Hi... I'm going into my second season in the marching band of a Divison I FBS (Formerly Div. I-AA) state university. I marched sax for 4 years (8th-11th) in high school, while learning tenors on my own, before my director finally let me play tenors my senior year.I marched Tenor Sax my freshman year of college but now I'm changing back to percussion. I love tenors, but being a small guy, I think I'd be miserable marching a full-sized Dynasty 6-Pack, not to mention our instructor writes pretty advanced parts.

The way auditions work, is half a week before the whole band starts camp, we have drum camp, and everyone auditions on everything, and then the Instructor places you where he feels you'll help the line and succeed to your ability the best. As I already said, I don't have much of a desire to march tenors, and I doubt I'm advanced enough at them to play his writing anyway. I have some basic experience on snare, as far as from beginner's lessons and lots of pad work, but I've never marched it, and my chops aren't anything spectacular. The line didn't march cymbals last year, and I don't know if we'll have enough people to march them this year either.

I'd like to march bass, because I think it would be a fun experience, that would be challenging, but not completely drain every ounce of energy from me. As far as previous bass experience goes, I've messed around on it for some stands tunes and cadences in High School, and marched bass 4 (which is physically bass 5, because my old school marches 4 basses that are sizes 20-22-24-28) in a parade. I'm guessing that I would mostly likely find myself on one of the top 3 basses in college,(16-18-20/22) as I'm a short person. My current practice tools are a VF snare pad, HH Quadropad, and my 22" set bass, which I smooth white heads with muffling in them.

I'm just asking for advice on both the general audition,as well as making the transition from tenors to bass, instead of the opposite which is often made in high school. Particular concerns I have are the transition from memorizing tenor music to bass music.

Thanks in advance.

well to make most good bass lines you have to be able to play what the snares play
then work on your twos threes and fours (16th notes, 16th note triplets, and thirty second notes)
make sure you can play on the upbeats and downbeats
by bass logic by bill bachman

Bass Logic is a great book. It is well worth the buy.

As far as your practicing, work on your timing and counting. Practice every part of the bass music you get. Make sure you can count your rests correctly at the tempo that you are playing at.

oh yeah and always mark time while practicing
you need to be able to use you feet as a bass drummer and know exactly what foot or cross of the foot your beat comes on

playing sixteen grids will help as well...by that i mean playing each note individually(count 1, then e, then &, then a), then you can apply the same thing to triplets and 32nds.

Alright, Thanks for the help. I already have bass logic. Like I said, the line isn't super packed or anything so they don't turn people away, but I still don't want to be the weak link.

as far as memorizing music,Its abit more different because your not playing all the parts.I don't play tenors but I've been working on snare and I find that is easier to memorize the music fast then it is with bass drum. But It helps if you memorize all the parts so you fully understand whats going on musically.

Good luck

Bass Logic is good as was said. I have 2 tips for you that should greatly help.

1.) Sub divide. The better you get at sub dividing notes the easier your time will be on bass

2.) Always play with a met. (that goes for every aspect of drumming though)

The guy who mentioned playing the down beats, 'e', up beats, and 'a' sepereately has got something that is a good exercise to get better at sub dividing but will do you no good without a metronome. Find your self some timing exercises. Like the timing exercise from SCV.

By the way I can't beleive none of you bass drummers who replied didn't mention a met... for shame! just kidding but seriously though.

im pretty ashamed of myself
i only use a met for warm ups and bass stuff not really my snare music (dont do this kids bad habits right here)

whatever you do, don't assume you can only play bass because it's "easy". i can't stand bands or programs that have crappy bass lines because they think they're not important, and that gives a bad impression on us bass players. bass can sometimes be as dificult if not more dificult than tenors or snare, just because of the sense of timing it takes. sure snares have to all work together to be clean, but they all play the same part. basses play seperate parts that fit into one glorious part, that's what i love. what i did is got bass logic and a buddy, then learned all the tag team exercises. good luck