps, it seemed like we were tuning every meal break.) If you don't make sure each head is balanced and in tune with the other guys in the line, you'll get a nasty dissonance. But when those things are in tune, they sing.

Other good options include the Remo Suede Emperors, Evans MX Frost, Evans MX White, and the good ol' Remo Pinstripe. New Yamaha tenors come stock with Pinstripes, so you might as well try 'em out before moving on to something else.

Speaking of the Pinstripe... It's a good head, but I kinda got tired of dealing with air pockets in new Pinstripe heads. (It's an occasional defect -- you can search these forums for more info.) It's easily fixed by poking a small hole in the bottom ply with a needle to let the air escape, but I got annoyed when it started to seem like every set of tenor heads came with at least one that needed to be 'pinned'.

True looks like we found out why they're called pinstripes :P. But, I thought the pinstripes that came with Yamaha were the 'duds' that Remo made?

No, they're regular Pinstripe heads. The only difference is that they've got a Yamaha logo instead of the Remo crown logo.

Yamaha is the only one of the "big 3" manufacturers that ships all their higher-end marching drums with decent heads: White Max on snares, Pinstripe on tenors, Smooth White Ambassador on bass. Dynasty ships all their drums with their own Mylar heads. Pearl uses their own mylar heads on snares & tenors, but I think they might use Smooth White Ambassador bass heads.

What does Yamaha put on the bottom of their snare heads?

Correcting my earlier post, Yamaha actually ships a Falam II top head on their SFZ & MTS snares. Their stock bottom is a clear Remo Ambassador marching snare side head.

About the tenors, I would prefer, Evans MX Frosted over any remo head. and as far as sticks, on large sets, sticks like the vegas are excellent, but I would actually use MT4A's for their durability and rebound. On Small block you should use MT1's.

we use mx frosted and i love em now we use the black mx heads which are also good

As skydogg said, the good 'ol pinstripes

Douple ply, pretty durable, and their like the classic tenor head, Their easy to tune, they dont lose tune very fast, and their just reliable, The airpocket that was mentioned, Ive had a good, 10 pinstripes come my way, (drumset and tenors) and Ive yet to find one with that malfunction, but ive heard from many people it is a fairly common problem

And, You really cant go wrong with the vic firth Mt1A-S or even the Mt1A period, They will work on big OR small block tenors, unless you like the feel of wood over the mallet grip, (and if you have big blocks, I would stay shy of vegas if your using the small block 8,10,12,13 set up) but also remember, wood breaks A LOT more often then metal mallets do

for Yamaha drums... good choice on the heads but my line uses Vic-Firth but all in all its your choice