Drumline Association of Australia

Snare Drum Setup and Posture

Campbell Phillips — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:26:19 +0000

Drum setup and your playing position is one of the most important aspects of being able to play fast, evenly and relaxed. Any additional tension in your body as a result of a badly setup or adjusted drum will hinder your quality of sound and your playing. Posture is a big part of this, but is also incredibly important in making sure that you do not injure yourself or put un-due stress on you back or any other parts of your body while wearing a harness.

In this video Chad Gibson (Madison Scouts, Blue Knights, University of Texas) will take you through some of the most important consideration in setting up and ‘addressing’ your drum.

Bill Bachman Tour 2013

Campbell Phillips — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 07:10:41 +0000

The Drumline Association of Australia are proud to be bringing Bill Bachman to Australia in 2013. Bill will be touring from the 31st August – 11th September running workshops, masterclasses and private lessons Australia wide.

Bill is one of the most in demand Marching Percussion and Drumset clinicians in the world. He is the author of the hugely popular drumline books; Rudimental Logic, Bass Logic, and Quad Logic, as well as a regular columnist for Modern Drummer Magazine and the author of Stick Technique: An Essential Guide for the Modern Drummer.

In his marching career, Bill has worked as both a performing member and an educator with some of the biggest names in the industry including UNT drumline, Cadets, Bluecoats, Blue Knights, and Carolina Crown in his 12 years touring with Drum and Bugle Corps. He has presented over 200 clinic worldwide and is supported by Vic Firth, Remo, Zildjian, Dynasty and Rowloff.

For Bill’s full bio, please click here

If you would like to arrange a workshop for your group or a private lesson with Bill, please feel free to get in touch with us to discuss what opportunities may be available to you.

NDC Wrap Up – An Educator’s Perspective

Campbell Phillips — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 03:24:04 +0000

By Nalini Scarfe

Nalini is an experience and talented Percussionist and Teacher with over 20 years experience in Orchestral Percussion as well as various Drum Kit style. Nalini is currently the Head of Percusson Tintern Ringwood and regularly performs around Melbourne.

What also stood out for me as a teacher was how inspirational the Drumline leaders were for the younger players. Those kids were totally enthused, engrossed and probably way more disciplined than us oldies. Their performance on Sunday was remarkable.

I first met Steve and Campbell from the D2Drumline at Scotch College Percussion Eisteddfod. I was researching a percussion group to hold a workshop at Tintern School. Steve invited us to a snare drum workshop and I was extremely impressed with his discipline, technique and teaching style with the school group he was training. I thought it might be a good idea to sign myself up to the Drumline camp and get a greater insight into the Drumline culture.

It was with a little trepidation that I set off on Friday morning for band camp. I have been a Percussion Tutor many a time but I remember thinking it was an awfully long time since I had gone as a student! Were my hands and technique going to stand up to three days of drumming?

Massed Drumline Performance to Close the Camp – Image Courtesy of Danny Boldiston (D’Addario Australia, Evans, Promark)

Campbell was super organised with the mail-out of information. All my queries were responded to with alacrity. I had looked at the music that we were expected to perform and the corresponding tempo’s and I decided that I could probably cope with the intermediate level of music. I had a brief look through the chart before camp. I play matched grip as I teach orchestral percussion so decided to give the tenors a go.

All the instructors were enthusiastic, warm, and always encouraging. There were no ego’s just a group of people who exhibited a unique love of their instrument and style.

We were greeted on arrival by a very enthusiastic and lively bunch of D2 Drumline musicians who made me feel very welcome and comfortable from the word go. However we were then separated into levels and I was dismayed to find that I was now in the advanced group……” but I didn’t even look at THAT music!!!” My second level of confusion was the odd positioning of the quint toms…. The second drum is on the far right. Who on earth in their right mind would even propose that. I’m used to high to low on a drum-kit or at least low to high for multi percussion!!! So it was practise, practise to just get my head around where the drums actually were in relation to the music. Ok the guys said this weekend was going to be a challenge and they weren’t wrong.

Nalini and Paolo representing the Tenors During Massed Drumline Warmups

We started drumming at 10am on Friday morning and apart from eating and sleeping it was just all drums until we finished with our performance on Sunday. I was lucky enough being the only tenor player in our group to score an individual lesson with Campbell. He was extremely patient with my ineptitude and at no time did I feel pressured or stressed. For me that was the standout of the camp. All the instructors were enthusiastic, warm, and always encouraging. There were no ego’s just a group of people who exhibited a unique love of their instrument and style. Everyone was more than willing to share ideas and talk about anything from basic technique and rudimental control to dynamic awareness. The other guys in our advanced group were all really friendly and easy to work with. If we needed to practise the same bar of music 20 times everyone was happy to just get on and do it. It was purely a great learning experience. I’ve already shared some of those warm up exercises with my students and they really enjoyed them.

As an educator I gained a real insight into putting a drumline ensemble together. I learned about the specific techniques required for tenor drums and some new and entertaining cymbal and snare drum moves for my percussion ensembles. The weekend reaffirmed the importance I place on dynamic control with stick levels and the necessity of a solid rudimental basis for all percussion instruments.

What also stood out for me as a teacher was how inspirational the Drumline leaders were for the younger players. Those kids were totally enthused, engrossed and probably way more disciplined than us oldies. Their performance on Sunday was remarkable. I headed off to bed at 12pm on Saturday night to find a group of children still practising. Was that Steve in there with them or Chloe? I was too tired to remember. At 11.00pm on Saturday night Matt Duniam came into our late night rehearsal to give us some last minute tips…thanks Mat. Don’t these guys ever rest!

A special thankyou to Kim and Nathan who were more than willing and very enthusiastically gave Sonia and I a crash course in cymbals on Sunday, when I am sure they probably just wanted to pack up and go home.

I would also like to say a huge thankyou to all the members of the D2Drumline for a fantastic camp and the Instructors Mat Duniam, Kyle Davis, and Matt Cocking for making it a really worthwhile learning experience. The Golden Valley Lodge for surviving the volume with such good grace and the lovely girls who organised the food for us all. I will be certainly be encouraging all my students to attend the next Drumline camp.

Nalini

Flam Development

Campbell Phillips — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 10:34:56 +0000

by Kyle Davis

There is a great deal of history surrounding the development of rudimental percussion. Depending on who you ask, there is a definitive set of essential rudiments that every percussionist should know. The rudiment that we’re having a closer look at today is the Flam.

We will be taking the modern rudimental percussionist approach to this particular rudiment.

Typically, this rudiment will be illustrated as pictured here. There is the main note, in this case the quarter note, with a grace note preceding it. It is important to note that the grace note does not affect the placement of the quater note in the measure. Rather the grace note’s placement is relative to the note it is tied to (sometimes the grace note will be illustrated with a tie, but generally, in modern percussion notation, it is not).

The next part of the theory is the stick heights involved in the playing of Flams. Every note you play in modern rudimental percussion should have clear and distinct height associated with it. Depending on the teacher and the drumline you play in, these definitions will vary in terms of what height equals what dynamic marking (eg mf = 6 inches, f = 9 inches, etc). So if you are playing in a line situation with other drummers, make sure those definitions are clear. For the purposes of this article, I will define each height marking as we go.

Step one, play a single flam.

Lets define some heights here. In this first example, we will make the grace note p (3 inches), and the note itself f (9inches). 3 inches is typically slightly higher than where your stick’s bead hovers when at the set position. Isolate this note and get used to the feeling of barely raising your stick to play a note. But here is the trick, try to play that note as loud as you can at 3 inches. Let the stick height determine the dynamic, not the intensity of your stroke. Every stroke you make needs to have the same intensity. Practice this with both hands.Now let’s isolate the note itself. Practice a 9 inch stroke (I define this as a 45 degree angle). Try it with both hands, using the same approach to maximum intensity with each note.Now we are going to combine the two. Often times, a flam will be expressed with only one hand marked on it like in the example picture here.

The grace note, will always be played with the other hand and takes the quieter dynamic as defined by the music. In this case we have defined the dynamics as mf/p, or 9 inches/3 inches. Start the flam by moving your sticks from the set position into the proper heights. Move both sticks down with intensity and at the same speed. Since the grace note is only 3 inches from the drum head, it will strike slightly before the quarter note. This gives us the pleasant flam sound.Step 2: Flam flams
“Flam flams” is an extension of the flam rudiment and is quite simply, alternating flams from hand to hand. Here is a written example of a bar of flam 8th notes.
Before we tackle this puppy, lets break down each hand and create a development exercise. So what exactly is each hand doing? Lets look closely at the right hand’s part from the above example. It looks like this:

In this case the accented notes will be 9 inches and the unaccented notes will be 3 inches in height. Time to get out the metronome and practice the above bar, alternating hands. Over and over again. Now faster. And again. And faster again. You get the idea.

Now lets work on the concept of what’s happening here by examining the actual physics involved. We first need to define two different types of strokes being used here. The upstroke and the downstroke.

Imagine the bead of your stick, 9 inches above the drum head and you move the stick down towards the head. The bead strikes the head and you allow the stick to freely raise back up to the 9 inch mark (or 6 or 12 or 15 or whatever that particular dynamic may be). The stick is now back at the 9 inch mark ready to play another note. This is an upstroke. Your hand and wrist powers the stick down, and physics and rebound power the stick back up.

But what happens if you have a note at 9 inches, but the following note is 3 inches? If you allow the stick to rebound back up to 9 inches, then your stick is in the incorrect position for the next note. So we need a downstroke.

Imagine the bead of your stick at 9 inches (remember the next note is 3 inches), and you power the stick towards the drum head. The bead strikes the head and begins its ascent back up. You have to actively stop the stick from moving beyond three inches. This stopping of the stick is a downstroke.

The above exercise is the most basic form of alternating upstrokes and downstrokes. You will notice that the rebound off of a three inch note will only go back to the 3 inch mark (according to physics it’s actually slightly less with some of the force being lost to the friction involved in the actual striking of the head), so we must actively turn our wrist up to bring the bead back to the 9 inch mark. This results in a sort of pumping action in the small muscles in your wrist when doing the accent tap exercise above.

Let’s expand the exercise and create a four bar piece to help develop flam flams.
(In the spirit of defining everything, if you have an exercise, with a tap off in between, and there is no defined closing note in the music, always use the very first note of the exercise. In this case, after playing all of the flam flams in bar four, the final note of the exercise would be an accented Right Hand note.)

In a drumline situation, I suggest playing this with one repeat and then a one bar tap off in between. Don’t forget, if you increase the tempo during the tap off, always give TWO bars of tap off. This way the drumline knows and has has time to adjust to the new tempo. Practice this with different heights (don’t exceed 6 inches on the lower notes and 15 inches (90 degrees) on the accented notes).

Step 3: Alternating Flams
The next step is to alternate the flams in a continuous pattern. The pattern looks like this (This example is represented in 6/4 time):Again, the accent notes are defined as 9 inches and the rest are defined as 3 inches (the lower notes are often referred to as “inside notes”).

Let’s isolate the hands now so we can see what’s happening. Here is the Right hand:

And the Left hand:

Play this all on one hand, 9 inches for the first note and 3 inches for the three following notes.Now let’s put it all together in an exercise. Pay special attention to the heights of every note, which it why we isolate the hands, and the transitions in between notes (upstroke or downstroke). Play this with a metronome on an 6/4 pattern with an 8th note pulse. Play it with one repeat.

You can watch a video of this exercise below:

About the Author

Kyle Davis

Kyle Davis is an experienced marching percussion who has instructed corps accross the US and Canada. He marched with the Magic of Orlando (World Class DCI) in 2004 before travelling as a musician and salesman on cruiseships and eventually moving to Australia. Kyle is now residing in Geelong, Victoria and is highly sort after as an marching percussion instructor.

The ACA Drumline

Campbell Phillips — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 10:08:41 +0000

The ACA Drumline at the 2012 NDC

The Academy of creative arts/ACA Drumline from Heatherton Christian College is a young and pioneering school group that has boomed in less than a month to already have many performances and pieces under their belt.

Directed by Michael Day one of the latest instructors to really hit the Melbourne scene they were the only full drumline other than D2 at the NDC camp. They started off with just sticks and pads and only 6 months later performing really well for crowds of drummers at the National camp and at their school. What’s most exciting about this group is how well they’ve come together as a team in such a short space of time and with such differing ages in the group. THE ACA DRUMLINE from Heatherton is truly one to watch out for and contact for performances or demonstrations of what students can achieve with drumlines.

Contact – Michael Day
MOB: 0447 364 460
Email: mikeslesson1@gmail.com

August 2012 – USC @ Grammys with Radiohead

Campbell Phillips — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:27:01 +0000

To get you geared up for Ali Hassan’s upcoming education articles, check out this awesome footage of him performing with the USC Drumline and Radiohead at the Grammys in 2009.

There is a reason USC get calls to play gigs like this – find out why in Ali’s articles soon!

*Each week will will feature a new video on the DAA Homepage – this can be anything. An instructional video, a video of a stand-out drumline, or just the most recent performance of a local drumline. If you would like to submit a video to be feature on the homepage, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Crossovers and Sweeps – Introduction

Campbell Phillips — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 10:01:29 +0000

Check out this great little introduction to crossovers and sweeps from the world renown Bill Bachman.

As he mentions, the keys are to be wary of exactly where you are hitting the drum and staying within your zones, ensuring you have great diddle control before worrying about moving around the drums, and making sure you maintain your finger control at all tempos.

Never forget the golden rule for tenors; if you cannot play it on the y axis, you are not ready for the x axis.

Enjoy!

D²Drumline

Campbell Phillips — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 08:19:33 +0000

2012 Performance Line

The D²Drumline are one of Melbourne’s most in demand entertainment ensembles. The drumline is comprised mainly of professional musicians and teachers with the odd dentist, pharmacist, or engineer thrown in for good measure. D²’s performance highlights include:

2012 AFL Grand Final half time entertainment with the Temper Trap
Official Drumline for the Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby Team 2012
Featured Entertainment at the 2011/12 New Years Eve Celebrations and Federation Square
2012 Australian Ultimate Drummer Weekend incl. cameo with Dom Famularo
St Kilda Festival 2012 and 2013
2011 Jagermeister AIR Awards with M-Phazes, Illy, Mantra and many more

The drumline are also experienced clinicians and workshop facilitators having run workshops at the 2012 Optimum Percussion Eisteddfod, St Bede’s Catholic College, The Peninsula School, Scotch College, Tintern Grammar, Revolver Drums, the 2012 National Drumline Camp and many more.

D² are always looking for talented new musicians to get involved in marching percussion and regularly hold open auditions for musicians with experience in marching percussion and offer a Training Corps and private lessons who are looking to learn the ropes before auditioning.

Check out the D²’s latest news through their DAA Profile or through Facebook

Touch – Unifying Technique/Approach

Campbell Phillips — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:12:40 +0000

We all know that it is incredibly important to unify our technique across the drumline. If playing with different technique (not just matched vs. trad, but the specifics!), then each individual drummer will get a slightly different sound out of their drum, different rebound speeds and angles, and will look different. It is therefore essential to spend time unifying our technique and grip to ensure our hands look and work the same way.

Something that is often overlooked however, is the velocity of the stroke. Many Directors will focus on the more obvious aspects of unifying technique - particularly the visual aspects – but will overlook the touch, or velocity behind each note played.

Check out this great Scojo video that discusses the importance of touch and runs through a series of example of different velocities in strokes. Time to start unifying your line’s touch!

NDC Wrap Up – A Musician’s Perspective

Campbell Phillips — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 08:57:39 +0000

This one time, at National Drumline Camp 2012….

By Paolo Nicolas

Paolo Ripping it up on Day One of the NDC

Firstly, let me announce my acknowledgements: a very big, nay – fortissimo THANK YOU to the Drumline Association of Australia (DAA), D²Drumline and their support staff, Mat Duniam, Matt Cocking and Kyle Davis for opening my eyes to this fascinating facet of drumming, also to Golden Valley Lodge in the Mornington Peninsula for a kick ass weekend!

What made this camp very, very special and awesome was the positive attitude and vibe from the leaders and instructors.

Here’s how the camp went…

Smooth, clean, together and on time. It’s what a percussionist strives for in this highly regimented art, the drumline. But those adjectives are none more applicable to the operation of the very first National Drumline Camp (NDC) on the 5^th to the 7^th of October 2012. Although it was not really a surprise, considering that the lovely, passionate and extremely skilled drummers, percussionists and instructors that ran the weekend are trained to strictly follow an arrangement of notes on a sheet of paper – let alone a simple timetable for the campers! The camp started on time, every sectional, mass cadence and personal practice times, public performances and even the scheduled downtimes ran smoothly! For an inaugural camp there were no hiccups at all…even the weather couldn’t halt proceedings!

Now here’s how it went, for me…..

I signed up for camp by an invitation from Kim Woon, my good friend and co-lead cymbals for D² Drumline. On the DAA website it said “The camp is open to all skill levels providing you can read music and hold a pair of sticks.” So I was happy to give it a go. I definitely fall in to the “all skill levels” category and I can hold a pair of sticks! I am a self-taught rock n’ roll drummer, having never delved into this mesmerizing form of rudimental drumming.

After the formalities of unloading gear and grabbing a bunk, we were allocated in to our groups. I was in the intermediate group. To be honest I thought this would be a breeze: stand straight, look forward, start hitting the drums and snap back into position in the end. Then behold the sheet music thrust in front of me. Akin to a westerner seeing a completely Cantonese restaurant menu for the first time I began to scratch my head and panic a little. Sure I can put stick to skin but doing so at different stick heights, different stance and a different fatter, heavier stick altogether gave me my first challenge for the weekend.

I signed up for tenors seeing it looked fun having four to five tom toms in front of you, but I may have shot myself in the foot with this one. Other campers get to concentrate and apply the strict sticking technique on one drum, be it bass or snare, I half-unknowingly gave myself the challenge of learning how to hit five drums! Eight on the right, same on the left, alternate, doubles, accents, crescendos, two-stroke rolls all was fun to play. Over and over again, the weight of the harness bearing on my virgin shoulders notwithstanding, we played the same warm up patterns.

NDC Instructors Campbell Phillips and Matt Cocking casting a watchful eye

That was Friday. The entire day was devoted to using warmups to help develop greater technique, touch, tone and control.

Saturday was time to practice the mass and group cadences. More sheet music for me to stare at blankly, doe-eyed. Yikes! Watching the other campers jump on it like it was second nature to them added to my anxiety. The onset of breakfast, the arrival of morning tea, the beckoning of lunch, the relief of afternoon tea and even the refuge provided by dinner all I could think about was how to play these dots on the paper!

One of my aims in this camp was to step out of my drumming comfort zone. And I definitely did that. I wasn’t a fish out of water; I was just in a different ocean.

My mood during dinner time on Saturday was very much similar to the night before a big exam. After lunch on Sunday will be the big performance from the entire camp in front of parents, friends and the sponsors. Sitting at the dinner table I still had no idea what my left and right hands would be playing. So I (literally) went to the woodshed and started to break the simple 30+ bars of this cadence down. The benefit of the camp being held in the middle of a 30 hectare rural property is that I can make as much noise as I can practising my part over and over again without disturbing the neighbors. I was hellbent on getting this piece of music as close to correct as possible. I kept telling myself I just needed to land on the 1 and I should be fine.

Enter the rest of the attendees at camp! What made this camp very, very special and awesome was the positive attitude and vibe from the leaders and instructors. All the parties I mentioned above and even the fellow campers provided me with enormous amounts of coaching, encouragement and self-belief in overcoming my music illiteracy and allowed me to play my parts.

The remarkable amount of patience every instructor had was overwhelming! Not all were there helping me at the same time. They took turns visiting me in the shed and helped me run the piece again and again. I went to bed around midnight, well 1am thanks to daylights savings, more confident that I can perform the piece in front of the crowd the next day.

Overall I’m still at a loss for words as to how much the NDC’s two and a half days has immeasurably helped my drumming.

I ran through the piece again early on Sunday morning before breakfast in the woodshed, oblivious that people in their bunks could hear me. Hopefully my expletives were dulled or unheard, when I screwed up a part or two.

Paolo being presented with his awesome prize pack by Campbell Phillips and Danny Boldiston of Evans and Promark

Showtime. The moment the members of the public and the sponsors arrived, until that last bar played by D² Drumline’s own cadence resonated – all happened in a blur. Within that time frame the entire camp and each group performed their cadences and accolades were given. I was one of the (extremely) lucky (and perplexed) campers that received a prize pack full of practice gear – I think they were trying to tell me something – and for that thank you very much!

It was such a massive relief I was able to perform the cadence for the audience and not let myself and my group down. One of my aims in this camp was to step out of my drumming comfort zone. And I definitely did that. I wasn’t a fish out of water; I was just in a different ocean.

Overall I’m still at a loss for words as to how much the NDC’s two and a half days has immeasurably helped my drumming. The drumming community should be aware that the camp had a wealth of awesome teachers, instructors, percussionists and fellow attendees willing to help everyone get their chops up. Thanks to them I’m currently improving my reading abilities and am very much looking forward to the doing it again. I most highly recommend that any budding drummer out there reading this should definitely sign up and attend the nextmNational Drumline Camp, I will see you there!