Hey Guys,

I'm always updating, rewriting and rethinking our warm-up and exercise package (I'm guessing I'm not the only, too). And, I'm always curious to know if I'm leaving a concept out or if I'm kicking a dead horse.

So, in generic terms, would you guys list the basic exercises and skills you believe that a HS drumline should have in their warm-up/exercise package?

I'll start:

An ";8 on a hand exercise"; (that works on legato strokes and general timing, etc.)

Thanks!

I've done a lot of research on this in the past couple years. I've been working on building my group from a ";beginning"; drumline to an ";intermediate"; drumline. I've looked at exercise programs from everyone like the Blue Devils down to the high school next door. Here's my thoughts, you're mileage may vary, as ";beginning"; lines in Texas won't be the same as beginning lines in Maine. I quite literally have students who come into high school that can't play double stroke rolls or paradiddles, it can be a challenge. ;)

[b]Beginners[/b]:
[i]Eights[/i] - Teaches legato stroke, basic timing and pulse
[i]Sixteenth Syncopation Timing[/i] - An extension of the legato stroke combining hands, teaches natural sticking & uniform rhythm interpretation
[i]Accent to Tap[/i] - Teaches staccato stroke, control, & heights
[i]Double Beat (Sanford)[/i] - Teaches bounce control, preps for double stroke rolls
[i]Double Stroke Rolls[/i] - Teaches basic roll technique & interpretation (Duple or Triple in meter, triple seems to be most popular these days)

[b]Intermediate[/b]:
[i]Pulse Modulation[/i] - Teaches counting and interpretations from triplet pulse to duple pulse (possibly beginner)
[i]Paradiddles[/i] - Teaches paradiddle and paraparadiddle technique and interpretation
[i]Triple Strokes (Sanford)[/i] - Teaches triple stoke technique, usually added on to double beat exercise
[i]Flams[/i] - Teaches flam technique, usually built on flam accent variations
[i]Stick Control[/i] - Teaches playing standard rhythms with non traditional stickings and combinations - 2's, 3's, 4's etc.

[b]Advanced Concepts[/b]:
[i]Introduction of hybrid rudiments (Sprees) - flam drags, cheese, etc[/i]
[i]Exerices in non traditional meters 7/8, 5/8 etc[/i]
[i]On the field (60 sec)[/i] - Usually combinations of multiple exercises, groove, flash and trash, gets the kids pumped and hands ready to go
[i]Exercises that combine other concepts and highly build upon ensemble responsibility and musicality[/i]

Thanks, Josh. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Other takers?

In my high school drum line, (which fell under the beginner category), we had a wide range of things.

Of course there is the standard 8 on the hand legato style. If you program lacks this, uh-oh.
We also have just a basic triplet exercise with pulse, no pulse, RLL RLL LRR LRR and etc.
We have a cadence that we play as a warm up, real basic, to trick the members into thinking they weren't playing a warm up. For sure got the newer members to thinking, ";oh, 8's really isn't THAT bad...";
My favorite was our roll exercise, which consisted of the timing and roll check (isolating hands, 8th notes to check time)


In my humble opinion, it is just a matter of spicing things up. My freshman year in highschool was a bore, all we played was 8's. Then the next year my instructors came back with a different program and we spiced things up and it wasn't super boring and a ";waste of time.";

Inconsistency in the musical choices for warm up was always good for us. Suprise em!

Any other takers? I figured if I asked a bunch of drumline guys their opinions about how they run their drumlines, no one would be able to resist the chance!

Love to help you Eric, but I'm lucky now to be like the cool uncle! I get to come in when I want, make the kids laugh, say a few things, and then go home:)

I would imagine most people aren't replying because it would be a string of ";Yup";, ";me too";, ";that's what I do"; kind of stuff. That, or they don't have the time to type a manifesto.

One thing that I find helpful with my line is playing 16 on a hand rather than 8's. We mess around with the second half. IE. 8-8th's @ 3"; second half crescendo, or bucks, 8-8th's @ 12"; second half decrescendo, second half double stops, and so forth. It seems to help keep the students engaged for longer periods of time while warming up. I owe this concept to Ellis Hampton and the University of Kentucky.

[quote author=Stephenson link=topic=3075.msg16298#msg16298 date=1241800467]
One thing that I find helpful with my line is playing 16 on a hand rather than 8's. We mess around with the second half. IE. 8-8th's @ 3"; second half crescendo, or bucks, 8-8th's @ 12"; second half decrescendo, second half double stops, and so forth. It seems to help keep the students engaged for longer periods of time while warming up. [b]I owe this concept to Ellis Hampton and the University of Kentucky.[/b]
[/quote]

...or more specifically to Jim Campbell... ;)

...University of Kentucky / 80's, 90's Cavaliers = Jim Cambell. I was introduced to the concept by Ellis Hampton and Mark Hunter. I just didn't want to take credit for something that I borrowed... We would play 7/8 grid, but my bass line is too new from year to year, and getting freshman to play on counts, rather than listen to runs and react, proves to be a constant challenge. Another thing I find most helpful is a big freakin' mirror, and we use percentage of wrist turn to further define stick heights and technique.

[quote author=Stephenson link=topic=3075.msg16304#msg16304 date=1242007886]
[b]Another thing I find most helpful is a big freakin' mirror[/b]...
[/quote]

The mirror idea is right on the mark.  At my old school we had a complete wall (35ft in width by 6ft in height; placed 1ft off the the floor) and it made a huge difference on reinforcing technique/style.  At my new school we use a huge section of windows for feedback.  It's not the best setup but it's better than nothing.

HS wrestling rooms are usually good for mirror usage.

That's what we've used for years.

One year we had to let the drill team practice in the 2nd band hall (during an off period). We hated it, but didn't fight it. Figured this was one of those times we could be a team player.

The result was that they had mirrors installed on one of the walls. When we re-structured our classes, the drill team had to find another place to practice AND we got to keep the mirrors. Win-win...

BTW, does anyone ever pass out too many exercises/warm-ups and how do you keep from doing that?

[quote author=erath link=topic=3075.msg16310#msg16310 date=1242051847]
BTW, does anyone ever pass out too many exercises/warm-ups and how do you keep from doing that?
[/quote]



There is no such thing as too much information when teaching. Instead of additional exercises try creating variations in sticking patterns, drum patterns for tenors and basses. anything that allows students to expand knowledge or keeps the talented student from being bored.

[quote author=erath link=topic=3075.msg16310#msg16310 date=1242051847]
BTW, [b]does anyone ever pass out too many exercises/warm-ups [/b] and how do you keep from doing that?
[/quote]

I don't think you can hand out too many, but you can approach the warmup program with options.  One option is that you ";streamline"; the exercises/warmups so that you can cover the essetials of the music book.  This option is handy when you have a limited amount of time on contest days, game days, bus breakdowns, priority override, etc.  Option two allows for the use of more in depth work in order to build the players' chops when the time is available.  This prevents the boredom that Ted referred to.

There are only a hand full of exercises that a line needs to be successfull, as long as they perform the exercises with a VERY high quality. Of course there are about a thousand versions of these exercises, but they really are there to teach the same fundamental ideas. A good, recent example of simplicity in a warm-ups is Phantom Regiment. The old Tom Float lines and Thom Hannum also come to mind.

While parking lot jams are a ton of fun to play, at the high school level kids will spend more time trying to learn the exercise rather than working on the techniques that the exercise is designed to teach. Unless the high school is really advanced and spends a ton of time rehearsing, playing really high end drum corps exercises can hurt them, not help them.

The exercises I play at AFHS:
Eights - with a bunch of dynamic variations and splits
Chucks - a simple variation on the good 'ole Bucks
Double & Triple Beat - strait-up no frills
Hup-Dup - yes, the same old hup dup that Float lines played for years
16th Tap-Accents - 2 measure pattern, again a Float rip-off
16th Rolls - Chicken-and-a-Roll
Triple Diddle - Stock, grade A
Tap-Flig, Tap-Flag - 4X4 exercise with flams and stuff added in

So really there are three on hander exercises and three two handers that teach the same techniques:
Eights = Hup Dup
Chucks = Tap Accents
Double Beat = Rolls

Then there is the ";catch all"; exercise Tap-Flig - that's it. Float won drum 4 titles in a row playing these during the 80's. That's good enough for me and my boys. Keep in mind that we have a very large drumline (8-5-5) and so I try to keep the difficulty at a level that everyone can acheive.

*Having said that, when I marched DCI I wanted to play the hardest stuff known to God.... my students like to learn those rippin' warm-ups and they play them often; on their own. But as a line, we play the simple stuff.

My 3 cents (inflation)
MH