Hey so I was in the pit last year and it was fun and all then this year I made third bass so i'm pretty excited to be on the line but I was just wondering how hard bass music is to memorize with all the splits and everything. If someone could help me out that would be great

Haha thats funny im in that same situation. I was in pit but im going to 5th bass. But yeah all I have been doing is borrowing music from last season and practising with that.

Hey man, memorizing bass music is just as easy as memorizing pit stuff. Memorization comes from repetition and you'll most likely be practicing your part within the line a lot. Some tips: don't listen to the other bass parts for your parts, if you "wait" to play your part you'll always be late. If your part is on the & of 2, then play it on the & of 2...DON'T listen to their parts! Practice playing the whole bass part as if it was a snare part to help you "get it". Now, once you do get everything down and memorized without sheet music, that's when the learning stage is done with and then you blend within the bass line. What could be a 12' inch hit for a top bass drummer could be a 6' hit for bass three, even if you have the same dynamic marking - THIS is when you listen to the bass parts.

Just a quick thing to know... "LEARN YOUR MUSIC!!!" For some reason every line i've been one "EVERY SINGLE ONE!" has had a bass line that diddn't ever fully learn there music. i think it might be beacuse everyone on the bass section has a different part and such. Even in winter line when i played top bass there was one very small part that i sortof had to make up. and we diddn't work as hard as we sould of (some basses knew less than me. ) But i'm going to try and get the line this season to learn there music

Colin said it all. Very well said dude.

Only thing I'll add is, if you have a music writing program, such as finale for example, write your music out, play it back while playing along.

Every bassline I have taught, whether High School, Indoor(except maybe this past winter) or Drum Corps has had their parts written out with mp3s in different tempos. Show music could be memorized in as little as a couple of days.

Thanks for all the great advice I'll let you know at the end of the season how I did.

hey i did that for 2years now and once you learn it you wont ever forget it

Where can you buy those programs like finale and about how much are they

If possible try and get a recording of your show in a cd from your BD and play your part to that..the best ways with repetition is to see where your part fits in to the music.

@ Jc323, the main 2 programs people use are Finale and Sibelius, their music notation programs, if you want to find out more I'd suggest going to their websites (type their names in google) and read about them, but be forwarned that the programs can run a high price ($400-$600) usually.

One thing that helped me memorize music was to get a feeling what the arranger was looking to do with the bass part, how it fit with the music. If you can get that feel you can end up memorizing the entire bass part, and your part just comes naturally. or don't even pay attention to what the other parts play and pretend it is a simple snare piece and memorize it that way.

its not too bad to memorize in a way you have to memorize the whole thing and just remember where you play. but its fun and its a team effort to play in a bass line

I know how you feel. I was in the same situation. It is the same as memorizing pit music. Actually it is slightly easier(but memorizing drill with it makes marching overall more difficult)because you don't have as much to memorize. The best thing to do is just make sure you are mentally prepared and know your rudiments...practice playing open!!