Hey everybody,

First let me say my drumline is improving quickly and I am more than sure we will be better than the past two years. I do have a little bit of a problem. My students (High School Level) are very distant from each other. The past two years it took us along time to begin to build a culture. I was just wondering if anybody has any success stories or ideas of their own on how to help promote a good drumline culture?

Thanks for the help,
Nick.

Introduce small bonding moments. During the summer, have the section leader (if there is one), or seniors on the line arrange a drumline party. If one of your students has a pool, invite everyone to that guy's house, and have everyone else bring in some chips, sodas, whatever. Play some good music (even if it's on rock band), and talk about being excited for the year to come. This is a great way for battery and pit people to get to know one another, and help them establish a good relationship with one another.

As for during-the-year ideas, use ideas that make the drumline a full entity. As the caption head for my line, I plan on purchasing some sort of hype for all of them during band camp. If they don't recognize the new guys, then the crazy thing that I get them will make it apparent, and if they all rock it together, then they get to know one another a little better.

Finally, the other thing I could suggest during the year, you could design a drumline shirt for them to wear. Put all of their names on the back, and make them realize that this group is an effort from every single person on the line to make something awesome.

There are plenty of other things out there to suggest, but it all kind of depends on the dynamics of your personal line. Just make the experience fun, and make sure that they realize that they are a full unit, and that no one person is more important than anyone else, and that should help unify them some.

Good luck!
B

EDIT: If you're talking about the work ethic style of culture, then that kind of depends on the individual players. All you can do is make it fun for them, but in order to have fun, most lines want to do well, and the things that you have to do during a high school line to help them do well, well... aren't typically all of that fun. I consistently remind my students when we're running through the tedious basics that it's these exercises that you have to get through to get into the more fun pieces. It takes a while for them to absorb it, but once they do finally get to break out one of my self-composed warm-ups that aren't just the same ol' warm-up that every Joe Blow high school plays, then they tend to get more excited about it. Again, this REALLY depends on the dynamics of your line. If you don't have a strong core of people that love to practice, then you're going to have a hard time incorporating that with the members that have been around for quite a while. If you have a really young line, then as long as you help them progress, then it shouldn't be hard for them to have a good time.

Wow B, Lots of great ideas there. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Nick

Glad I could help. I'm not entirely sure what exactly you meant by changing the culture, so I hope that was sufficient.

B makes most of the point I would have. A few things I would like to ad...

When I read 'culture' I thought of my ensemble when I got there. The percussion section was tiny, the school couldn't care less about them and noone in the ensemble really were that close of friends. Here are some things we have done over the years that have completely changed the program.

1. We play at EVERY assembly. This gives the kids a chance to do something fun and it lets the school know we exist. We wrote a simple stand groove that ends with to 8th not clicks every rep where the crowd yell "LAKERS". Having the student body cheer with them makes them feel like they matter to the general student population. Whenever there was 'less popular' sports team that had a big game, we'd show up and play for them. The rest of the school started loving the drumline and because of that, all of the students loved being in it and were willing to put forth the work.

2. We have A LOT of activities outside of rehearsal. I am strict on enforcing my philosophy that rehearsal is time to work and home is time to play. Having group activities really helps to get them to gel.

3. When the program struggled in the beginning, I used that as a motivator. Things like "nobody here expects you to succeed. How bout we give this season all we've got and prove them wrong?". Any roadbump that came along, me and my staff would turn into a challenge. We would challenge them to prove their skeptics wrong and to never stop overcoming obstacles. This is actually the biggest catalyst in my ensemble gelling this last year. There was still plenty of drama and I yelled a lot, but at the end of the day, each student knew that the student next to them would go to battle for them and that me and my staff would always have their backs.

Give your students a goal. Let them know that success lies in their hands. You can show them how to be successful, but they have to decide they want it. If you can get your student united with a common goal (ours this year was winning our first High Percussion trophy ever), and not let them forget that goal, then I think you'll find the results you are looking for. It took us til the last show of the year to win. It seemed like every show something was pitted against us to keep us from winning, but it didn't matter. Because we provided an atmosphere that quitting wasn't an option.

Best of luck with your ensemble. Starting traditions and building culture are really tough. But it's one of the most rewarding things to see your work pay off. I hope something I said here has been of some help.