Ep. 15 - Battery & Pit Exercises: So Many Options, So Little Time!

There are a million “good” exercises… so how do you pick the right ones for your students?

Doug, Patricia, and Zach break down how to build an exercise routine that actually serves the show. We talk about choosing exercises that match the skills and tempos in the show, why getting your front ensemble on sticks and pads can tighten timing fast, and how to simplify your focus (especially in a rebuild situation) so your group improves quicker with less stress.

Plus: Do you have to play keyboard exercises in all 12 keys? Practical ways to use dynamics, how to avoid the mid-season trap of teaching new exercises instead of developing skills, and why it’s worth reaching out—DM, call, ask questions—when you’re building alone.

Questions? Comments? - Reach out! teamislas@gmail.com

Books:
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YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@TeamIslas
 https://www.youtube.com/@zachscheer

Socials:
Doug
https://www.facebook.com/doug.bush.31
https://www.instagram.com/teamislas/

Patricia
https://www.facebook.com/patricia.a.islas
https://www.instagram.com/babypvibes/

Zach
https://www.facebook.com/zachscheer/
https://www.instagram.com/zach_scheer/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Greetings and salutations, friends, and welcome back to the Team Eastlast Podcast, episode 15. My name is Doug Bush, and today I'm joined by Patricia Eastlast and Zach Scheer. And this podcast is for anyone looking to better themselves in percussion education. At the time of this recording, there are an estimated 4,760,000 drumline exercises for you to choose from. So this begs the question: what exercises should you do with your program? And more importantly, why should you do the exact exercises you've chosen? Ms. Los purpose do the exercises we're choosing to do with our percussion program serve?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Um the exercises uh really need to be an effective and efficient opportunity to work on the skills needed for the students to be successful with the music that they're playing in this season. Um if they do not directly relate in some way or manner to the music that you're wanting them to play, to the challenges that they're gonna be faced with, then it's a mismanagement of your time and theirs. Um, we are fortunate at Capel to be able to not only get the opportunity to write the music and arrange the music for our students, but uh also teach them in lessons and in drumline. And so we have this direct line of what we uh write for them, being skills that we know either A, they already have that we want to advance, or skills that we want to build. So we're very mindful in our selection of the exercises and the variations that we choose so that they can serve the purpose of the music. That's not always the case, obviously. Um, but if you are the director and you have chosen people to write for you that you um that you like their style, it is important and it is your responsibility to communicate with those arrangers what skills you want uh your students to have in the music so that you can uh continue developing uh your program. And so selecting exercises that are in line with that are going to be so incredibly important.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, along that servicing the fundamental skills to develop the musicianship necessary to play the music, one of the things, Mr. Shear, I feel that both of I both you and I have witnessed Miss Islos do, I I can comfortably say more than any other front ensemble instructor I've I've witnessed, is how much she has the front ensemble drumming, like how much they're using sticks and a pad or even sticks and drums at certain times. In your experience working with her, what would you say are were some of the noticeable tangible benefits of that process?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, there's just something about having the front ensemble play on a drum or on a pad with sticks that isolates the skill of timing. You know? Um, and it's not to say that we can't work on timing when we're playing our keyboards. Obviously, you do that a lot. But there's something about having them play with sticks on a pad that isolates it, it isolates it in a different way and puts an emphasis on it. Um and I think simplifies what you're doing, kind of distills it down to this one skill, you know? Yep. Um and also kind of makes them like I don't know if step up is the right word. That's not what I mean, that like, oh, I'm playing a keyboard now, I have to step up and play a pad. That's not what I mean, but it just especially for these front ensemble kids, that maybe that's not their strength. It really makes them kind of step up to the timing plate, for lack of a better term, you know. Um and I did not do that before you came to Cap Hill. I did not have the front ensemble students playing um with sticks on a pad. And it wasn't that the front ensembles were not good, they were, they were, they did some good things, but a whole nother level was achieved um when you started doing that.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah, you know, as a player myself, I realized the importance of my snare drumming skills being very high. It allowed me to raise the ceiling of what I could do on any keyboard instrument.

unknown 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Um, because there are fundamentals that you can easily practice there that transfer to any percussion instrument really effortlessly. Uh so it was important for me as an educator to instill that concept in my students so that they have an understanding that even though I play Marimba in the front ensemble for a big part of the year, it doesn't mean I'm not a percussionist. And that I need to have the skills and the comfort holding drumsticks on a pad and dealing with the rebound of that instrument and understanding uh the precision that it takes to be good at playing snare drum so that I can bring all of that over to any of the keyboard instruments that I play. And at Capel, you know, our ability to uh have every single member of the front ensemble spend uh a good chunk of our drumline camp time and even time in the fall with drumsticks allows me as the arranger to write for those instruments. So we wouldn't be able to have every single member, including our synth players, get on a drum in our drumline show and be able to play Hirtos at 184 cleanly if we hadn't established that in the exercise routine from the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and this harkens back to something actually I said on one of the earlier podcasts that I feel happened about a decade ago for me in my teaching, but uh I reframed the pad as a tool to develop snare drumming and looked at it more as a tool to develop percussion, like music through percussion, right? And I did that with the students as uh as well as like uh yes, the most obviously applicable, transferable thing is snare drumming, but the fundamentals to me it's kind of like going in the clean room is like you go in here and you simplify it, like you said, Mr. Shear, and if if if I can't play with great rhythmic accuracy on this single large target, how in the world am I gonna get behind this instrument where I'm not supposed to play the nodes? I'm supposed to be going from small target to small target, rapid succession, and what am I doing with my feet? What am I, you know? Uh yeah, there's just a simplicity and a clarity that comes with this that um really helps to tighten that stuff up. Uh, you know, another important aspect uh when choosing your exercises uh is are you in the fortunate situation where you are able to hire someone at some point to help assist you, even if it's just for the camp or even a couple days or whatever. And if they have a specialty outside your own, I think that's really important. Like, so for example, I feel uh very comfortable in front of the snare line, the baseline. I also feel comfortable in front of the quad line, but I'm not infallible. I have plenty of room to grow and learn, and I can recognize that my depth of knowledge and problem solving skills for the baseline and snare line is higher on average than it is with the quads because of just a lack of experience. And I'm in a wonderful situation that here at Cop Hill that we have Mr. Jonathan Anderson, an incredible teacher in his own right, and quad drummer, um, uh, you know, as part of the staff to get to work with the quad line. So it's not so much sending him in a room to do the job, like I hired a plumber to fix the the plumbing and then I don't worry about it. Like there's a constant dialogue between us about the students, why he's choosing to do the things he's doing, like what the relevance of that around pattern to this double beat exercise has to the music, right? Those type of things, uh, so that I can reinforce these values when he's not there. But I've hired him or Mr. Wynne has hired him for a reason. Whereas if he comes to me and says, Mr. Bush and measure 38, I think that this motion down the drums would feel more comfortable. And I notice that it doesn't interfere with the melody of the the front ensemble at this time or whatever. What do you think about it? Uh, nine out of 10 times, my answer is gonna be yes. That's why he's here, right? Is I'm gonna I'm gonna trust the person I brought in for this. So if you if you do have that kind of option, and even if you don't, uh if there's I would uh, you know, let's say you're in an isolated community, you could reach out to someone that you do trust and admire. Like we, Miss E. Slots and have done this for groups where it's a consultant uh situation where they send us their beats and then we look over the beats and give them feedback, or uh, hey, here are the exercise, you know, you write our beats. Here's the exercise book I'm looking to use. What would what would you use? What would you change? Right. So uh that's a good opportunity. Uh, even if you can't bring someone out, you know, if there's someone you think is doing a good job out there to reach out to them and send them stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

You know, Mr. Bush, I would say even like anybody, regardless of where you teach, um, if there's a program you admire, maybe it's halfway across the country. I was I was gonna say, I'm a little old school. I was gonna say pick up the phone and call. You know, but like send somebody a DM. Send them a, you know what I mean? Just ask, just ask a question. Hey, I'm by myself out here in whatever state. I'm not sure what quad around we should play on eight on a hand or whatever. Like, Mr. Bush, I remember a time where I picked up the phone and called you. I I'd never really even met you and said, Hey, I know you do XYZ on bass drum with the students you teach. Can you tell me why?

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

And then I just and you had never worked at Cup Hill, you know, and then I just listened and I was like, Well, that sounds pretty good, you know. Um, and then like the things came from there, but I just just pick up the phone and call.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Yeah, I think that Mr. Dan Reberger like texted me like last week, like, oh, we got in some new drums. What foam should I use? Yeah. To do the bases. Yeah. And it's like, oh man, yeah, this is the phone we use or whatever, right? Absolutely. Um, yeah, very cool, very cool. Uh where is your program at in terms of its development? You know, so something that Ms. Loss and I have found very uh effective over the years is kind of that year one when you're growing and developing something, being very purposeful with limiting the number of skills that we're asking in the music. I, you know, this is something that I I always found intriguing with other arrangers. You'd get this show, and 99.9% of the show would be the same four skills, and there'd be one random flam drag cheese invert five lit measure, you know, and it's like, why is this thing here? Right, you know what I'm trying to say? And the the poor instructor for some reason sometimes feels like, oh, I can't change it. And and so they're using like 60% of their rehearsal trying to clean this crazy skill that is for one measure or something like that, right? You know, so really quickly, I can remember when we got to uh horn working with Mr. Binghamman and Mr. uh Clayton Straub, like and and uh Mr. Bingman had us writing for them, they were already like developed. Like John had some really strong foundations and just not the best vehicle to to represent the quality of his teaching. And uh there was gonna be a rebuild for the snares. And I remember telling him, hey man, we're gonna do three things. We're gonna do roles, paradiddles, and heritas. And like as I write the beats, I am leaning on this thing. And I can remember at Plano Drumline Competition, uh JJ Pivotone was one of the judges. And on the tape, he was like, Wow, man, your guys' heritas are like, I think they're even better than your roles or something, right? You know what I mean? And it was a little bit like that. Cause it was like, okay, that was the goal. The goal was to like have these three fundamental skills that we could really lean on, and then have an exercise for those specific skills that is relevant to the tempo, that those skills are being used. And then what was this like all kind of rookie rebuild thing? By the very first drumline contest, they were able to stand with pride and contribute to the group, like sandwiched between this like insane like quad line and insane baseline or whatever it was at the time, right? You know, but there was just a conscious decision. Uh, year one, I think I uh, you know, with you, Mr. Shear at Capel, it was something like, hey, you know what the baseline, I'm gonna teach them how to do ones, twos, threes, fours.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

That's it. I mean, that is like can they play unison? Can play these basic four subdivisions at a high level of quality, and that's why I'm gonna center the book around. And then each year, as you see more success and growth, you build upon that.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And you know, we talked about the drumline audition and how big a deal that is and all the benefits that can come with um the style that we approach that with. And I think that's a perfect opportunity to assess what the group is capable of in terms of skills. Like you throw some stuff at them and see what sticks and see what uh they can already kind of handle. Um, and when you're sitting down trying to decide what those specific skills are that you want in the music, you know, you can use that experience to really tailor it. But make a list. What are all the things that I wish my program, my front ensemble, was able to accomplish, the permutations they can play, the different arpeggio skills, like the tempos, all of it. Write it all down and then make a short list of about four of those things. Yeah. And then start there with the exercise routine.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Yeah, and and this is why uh my friends, this podcast is coming so much further after the how to do a drumline audition podcast. Because that's part of it, right? You know, every year we will do a page-long rhythm change timing etude that the entire program, Front Ensemble as well, has to perform, like on a drum, right? And this is an opportunity for Mr. Bush to assess the things Misty Slash has talked about. And every year I write a couple things in there that I would like to have as options in my toolkit uh when I'm writing, but their performance level of the audition will tell me whether I can do that or not, right? So, really clear example, a couple years ago, I'd written these nine-lit singles and then I'd written like a seven-lit thing or a yeah, yeah, a seven-lit thing. I, my assumption was they were gonna struggle with the seven-lit thing, and the nine-lit single thing would be super easy because it would have been doing, you know, puttitas and threes embedded in nine-lit for years, paradiddle diddles embedded in nine. Uh, and it was the exact opposite. Everybody, even our strongest players kind of struggled with the nine-lit single thing a lot more than I expected. But everybody, even our JV kids were throwing down the seven lit. It was not that that was not a big deal. But I think, you know, there's this, you know, you come in with your own preconceived notions. And if you don't have something in the audition to like clarify it, you know what I did that year? I didn't write the nine lit singlet. You know what I did do? Wrote the sevenlit. And then Mr. Osmore was one of our judges, and he caught it immediately and complimented the kids in front of the whole stadium, and it was a beautiful moment, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, Mr. Bush, you said something in there that I think is really important. You uh you mentioned tempos that relate to the show, not just skills, right? We talked a lot about skills, you know, and targeting skills from the show and the exercise program, but you also mentioned making sure that the tempos we're working on in the exercises line up with the tempos in the show as well. And that's something I've seen you guys do so well. Um, and it can just kind of get easily overlooked. Sometimes we just lean towards a certain tempo because that's what Hugad X feels good at, you know. Yep. Does that actually prepare them for the tempos we're gonna be playing in the show? Maybe, maybe not.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Yep, yep, yeah. A great, very practical example that what you just said is threes is you know, when I'm at NC, we're playing digg it, digad, one e in, two e and, three e-in, four e in, right? But when I'm writing that for my students, like they're never playing this tempo. They're playing this tempo. Yep. So if I'm writing for my students, it's like jugga da bagad, where that beat three is a is a three. So our threes exercises at copel is more like jugga, jaggaga, jugga, jugga, jugga. So if I if I get rid of the pulse, it's still just juggadah juggada, jaggada, jugada, but now it's being applicable to the way they are actually going to use it because it's a triple and says 16 notes, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Okay, okay, okay. Uh all 12 keys or die. That's the front ensemble mantra, right? Like I can't play another exercise until this exercise is done in all 12 keys, right? I will be arrested by the 12 key police and thrown in front ensemble prison if I can't play this exercise in all 12 keys. Isn't that correct?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Um, yes, but also I have a confession to make uh a capel. We don't do green in all 12 keys.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Uh not the possible missing sleeves.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

I know, I know, I know. Don't let anyone know the police are coming for me.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Do not share this podcast with your local authorities, please.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

No, I mean I was guilty of that too for a long time. Um it's not a bad thing that all of your students know how to play uh scales and arpeggios and all of the keys. And I think that is kind of a necessary thing. We do play exercises or a variation of an exercise that goes through all 12 keys but much faster than maybe going through green. Um but one of the things that I picked up from Nathan Ratliff, and also kind of uh it wasn't even a camp that I was running. I heard it in a c in a conversation with someone else, but he had mentioned that um Nathan would do maybe four keys a day during the camp. So on Monday they're doing like you know, C F B fly E fly. And then on Tuesday, they're doing the next four of the circle of fours, and then on Wednesday the next four.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

And doing like multiple exercises in the keys. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah, which I thought was genius. I was like, oh my gosh, why have I not come across this before? And number two, I will never not do this. This is great. Um but yeah, in in the the selection of the keys that uh I choose for my students, even now with the advanced material that they can handle, uh, I'm only selecting mm four or maybe five keys, which are centered around either uh the keys that they have in the music of the band show or their drumline show, or maybe even centered around the most difficult key of the music that they have. Um, so they're getting an opportunity to navigate moving around in those keys that they're gonna be navigating for the show. Um, but also we're not wasting time and we're being really efficient with the amount of reps that we have on things that are gonna be directly affecting their success.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Absolutely, absolutely. Mr. Shear, hands that move the same and look the same sound the same. Hands that move different and look different sound different. That's right. That's why I love double stops, right? A lot of our basic battery exercises, I feel could be put in one of two categories, single hand, like eight on a hand or bucks or double beats, something like that. So, like my right hand is playing by itself, and then when it's done, my left hand often plays the exact same thing, the exact amount of time, the exact number of reps, even though my left hand is noticeably weaker. Um, or you have exercises where the hands are kind of moving more simultaneously, my triplet roll exercise, whatever. Um, you know, my grids. So I don't know if it's coming from drum set, I don't know what, but for years now I'm doing like double beat, I'm doing bucks, I'm doing eight on a hand. Our standard progression is much more like right hand than double stops than left hand than double stops. Because I remember having a wonderful talk with uh Mr. Bachman about this. You know, I feel this is one of the best ways to strengthen your weak hand is not just to isolate and play the weak hand, that's true, but when the weaker hand has the model of the stronger hand. And again, we're very fortunate that there's a couple rehearsal spaces that have some mirrors. So getting it doesn't matter, snare quads in front of those mirrors and seeing these things, right? Um, which is another reason why we kind of do the match grip, because again, the the music is the priority first and foremost, right? And we're looking for the path of least resistance to getting the music being played at the highest level, uh, you know, at a high school level, right? And this is what helps us get there. But um, yeah, I I I few genuinely believe that the ability to play both hands together and get a nice balanced, even sound also then help helps once I separate the hands, right? To play the singles or play the rolls or or or accents on both hands. Uh the quality tends to get a lot better once we once we add those. And so that's a simple thing over the years that's helped. Um Thing, Mr. Shear, that you that you noticed is you know, my belief with stock eights, eight on a hand, is it's more for the quads and bases, honestly, than it is even the snares. Yes, you know, you're you're playing eights to develop good sound quality through consistency, and and this is super important, but it's the bases opportunity to kind of play their basic spit splits, and it's the the quads uh opportunity to do their basic arounds. But one of the things they've done for years now is had the snares also go through like a progression where regular eights and then maybe an eight with double stops, and then maybe all left, and then maybe uh like a countdown thing like eight, eight, four, four, four, two, two, one, or whatever. Uh, what benefits did you see in us starting to incorporate that in at Copel?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah, so I I remember the first time we had a conversation about that, Mr. Bush, and you and you kind of say what you just said now. You were like, hey, the the bases are doing, you know, ones, twos, threes, fours, the quads are doing their rounds. The snares are just doing the same thing over and over. And I was like, oh yeah. And you're like, Well, what if they, you know, what if they did some double stops? What if they just slid left? What they did A421? And it was like immediately it was like a light bulb, like, yeah, that's a good idea. I I can't think of any reason that would not be a good thing, you know. Um, so number one, it, and this is kind of what we were talking about, like best teaching practices in the camp setting as well, it gives the snare drummers something that is changing to make sure they're focusing rep to rep, right? Like if the next rep is double stops, you you have to be at least a minimal level of engaged to make sure you're doing the right thing. Um, if the next rep after that is lefts only, even if I have a kid on the snare line who's like maybe struggling, maybe for whatever reason he's not my best player, his left hand is getting better if we're doing a rep of just lefts, you know? Um, and then like the 842 one thing, again, we're just getting a little bit of like stick control exercise kind of um skills. Hand to hand transitions, which is where most of the dirt occurs on eights for snares, right? Is when you transition from hand to hand. And especially like if I think back to some of those earlier years at Cap Hill before we were on block scheduling, we we're in a class period with like 45 minutes, you know, and it's like, man, we might have time to do eights and maybe two other exercises. So, yes, if I can during eights, I want to make sure I give the bases and the quads time to do their thing. If I can check a couple other boxes for the snares, that's huge, you know. Um, I I've had this thought several times as you guys have been talking, Missy Sloss, about the all 12 keys, uh, Mr. Bush about like changing the snares from stock eights. There is still, I don't have it as much, but certainly when I was closer to college and like drum core, there's just this thing in me that like when I consider changing what I did as a college student or as a player in drumcore, I'm like, I don't know if that's right. I don't think we should do that. You know, like I spent an entire summer in the Phantom Regiment Front Ensemble, Miss East Los playing every exercise in all 12 keys.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Which is like was when you have a post-summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

It's it's it's perfect, it's great. It's like that's a different context with different players and a different environment. Absolutely and Mr. Bush, like we all grew up with the snares, playing eights. It's eights. We should play eight notes in a row, you know? Yeah. So there's just this thing I think in us, a lot of us as younger teachers, especially closer to like drum core or college, where considering changing what worked for you or what you grew up with or what you loved playing, you're just like, oh, that can't be right. But if you step back, like we've said a couple times, if you step back and just go, okay, wait a minute, let me honestly look at the context I'm in with the students I have, with the time I have, then it becomes clear there's probably a better way to develop the skills that need to be developed.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

And with the beats that you have. Yes, yes, with the beats that you have. I was uh very eye-opening to Mr. Wynn. I I think this was two years ago. Uh Coppel has two bands, they have a varsity band and a junior varsity band. And the junior varsity band went and competed at a contest here in North Texas that the varsity band didn't go to. They were one of the first groups on, but there were a lot of very strong bands in the area, which means a lot of the strong, strongest bands in the state. You know, we're very fortunate to have like a lot of these, you know, strong Frisco schools and Louisville schools and what have you. And so Mr. Wynne, after watching the junior varsity in the morning, he said he didn't go in and watch the bands. He just went from lots to lots a lot of all these high school groups, talked with the percussion director, and kind of watched their warm-up procedure. And he said the most shocking thing to him was how unaligned the exercise programs tended to be with the actual music that they were playing compared to uh, you know, the things that we were doing, right? And so for me, this is kind of you don't even have to wait till the end of the episode for the most important part, right? For me, necessarily for not just the team E sloss beats, but I would argue, regardless who's doing your beat, the biggest bang for your buck that you can apply literally immediately to any exercise, regardless of what you're doing, is you just need to do more dynamics. Uh, you need to do more crescindos and day crescendos. You need to play a bar of like 16th notes or triplets at piano and then do it again until it actually sounds good. You need to have your section leader do it by themselves so everyone knows what it should sound like. And then you need to have that same section leader do one measure the crescendos, just dig it, digg it, dig it, digg, digg it, dig it, dig it, dig it, right? And everyone needs to listen to the rate of that, and then you need to add one player in at a time trying to match that. Uh, you know, these type of things are are from the drum line, our roots are so embedded in this militaristic necessity of accent and tap for clarity to hear over musket fire. And bro, if you are ever in a band contest and there's some musket fire, get out of there. Accent tap don't matter right now, right? We've evolved so much musically. And when I think about the greatest musicians that have had the greatest, I mean, we just got to see Nate Smith a couple weeks ago. I I don't know the number, I can't express the number of different dynamics and touches and timbers that this man got. He had like two symbols. He had like a hi-hat and a ride symbol. You know what I mean? But it sounded like he had, you know, a Terry Bozio kit, right? Or something like because of all that he was able to get out of this thing by all the different touches and approaches and stuff. And that's where your big bang for your buck comes from. I feel when I watch the basketball team or tennis players or the football team or the soccer team, they're not always working on like layups and half court shots. They're shooting the ball from everywhere on the court so that they then have the control that no matter what happens in the game, they're comfortable shooting the ball. And I think, you know, for years now we've gotten so many wonderful compliments on the dynamics. And I think that that's very forward-facing. It's very easy to hear that. But behind the scenes, if I can expose behind the scenes, like just our our actual ability to play accent to tap, to play paradidals, to play with all those things are also way stronger just because the kids have so much more control. Instead of just memorizing like a pattern, they actually can send the signal from their brain to their hands to create the musical sound they want, and they now have the control to create that.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah, can we back up for just a second? You know, the activity that we're doing uh as musicians, music ultimately is an art form in communication. And to be a really effective communicator, you have to have a wide range of expression. And to have a wide range of expression, have access to those tools, you have to be able to uh execute a wide range of dynamics. And um one of the things that Doug and I pride ourselves in uh with with our teaching and the philosophy that we have with our students is that we're not trying to teach them just to achieve the beats or achieve the skills at the highest level so they can get a hundred on those judges' sheets. It's not taking a test. We're trying to be effective musicians and effective communicators. Uh so the emphasis on dynamics in the exercise routine uh is so important to be effective so that the students can be effective now as musicians, even though they are just students. Right? And so we uh, you know, in the in the front ensemble world, what that translates to is we have, you know, plenty of the stock exercises with stock variations, but we're not always playing them at forte every day. You know, one of the ways that I will navigate if we're not quite ready to add all this shaping and all these varieties with crescendos and day crescendos and accents and all of that, is kind of like the key signature thing. On Monday, every exercise is at forte. And on Tuesday, every exercise is at piano. And on Wednesday, every exercise is at mezzo piano. And I will continue that through the season. You know, when we get going with marching band and trying to navigate two shows at the same time with changes in this and tempo raises of that and all of the chaos that happens, I might only get 15 minutes with the front ensemble to warm up. And that time is very, very precious to work on fundamentals. Uh, and I want to include dynamics in that somewhere. So I'll do the same thing. Uh today we're gonna go through all our three exercises or our four exercises, but we're gonna do them all at piano. And we're gonna do them really, really well. I'm gonna hold them to an extreme standard and balance everything so that when we go to the music, all of the balancing that we did on the exercises we can reference. And so now our pianos are better for that day. And then the next day or the next week, we pick a different dynamic and we do the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Absolutely. Mr. Shear, are we teaching the exercise or are we using an exercise we've already learned to develop skills?

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Great question, Mr. Bush. I hope we're using an exercise we've already learned to develop skills. But in our conversation preparing, uh preparing for this episode, this came up because we're all guilty of this, and we've all seen this from time to time, you know, um, it's, you know, October 10th or whatever. And now we feel like, okay, we need to work on fill in the blank, whatever skill it is. And maybe we really do need to work on that. But the question you need to ask yourself at any point in the season is like, okay, if I'm, because I feel like this is when this happens, when all of a sudden I feel like there's something we need to work on, and I'm gonna introduce a new exercise. And I know I've been there where you end up just spinning your wheels, actually, actually sort of just trying to figure out the exercise as opposed to actually getting better because, like you said, because you're using an exercise you already know to develop skills. So I think this happens when all of a sudden you're trying to introduce something new, when either A, you don't have time, or B, you don't quite have the players to do it, or C, this can happen when you just have too many exercises and you're just not able to visit them frequently enough so that they're familiar enough to actually serve their correct purpose. Right? Like it's it's good to have enough exercises to cover all the skills, but if you have so many that they're never really ingrained enough to just allow the player to develop and kind of get their mind off of the actual exercise, then they're not serving their purpose. So I think that's a really important thing to be honest about with yourself.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, we we all kind of come from to some degree this the school that I know that um, you know, I really credit to uh my my time with Paul at UNT of you know, doing these shorter, concise exercises that target a specific idea and then doing a lot of variations of it. So, like a great, very clear example is I can remember while while there it was expected, like, hey, we're gonna work on grid. That means you gotta do 16-0 grid, triplet grid, off the right, off the left, forward, backwards, and one accent and two accent, right? Uh the weakest players of that university north Texas drumline are stronger. You know, like I might have a single student couple, like my center snare might be the only human, or maybe my second base that could also be in that line. And if they were, they would be the weakest player. Yeah. They would be on the right. Definitely not rookie kid on the end of the snare line. There's never, you know, definitely not, you know, uh sophomore uh home chick on bottom base, right? You know, that's not gonna happen, right? So, yes, would I like to be able to present the same, of course. Uh is the skill important, of course. But my mentality has always been to isolate a skill. So, what is the skill that I'm developing in grid that Paul's teaching us? You know, it's being able to permutate the accent throughout the beat to where I have a comfort level of comfort of being able to place an accent on any of the partials. Like it doesn't matter which hand, it doesn't matter where it's located, right? And then if that is a skill that's important and valuable, valuable to me, I do the same thing, but I spread it out across the four years. So year one, we might just do 16 notes off the right and off the left, one accent, and then year two, two accent, and then year three, triplets off the right and left one accent, and number four, right? So even if a student only gets two or three years of this progression and varsity, they're still getting this exposure to it. And chances are as they get older, they're able through osmosis to pick up the rest, right? You know, as opposed to, you know, on year one, it's like, okay, I'm gonna dedicate the bulk of my my time to this one skin, and I'm never gonna play a paradiddle. But no, I oh look, I just got the beats and there's paradiddles and paradiddles through, you know, all throughout, or there's nine lits or whatever, and I don't have a single exercise that addresses a nine lit, right? Yeah, awesome. Uh thank you so much for hanging out with us today, friends. If you have any questions for the podcast, send them to teameslos at gmail.com. That's teameslos t-e-a-m i-s-l-a-s at gmail.com. Shout out to all the great percussion companies that support teameslos. That's Maypex Majestic Percussion, Dynasty Percussion, Remo Drumheads, ProMark Sticks and Mounts, Sabian Symbols, Beetle Percussion, and Lot Riot Apparel. There are a couple of resources that you should be using with your middle school and high school students to get them ready for drumline season. Those resources are the best-selling method books, Momentum and Super Hands. These are the exact books that we use with our students at Coppel and Miss Eastloss. Where can our listeners pick up copies of these books for their students?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Well, you can find them at teameeslast.com. You can also go to Steve Weiss or Dallas Percussion or anywhere else you pick up your percussion method books.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Yep, yep. If your drumline can throw down SCV triplet timing while you provide a sick backbeat, then don't forget to like, subscribe, and please give us a five lit and five star review. Remember, friends, step one is time, step two is sound, and step three, subscribing to the Team East Loss podcast.