Recently I travelled to UNK for a drumline camp. It was for high school kids but Schnoor (UNK band director) said he’d like it if some incoming freshman came. Along with me there were 3 incoming and all were good. However the camp was boring. Tap and accents was all it really seemed to be, on top of that most of the kids weren’t very good. I’m sorry but they just couldn’t play, which was good that they were at the camp, but for how easy everything was I thought it should be very clean. There were 18 snares and of course nothing can be THAT clean but for the stuff we were playing it seemed like it should be.

I was so thankful that the other incoming freshman were good, and certainly capable of much more than the music at the camp. They had UNK drumline guys there and when one of them gave us a break to work on some music 2 of the freshman and I played through it and it was very refreshing to play something clean. I was thankful that out of the 18 person snare line that 2 were capable of playing well with each other and someone else.

It also made me thankful of the instructors I’ve had. Heath and Dan have been great. They gave me the tools to become good and now confindently trying out for drum and bugle corps. Most of the kids hadn’t had an instructor, ever. They just had there band director and unless he or she has been on a drumline, he or she doesn’t know much. The “clinician” there was Chad Scharf, he is the band director out at Lexington and is also a drummer. I had someone tell me once that, “No offense, but I don’t think that a drummer would be a very good band director because all he knows is percussion.” Not true, even at the drumline camp Chad would talk of some very musical ideas. Besides no matter what kind of music educator you want to be you take all the classes a woodwind or brass player would. I nearly tested out of Theory 1 at UNK, and I drum and sing.

And in case you haven’t seen Lexington’s band, they’re good. I saw them at Harvest of Harmony last year and they were among the best, not bad for a drummer, and its not just the drumline, of course I’m biased but the brass and woodwinds were quite exceptional. Hopefully I can become as talented as Chad Scharf has in instructing a high school drumline AND band.