Gafoo’s Blog

So Thursday was my first day working with Montebello High School. On the phone, the guy sounded like I was hired since we had already negotiated a salary (which I now realize was quite low for what he wants to do). However, when I get to the school he tells me that he still has another guy coming in next to interview for the position. Anyway….

Until this year, the Montebello HS band was primarily a parade band. They did parade band reviews kinda like the old Shafter Band Review that every Jr. High in Kern County used to do. This was a tradition at older high school competitions as well but with time the high school band fell out of the parade marching comps. and focused on field shows. As far as Montebello however, they have never done a field show the way I am used to it. And it has apparently been that way for the last 30 years. Then the band director retires and suddenly there is a new guy to come in and start doing field shows…

He is looking for an instructor pretty late in the season because his old instructor wasn’t very reliable. It is my understanding the he has a lot going on in his life, including getting married and raising a child so it’s quite understandable that he cannot devote 100% of his time to drumline. But, alas, this gives me my opportunity and so begins my Thursday rehearsal with the drumline.

Few wierd things…
1. The Pit and Battery warm up together. There are parts for everyone to play, including auxilliary parts. That is wierd since I have never really done it as hardcore as they do it. We sometimes had the South line warm up all together but never with written parts for everything.
2. Premier Drums. Actually they have a mix of Premier and Yamaha drums but I just find it wierd that lines even use Premier equippment at all anymore. I think they plan on buying a new set of Yamahas but still, free floating shells on tenors don’t make much sense to me. Oh well.

Anyway, things are a little rough at first since the first day I am with a line I like to spend some time hearing drummers one by one and introducing myself and getting to know kids but the director just wants me to dive right in and start rehearsing them. It’s a little intimidating at first since I figured he would just kinda stay unseen and observe but he was always right in eye sight as I was rehearsing his huge percussion section. I settled down as soon as I noticed trouble in the playing and dove right into what I do best…fixing problems with the performance.

The drumline is really quite good. They have a good knowledge of the basics (as I saw in their warm ups) and they are achieving some cleanliness (which is good since you don’t want them to peak and burn out this early in the season). The biggest gripes I have with them are…
1. Non-uniform technique…The center snare is over extending himself a bit on the arm motion which makes him stick out visually. But even beyond that, there are difference player to player in the line that, on a line of that caliber, will make the difference to a judge. They tend to like to nit pick the obviously wrong and in their case, when there is something not obviously wrong, he will go after what is not so obvious, I.E. player to player technique.
2. Monotone syndrome. With the drumline having no real melodic support, there needs to be some varety in the playing. I.E. playing stuff with dynamics. Playing quietly or loudly depending on what the music dictates. This line is very much monotone. Everything is loud and always loud. I repeatedly watch them blow right past dynamic markings on the page and that was some of the first things I worked with them on. I talked about dynamics in terms of inches and told them how to use the inch system to achieve desire volume levels. To get into the real nuts and bolts requires a lot of talk about touch and pressure and such but explaining it to them in that way seems to be the easiest to get quickest and it did help a little.

Anway, so now I sit by the phone and play the waiting game. I think for one day on the job and thrown into the lions den, I actually did pretty well. They were having some train wreck issues that I solved for the end of their opener and of course the dynamic stuff that I made a dent in. Of course I did have one bad moment…I was in there strictly for battery and almost completely ignored the cymbal line the entire time. I must admit, I was a little out of my element regarding that. They run a cymbal line of 7. WOW! I have been in a line with more than 5 and never taught a line with more than 3 but fucking 7 cymbal players is crazy. I definitely think that hurt me a little but I think he was impressed with me fixing his train wreck so hopefully it pans out.

Cross your fingers for me as I anxiously await his phone call.

Oh, and just to let you know of the size…

5 snares
4 tenors
5 Basses
7 Cymbals
14 Pit

Thanks for reading and commenting as always…