The Vanguard 'n' me

Looking through my archives I found some of my old drum corps music, from the Santa Clara Vanguard in 1986. Hastily copied from Ralph Hardimon's score— I think this was basically my audition, now that I think about it; Ralph left me with the score for about 90 minutes, and I had to copy it out and learn the vibraphone part for the opener, Festive Overture by Shostakovich. So it's rather rough looking. I think I had only been playing mallets for about a year at this point— the first piece I ever actually learned was to prepare for my college audition, and that was in the spring of 1985.

I was in my freshman year in college, and thought my drum corps career was over after the Salem, Oregon corps I had marched with for several years folded after being edged out of DCI associate status, finishing 26th at nationals in 1985. I had been shifting my focus to drum set for several years, and was ready to move on from corps. Then a fellow percussion major at the University of Oregon, who was with the Vanguard in 1984, let me know in April that they had lost a couple of people from the pit (I think they call it “front ensemble” now?), and hooked it up for me to go down to California and audition for the spot. They also lost a tenor drummer, and for a moment I was deluded enough to think I could get that spot. But you don't just walk into a position like that six weeks before the first shows.

I think the person I was replacing may have been the low man in the section, because the parts were mostly not extremely difficult. I had a fast lick on the vibes in the opener, and some big, exposed concert tom parts in a fast piece called The Hut; the rest was mainly sound disks (tuned crotales), gong, concert snare drum, and bass drum. I did get to play the Garden Weasel, sort of a legendary SCV garden implement turned musical instrument, as well as destroy a very expensive 36" Paiste gong, several mallets, and nearly my wrist on the closer, The Great Gate of Kiev, from Prokofiev's Pictures At An Exhibition. One day early in the season Ralph rehearsed that part of the show— which we were playing with great taste and decorum, like good classical percussion students— he continually demanded more and more volume, until I was putting my whole body weight into these gong notes. That earned me a close up on the television broadcast of the DCI World Championships— I think a few veteran members were jealous of that.

The experience of being in the group was different from what I was expecting, based on the SCV alumni I knew; they were all music majors— Tony Cirone or Charles Dowd students— or music professionals, and I shared a lot more in common with them than I did with many members who were not on that path. There was a little bit of culture shock, me being the northwest, little-corps, hippie-schooled, ultra-left wing, transitioning-into-being-a-jazz-musician guy that I was. Overall it was a good experience; Ralph Hardimon I think is one of very few real artists involved in drum corps— he writes music— and I was very fortunate to get to be in one of his groups. Talking to my friend Nathan Beck, who I marched with previously, and who stuck around SCV after me, getting to work with Ralph was really our whole interest in continuing in the activity after high school.

Here's a recording of the show:

70s west coast drum corps guys: do you remember this one?

“Have another beer, have another beer, roll another joint and smoke it, smoke it”?

It's a funny little onomatopoeic 70s thing that goes with a roll exercise, which I overheard an instructor do, once— I think it's probably a Santa Clara Vanguard thing, possibly a University of Oregon marching band thing.

I think it's a coda for a longer exercise, possibly?

Anyone remember this little piece of oral history?

Marty Hurley 1946-2011

I've just learned that drum corps hall of famer Marty Hurley has passed away- he was best known as the percussion caption head for the Phantom Regiment drum and bugle corps from 1976 to 1992. In addition to his drum corps work he was a high school band director for several decades, and influenced countless young musicians.

I was in a different sphere of influence during my corps involvement, but he was one of the big names at the time, and I loved what Phantom did with the 1812 Overture in 1984 and especially Spartacus in 1982.

Here's a clip of Hurley playing with some former Phantom members- you can safely turn it off at the end of his feature at 1:05:



After the break is an excellent extended comment from a snarescience.com discussion of his approach to snare drum technique.

How we used to learn the open roll

I just got a very nice note from Jim Buckley about the following comment of mine from the Drummerworld.com. Jim is a major figure in corps- he marched snare with Ghost in one of the greatest drum lines in history- the early 60's Boston Crusaders, was an instructor for the 27th Lancers in the later 60's and 70's, and a DCI judge, among other things. I can't speak for him, but he was enthusiastic ("Ghost would be proud of your literary treatment of experiencing the long roll, the intro to percussion trauma.")- so I guess the way I describe it- as a pretty miserable but effective process- is the way it's really supposed to go, more or less. So here we are:

The way I learned the open roll- from 70's Santa Clara Vanguard guys and the corps legend Bill "Ghost" Linen- was pretty brute-force and unscientific, but definitely worked. We used to do doubles single-handed, slow to fast, in a triplet rhythm (leaving out the middle note), taking about 10-15 minutes per hand.

...and repeat.

You start out doing full strokes from the wrist; your back fingers are relaxed but always on the stick. As you get a little faster, you follow through on the second note of the double with a little arm lift from the elbow- your forearm raises with the rebound after the second note and drops on the first note of the next double. As you increase the speed, you play lower and shift from primarily two wrist moves to a single forearm move with a little wrist assist; if you started out with very open back fingers, you also close that up somewhat (again, at no point in the process do your back fingers leave the stick).

At some point, you will encounter the "break" where it's too fast to play the notes individually, but you can't quite make a good sounding double happen yet. You'll start feeling out of control, and that will generate tension at first. By the end (at well over 200bpm) you'll definitely feel like you're just hacking away at the drum with your forearm. Even though it feels like you're just punishing yourself, it's important to go through this part of the process- you need to put your hands in that zone so they can learn to adapt. The precise means of navigating the break was never explained- that's wilderness you need to pass through on your own.

Once you can make it over the break without losing it, and your doubles at the fast end sound clean and solid, you can practice shifting some of the forearm move back to the wrist, if you want.

The Hawaii 5-O fill

That's the term I use for that universal 8th-grade-style fill down the toms effectively applied, ever since it was coined by Ralph Hardimon regarding a concert tom run of mine when I was in Santa Clara Vanguard's pit in 1986 (for you non-corps people, the pit is the non-marching concert percussion section that sets up along the front sideline). The piece is "The Hut", from Pictures at an Exhibition- it starts at 7:00, and the fill is a few measures after- my most exposed stuff on the show was during this piece- the concert toms are all me on that one:



When he said it I recognized it instantly, but listening back to the actual theme, with John Guerin on drums, nothing like the fill actually happens until late in the tune, at 1:13, so maybe he was just talking about a general vibe:



Other examples after the break- share your personal favorites in the comments: