The music of the Tell City Drumline is something that we are almost never satisfied with, in that we always try to make it more and more difficult everyday. The music that the students learn is usually written at a level in which everybody has to work extremely hard to get. Usually when the season starts we don't have all of the music to the show, either it be the Marching Band show music, the Winterline show music, or even the cadences. As the marching season and winterline season progresses, usually the instructor(s) doesn't know what style of music they want to write with, in order for the writing to blend well with what the rest of the band or sideline is playing. This can kinda be a good thing, in that the students don't learn music and then change it and try to break all of the bad habits that the students are used to playing. Of course on the other hand, sometimes the students are pushed to learn the music sometimes only days and hours before competitions.
Over the first part of the 1990's, THE LINE was usually popularized for playing drum breaks in nearly all of our shows, to support the drumline perspective of our jazz shows. However, when the Marching Band decided to switch from jazz shows to theme shows, the drum break ideas were, for the most part, eliminated. In 1996, the Marching Band Staff decided to perform the show "Classics of the Silver Screen", appropriated for the 25yr Anniversary for the ISSMA State Marching Band competitions at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis Indiana, and we began to work on playing well with band itself along with exploring the long range of dynamics and different styles of playing percussion both in the battery and sideline.
Over the past 8 years of the history of THE LINE, we have only lost a handful of "Best Percussion" awards at Marching Invitationals in southern Indiana. The aggravating part of losing these awards were that the lines who did win the award, won because of having clean, loud, and SIMPLE shows, something that any Drumline can do.
Below are some copies of some of our easier and harder music that we have played over the years. Take you time and look around. Let us know what you think about them.
Here are some websites that posted some sheetmusic with different corps. Some of this look pretty tough, but they aren't too bad and they sound totally awesome, check'em out.
May Tag This warmup is excellent for applying new rudiments to a Drumline's Music criteria.***
When a Man Loves a Woman Check out the CHICKEN SCRATCH!
