This year some of our battery players are coming to the pit during the ballad to play. Of course this was their choice since our director told them if they wanted to do that. The other people in the pit are going to play Toys or play their usual marimba or vibes or xylo. I think is cool to have battery in the pit. Maybe they won't be true percussionist yet but one step closer to it.

Our school was brand new last year. We didn't have enough drummers for pit and battery, so we fused them, making a drum "core" (as we called it) we switched off from mallets and drums and 1 person played all 4 bassdrums. The BDs were on their sides and proped up and he played them like a large set of quads. There was a Quad player, who switched to auxileries sometimes, and a set of quads on a stand for a snare player, there were two snares on carriers but were taken on and off for different songs. This worked very well. We got All Superiors at one competiotion and Best In Class at another. So, these are just some suggestions of how to work with a Pit/Battery (Core).




1998-2001 Middle school concert Band
2001-2002 WHHS 1st Bass Marching, Mallets during Concert
2002-2003 FBHS Drum Capt Pit(grrr) Marching, Everything during Concert
2003-Now FBHS Drum Capt Quints Marching, Dunno not concert season yet!

ok...now i have a BIG problem about pitted battery. this weekend i went to TOB championships and watched the group one bands (up to 35 musicians). if you have a 8-10 person pit, with clearly some are just battery kids, then march them! i saw many groups with large pits that had marching snares (one even had 3 marching snares, 2 tenors and 4 basses on a pvc rack, plus keyboards and aux.). to me, a minimum line would be 5 people (snare, tenor, 3 bass), or 4 if you throw a tenor part in the pit (and i dont mean someone playing a set of tenors in the pit...because then they should be marching them. i mean adapting the tenor voice to the pit's equipment(concert toms, other melodic drums).

i dont know...i just think <s>alot</s> [color:"red"]a lot</font> of people are taking the easy way out in pitting their drumline in the pit. I saw way too many large pits with no line on the field. 5 person drumline, the rest pit. just deal with the cards you've been dealt! sheez...people seem to be making some bad decisions.

when we pitted the battery, there were 6 people in the percussion section as a whole. if you have a pit of 8 or more...march some kids and deal with a smaller pit.

i dunno..the battery [i feel] really adds something special to the show. without it, its a lot less dramatic. i know that the snares often are the ones who add the accents to the hornline when they'e playing too loud/fast to be able to do it themselves-so its written into the drumline parts to do it for them. who plays the cadences in a pitted drumline? who does those awesome visuals if there aren't any marching snares? crabbing will become a mere myth instead of a regimented way of marching, especially in a school away from any drum corps. and speaking of drum corps, who can try out for marching bass when they've only played them on their sides, four in a row? i can't imagine a band without a drumline. to me, it is unfathomable.

in our show we have a ballad and that's when the battery comes into the pit. in some ways it's good, cause it improves the overall sounds of the pit, but in other ways it's bad, cause hey, i just prefer being out on the field, having been in pit my first season and now battery this season.