Reinforcing Percussion Timing and Tuna Fishing 

 by Rich Viano

How many times have you been in the warm-up area of a band or Drum Corps show and noticed a group playing very well?  Most of them are standing in nice “cute” arcs playing the living daylights out of every exercise in their program.  You can see the fire in their eyes, the sweat on their brows.  The impression they make is astonishing and you decide at that very moment: “I have to see these guys on the field.”  “They are going to ‘tear it up’ tonight.”

Then reality sets in.  As soon as this line begins to move their feet, the fire eating performance ensemble takes on a new persona: bumbling, stumbling drum unit.

It’s a common quality with a common reason: Insecurity.

When we are standing in front of our percussion section, we want to hear quality.  It makes us feel good and it makes the kids feel good.  When we spend time practicing on the move, the frustration of reality tends to cloud our better sense of judgment.  It’ funny how fast we forget the learning curve.  “Everything is hard until it’s easy.”  Here are some sure-fire ways to get past this hurdle.  

First, begin with marking time through all of your exercises.  Teach the kids to use the pulse of their feet as a primary source of time.  In my experiences, kids tend to focus on the hands first and the relationship to their feet second.  I think it’s crucial to reverse that line of thinking.  When I was at Morehead State, Frank Oddis always told us to focus on the “big drum.”  He was simply telling us that keeping our feet in time on the ground was a proven way to get our hands together on the drum.  

If you have the “odd meter” syndrome, by that I mean, writing all of your exercises to sound like a Pat Metheney tribute, I suggest changing your approach.  There is nothing wrong with teaching technique in simple,  check-sequence- orientated forms.  Whatever happened to teaching simple to start?  

Once the kids have learned the exercises marking time, get tuna fishing right away. Note: I did not say once the kids have MASTERED the exercises.  

In my drum corps years, we used to block up the drum line, fire up the Dr. Beat and march for hours.  We marched around tracks, neighborhoods, cornfields and back roads.  We affectionately called these technique journeys tuna fishing.  It is more commonly called tracking.

Putting your exercise program on the move is a shortcut to success.  As I tell my kids all the time, the only shortcuts that I am aware of is doing it right the first time.  Here is the qualifying statement and a common theme in all of my articles: You have to be willing to take things slowly in order to perform the technique, show segment or cadence perfectly.  Remember that you are trying to build a relationship between your feet, hands and brain.  Those three elements are not going to work like a well-oiled machine if you start off at tempos faster than light speed.

Back to the insecurity point I made earlier.  Don’t be afraid to listen to your drum line struggle. Everything of quality takes tremendous amounts of time and patience.  If you take things slow, their comprehension will develop quickly.  Once the concept is in the brain at a slow tempo, adding speed, dynamics and energy will follow quite quickly.  If your kids are completely falling apart, chances are you are going too fast or you may need to back off in terms of how demanding the material is.

To better prepare our kids for directional moves, we use an eight by eight box.  We take eight counts forward, eight counts to the right, eight counts to the rear and eight counts to the left.  This is a more advanced element of this concept.  In this form, you are combining the timing qualities of the previous mentioned technique and adding direction change responsibilities.

If you witness my line warming up, you will have to follow us.  We warm-up on the move.  We rehearse segments on the move.  If we perform a segment that has hold in the drill, the kids know to execute the hold in the segment.  When the appropriate step off arrives in the phrase, the kids step off and we track away.

The greatest benefit will be this:  You will have a line that is capable of performing well where it counts, on the field.  Let the other lines worry about winning parking lot championships.  Get your kids focused on their strength as a musical marching ensemble. Sooner or later, winning or losing championships comes down to your weaknesses.  Don’t have any. 

Best of luck “reeling” in your group’s timing,

Rich Viano

Rich Viano is the Manager of the Express Music Publishing Percussion Division. He is also the leader of the Village Beatniks at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom and the Percussion Designer/Writer for the Boston Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps.  Rich was recently published in the Texas Bandmasters Association Journal Volume 3, Number 2, December 2001

If you’ve enjoyed this article you may be interested in reading some of our other percussion related articles and more; click the Staff Notes Articles button to the left to view our article archives. 

© Express Music Services, Inc. 

Not to be reproduced without written permission from Express Music Services.