My high school line just decided to get 5 basses 4 snares no quints, the other quad player went to pit and I'm on bass 3.

I was just wondering how common is this and will it hurt us in comps?

No I dont think it will hurt, I think its kinda of better then just having one and all the judge talk about not being able to here him(and plus I dont like the way it looks 4 snares 5 basses and 1 tenor just looks weird to me), I wish we would lose our 1 tenor.

Ours is gonna be 3 snares, 1 quad, 1 quint, 5 basses, and the pit is TBA. I don't know how quiet the tenors word be 4-4-2. I gues it would be pretty quiet since I couldn't here out quad player last year when we had 2 snare 1 tenor and 3 bass 1 cymbals

i don't mean quads literally by the way, we used to use 1 spock.

Well, this happened to my school's line this year... though we only had six people (two snares, four basses.)

I doubt the judges can really penalize you for not having tenors. As long as your line's arranger is creative with writing your parts, there shouldn't be any negative effect on the quality of your music either.

Plus, that's less drums to haul around to competitions.

We almost did a no quad thingy this year, but we didn't.

No, it's not very uncommon
No, it won't hurt you in competition.

Plus, bass drum is more fun than people give credit

That's too bad. Happens a lot unfortunately.

Although, Carmel High School in Indianapolis has been pretty successful and hasn't marched a quadline in quite some time. I'm sure there are others, but that's just one off the top of my head.

As a former quad artist (quadTIST?) I think it sucks, but you have to do what you have to do. I've axed a few quad sections from my groups, more often than not because there just aren't enough bodies. I'd rather hear no quads than just one...it sounds whimpy IMO.

BTW: I'm not disappointed about bass line, bass 3 is cool. The thing I absolutely hate about it is that I can't see over it -.- , and I just finished learning the quad feature( he had the parts written out until that bass 3 kid quit). But i also think we're going to have a great line once i learn how to play bass, we got this lineup( only one senior )

bass 1: sophomore(was in pit)
bass 2: sophomore(is already great at bass, bass section leader)
bass 3: me(freshman, I'll be good once i learn)
bass 4: freshman(he ROCKS at bass)
bass 5: senior(hes great at bass too)

snare: my sister, junior(played bass 2 years but got off of bass line due to back problems, she almost took the bass 3 spot from me)
snare: sophomore(he played tenors last year, hes okay at snare)
snare: junior center snare, my sisters boyfriend (amazing drummer, hes been playing set since age 3)
snare: sophomore(hes good, bass last year)

*stops writing huge post*

If it were the line at my school he would probably take 1 snare and 1 bass and put them on tenors

also that sucks you only have bass 3

same if had been at my school. one band not too far from me seriously only had 1 snare and like 1 bass once.

we're doing 3 snares, 2 tenors, 5 basses, 2 cymbals and like 5-7 in pit.

personally, being a tenor player, i think it bites that you're not having any tenors. but then you do have to do what you have to do.