For some reason the people at my school dont see cymbals as a marching instrument?! when were in the stands they just have the pit players play cymbals? How can i explain to them that cymbals are more than accessory precussion or just a concert band instrument, but that cymbals should be marched at our halftime shows!?

show your band director a vid of SCV he might just change his mind

thanks ill talk to him...

any other ideas guys?

See if you can get your director or your drumline instructor to have a cymbal line for winter drumline. If you can prove that a cymbal line will work there, that might convince him to field one for marching season.

From this instructor's standpoint...

I love marching cymbals if they're done well. On top of all the other teaching that needs to be done, I don't have the time to teach more than the absolute basics of cymbal technique. Because of that, my school doesn't march cymbals. If/when I can find a decent tech, then we'll think about fielding a cymbal line.

I might be forced to eat my words, though. If we have a bunch of incoming students, I don't want to have a 15+ person pit. I simply don't have enough keyboards to accommodate that many bodies.

I'm dealing with this right now.

The only way we're going to manage putting a cymbal line on the field this fall is to have them march cymbals half the show. The other half they'll be a flub line (think star 93, xmen 98)

And there is the irony im talking about, the escuse is always that there isnt enough time to teach the cymbal parts, but no one would ever even concider not marching our base line, even though there is no more time to teach base teqnique(sp?) then there is to teach cymbal technique...cymbals are treated like an accessory...

watch the end of scv's 2007 show. Cymbals add affect, but nod as necessary in a small band, but with a 15 person pit, you should have a couple of cymbal players. It doesn't take as long to teach cymbal technique as snare, tenors, ect. Yes, you do lear cymbal technique in concert band, but that is applied to marching band, thus shouldn't be as hard. I played cymbal for a couple of hours at a football game, and they taught me the basic technique in all of 5 minutes, along with about 3 other people.

First off, bass technique is not dissimilar to any other marching drum technique. That argument, therefore, doesn't hold a lot of water. Secondly, cymbals are treated like an accessory because... well... they are an accessory.

There are a LOT of problems with marching cymbals, particularly at the high school level. Cymbals are an instrument that requires extreme precision; without perfection, the visual and aural presence supports the stereotypical "sucky cymbal player" idea. Secondly, the technique, when taught properly, is MUCH more complex than the simple orchestral crashes present in concert band. There are, most likely, enough sounds to create an entire library of definitions and techniques, as I'm sure Jeff Kozol could explain to you. Thirdly, and probably the least acknowledged problem, is the physical demand of marching cymbals. Cymbals are heavy, they hurt the hands, and chokes and certain crashes take a nasty toll on the arms, chest, stomach, and hips of the person playing them. In high school, a lot of (read: most) kids don't want to play cymbals to begin with, so this creates a certain amount of extra torment that they have to put up with.

In the grand scheme of things, and in my personal opinion, it is better to spend more time teaching correct techniques on less instruments that are more necessary, than to spend less time covering everything for the sake of having an extra subsection.

My bottom line: I love marching cymbals, but not enough to justify becoming lacksadaisical with the education of the rest of the students if it isn't feasible to march them.