Lately, I've been trying to make my writing more marketable for beginning programs, since most of the marching bands in my area are very young beginners. I've been trying to adapt my writing style to "Make it so easy that a dummie could play it, make it so easily adaptable so that a broke school could play it, and make the score look nice so that the people that are playing it don't feel like they're looking at garbage."
With that in mind, here is kind of a "freebie" for all of you techs/instructors out there with the same ideas as me. I just finished this one in about a day (half of the time while my room mate had a stomach virus, hence the name "bubbla g-uts". It's really supposed to say Bubble Guts but...).
Scored for:
Snare Drum
Tenors (5 drums but could easily be adapted for 4 drums)
Basses (4 drums but could be easily adapted for whatever)

Thinking about trying this one with the school I teach in the summer.
Free to use, just don't be stupid and violate copyright laws or anything like that. This music is mine, and you can't take credit for it.
and oh yeah, comments and criticism welcomed.
enjoy

I am in no way, shape, or form a music expert, but here my friend, is a great cadence.

I like the idea you have hear with the making cadences easily malleable, and making them easily playable for any line, no matter their stature or standings.

Thanks!
I hope that it helps you in some form or fashion. If it does, then it did its job well.

I like it, simple yet it has some groove in it. Your on the right track just remember the KISS system and what ever line you give it to will do fine.

A couple of thoughts I try to use when I'm writing for young lines is to write something that can be beefed up after they get the first draft down, so try to keep in mined can this change into more with out loosing the root rhythm. You know 16s then with accents then paradiddle or even flams and so on.

Some thing that I've done is find a tune that is real familiar to the line and write some thing to that, I have used row row row your boat and made it funky, Old McDonald had a drumline, William Tell. My church has a small school and they started a band heck it was like 20 kids altogether counting the color guard. They had 1 snare,1 quad, 1 bass player and two girls that could play piano. Ha, so the church took up a offering for 3 Sundays and we bought some drums off EBAY. One of each except we got 5 bass drums and one kid played them all. We didn't march the line but put them up front as a pit, we then welded up a rack to mount all 5 bass like concert toms would be. We then wrote him his part so he could play all of them standing there, ha it was cool! Any way... So none of these kids ever marched before but we found some kids that could play a set and went from there. Well they had to be taught to read rhythms and simple sheet music and the way I got them to under stand what was going on was since it was a Christian school we wrote their warm ups and second book using all the children's Bible songs, Jesus loves me and so one . Well these were all very familiar to them so it was easier to teach the tech and music. We put a little groove and funk in the songs to make it interesting to them. and then I just wrote the rest of the books around the show, that way what they chopped on in the lot was things in the show. It went over real well.

The moral of this story is to keep it at their level and make it groove so they will want to play it. If you loose their interest they will not want to be there. Find some songs that you really don't have to worry about copy rights, and write so as to be able to add too it towards the end of the season. these are things you probably already know. And for warm ups lust stick to the fundamental basics, which should be always implemented no matter their experience.

These are some of the ways I look at writing for any line and it serves me well and my kids get a kick out of some of the tunes we do. Please the drummer and you will please the crowd, and the parents will love you and the director will also. Catchy sells, keep it groovin and jamming and they will buy it!

I hope this helps and if not, maybe it will inspire you to make it fun and see a way to tackle a very young line, there is a drummer in every one, how you find it is what makes or breaks you and the line.

Good luck with your writing and instructing!!

Its funny that you mentioned playing marching drums in the pit. That is what I did, and it is responsible in part for me being as efficent at writing as I am. You have to be very innovative with your writing in that situation. Now that I teach an actual "marching" percussion section, I find that it is much easier to write for begining players, and easier to teach those written parts, or to change them if nessecary.

Not to turn this into an educational forum, but I have also noticed that the way the score looks also plays a part in the students attitude towards learning it. If you write something that is genuinely good, but looks like it is bad, students will automatically assume that it is bad becasue it looks poorly written. (Don't judge a book by its cover doesn't apply in highschool). Spend some time making the score look like a published piece of music. The students will feel like they are playing something worth playing, and your employer (or bd that hired you) will feel like you actually spent some time on this, rather than throwing a bunch of b.s together. Remember, the more marketable you are... the more likely it is that you will get hired.
just a little expanding on previous thoughts.

hope this helps some one out there.


And oh yeah, if you decide to play this in public... for goodness sake please send me a video of it. I love to see my stuff played, especially by lines i didn't teach.
thanks

Yeah, I was just trying to show that there is more than one way to skin a cat, even though this was a private Christian school that didn't really have a leg to stand on compared to most band programs, plus they had never competed. This was 4 years ago and now the band has a whopping 30 in the band including the color guard, but with the love of a Director and a lot of hope and prayer they sound great! But this was an unusual situation and had a lot going against it, mostly people thinking that a band must be large and have experienced players. But like I said, skin a cat and if you have a can do attitude, anything can be overcome.

You're right, if the food looks good, they will eat it. One thing I found is that if a line was real young and confused by typical notation, I would write in (what I always was taught) long hand where rolls were wrote in 16th with double stroke hash marks. But that's just my point of view. You have your style and that's what I find interesting. With different instructors, how they write, is you know, 2 +2= 4 other than 2b square x c square is something. Any root rudiment can become a hybrid. An example is Triplets, add accents then Flams then Drags and you get Flam Drags. Trust me, if you have the crowd moving you have a winner and it doesn't have to be complicated to be effective or even win.

All of what I've said is just my approach and by no means the only way, but it has served me and any line I've ever worked with well. Keep going on the path you're on and don't let someone discourage you in what you're doing. Draw on your life and line experience. Write what you hear and see, this will set you apart from others. Scott Johnson isn't Ralph Hardimon, but that doesn't make one less than the other. Look at the Bridgemen, a lot of people didn't take them seriously because they had a good time, but they smoked a lot of drumlines, right? The Blue Devils were not always the power house they are now. It took a snare drummer from Santa Clara Vanguard to guide them to their first top percussion title in '76 and then again '77.