A New System kinda...

Morning everyone! Well almost afternoon.

Just kickin around in the computer lab at school trying to avoid another accounting assignment. Wanted to bring some light to some new changes in the drum corp. Thought it might be interesting.

As many folks know last year was a huge building year for our drum corp. We moved a lot of great talent up into roles beyond their years and the whole group rallied together and made it work.

This season i'm happy to say we're much more stable in the drum corp and therefore I felt it was time to start teaching the corp some self reliance.

Much like Wes' pipe corp I feel it is so important that my drum corp can rehearse, setup, and compete without me. Why is that? Well while i'm not prone to injury or health problems you just never know. With such a large group the season shouldn't rest on the shoulders of one player.

We've always had Cam Fidler to fill in the ranks when i'm absent or when I need to hear the corp from the outside. Cam does a great job. However, i've also started teaching some of the other fellas to take on some other roles.

Ian Walker has taken on the teaching of our youngest students. Ensuring that with or without me around there will be a feeder chain coming into the drum corp. Dylan Knight has stepped up and, with some coaching, is helping me write scores for the grade 3 corp. Graham Fidler is now handling score transcription to computer, as well as helping Dylan and I write for the grade 3 corp. Cam again fills another role helping me write for the grade 2 corp.

I feel having multiple writers of the music not only ensures a fill in, if I can't do it, but it also provides both corps with slightly different styles and rudiments combinations. Challenging them again and again.

It's amazing what someone, who hasn't been exposed to years of the best drum scores on earth, will write. I'm really looking forward to rolling out some of the new scores.

Look for Dylan's Braes of Marr (spey) in the grade 3 medley, as well as Cam's Ale is Dear (reel) in the grade 2 medley. Graham is also creating some reels for the grade 3 medley and i'm looking forward to those as well.

Keep up the good work boys. It's nice to know I can count on you.

Cheers,

Sean