A different kind of march

Playing a traditional/military-style march is something we have to do occasionally as drummers, so we may as well learn a few different ways of doing it. This is a hip, interesting take on the concept by Lalo Schifrin, from the soundtrack of the 1970 Clint Eastwood movie Kelly's Heroes. The rhythms here have more to do with samba than they do with Haskell Harr. I don't know who the percussionists are on it— I assume Emil Richards is in there, Joe Porcaro, maybe Paul Humphrey. The part is certainly written by Schifrin.

There are two snare drums being played on the recording, and sometimes the parts differ slightly. There are probably more flams being played than I have notated. That's traditionally the nature of percussion in a quasi-military band— the composer writes out a basic rhythmic part, and the drummer makes whatever rudimental embellishments he can get away with. Here the differing parts fatten up the sound and contribute to the ragtag vibe they're certainly going for with the composition. There are cymbals played in unison with all of the bass drum notes; if you wanted to work this up on the drums, you could play both feet in unison for that.

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