Drummer Chick

I was mostly kidding when I said they should all play in the pit, there's enough competition among the percussionists for parts as it is...

Yeah, its the people like that that give us a bad rep

In the pit, we have several, most people see the pit as the Drumline wannabees, but really most of us enjoy pit, it's the 5-6 that don't who drag us down. We have one guy in particular, he's a junior, but no one takes him seriously, he intentionally makes other people mad or screws them up, he's spent the last 3 years as a shadow to the pit, he doesn't even play the triangle or tambourine or anything, he just sits there and bugs people. There's several others who just sit and do homework, which is unfortunately what the rest of the band sees, so most of the rest of the band s the pit, even though we actually do more than they do a lot of the time.

Agreed, I saw Poteet at the Plano East competition, they're totally awesome

That's ok, most people call me a lion, one band saw me before halftime once, and tried to get me to sing the "Meow mix" song, at this point, It doesn't really matter to me what I'm called, as long as people get that I'm the circus animal

We take 18 busses and 3-4 trucks to travel anywhere, so eventually, something's bound to happen, but you would know that we had a bus crash on the way to area, it was crazy, because some people refused to be treated by the paramedics, insiting they were healthy enough to march, and everone was mad because the news cameras came and filmed us. They had to move our time from 1:45 to 3 because of it, and even then, we literally walked off the busses and went straight to the warmup area. Crazy stuff happens on the busses all the time though. Never ride the Tuba Bus, unless you are one, or you're good friends with one. even then, be careful.

I'm a TIGER!!! lol, yeah, I'm having so much fun being the Timpani Tiger, it's really fun, and gives me an excuse to claw at people and growl

Not trying to complain, but I haven't really heard much anywhere about Allen, does anyone notice us but to dimiss us as big? I personally thought we did really well at Area, considering all the behind the scenes stuff that went wrong at area, including but not limited to a bus crash on the way there, an where the chime player had the chimes fall on her (she's mostly ok now) the timpani were broken during transport Friday night, so I was using a different set (that thanks to the crash, I didn't get to practice with till I was on the field), and just about as many other possible problems that could come up did come up. But I'm curious as to what other people see.

We march Bass Clarinets and Tenor sax's I don't think we march baris, but don't quote me on that, I don't know numbers, not being a low reed myself

Ours are really spread out, I think we probably have a few in every section, we have one in the Pit, he's a basoonist who plays marimba, and he's awesome at it, he's better than a lot of the regular percussionists in fact. We're trying to get him to stay in percussion for concert season, but he really likes his basoon. Can't see why...

I'm in a huge band, we have over 600 people, but I'm not entirely sure how that happened, though we have an 8th grade night where the 8th graders sit and play with us in the stands at a football game to get a feel for how much fun it is, and in May, we have "First Steps" where the 8th graders come out and learn marching fundamentals, so they're not so overwhelmed when summer band starts. Plus it's word of mouth, everyone wants to be in the band, even though its hard work, it's fun. Everyone sees the band- at football games, plus we do a march-a-thon in August where we march 10 miles through Allen to raise funds and awareness, and we march in the Allen Christmas parade every year.

I dunno, personally, I think Basoons should all play in the pit during marching season. Seriously, our 4th marimba player is a basoon player during concert season, and he's amazing on the marimba, probably partially because he's in the pit because he wants to play music and not because he didn't make battery.

If anyone's interested, Allen posts edited "Highlights" of almost everything we play at on our website http://www.allenescadrille.org/index.html

I think they entered it for the Guiness world records, but it's almost certain as far as anyone knows that we're the largest high school marching band in the country, possibly the world, but there's no way to know for sure.

All I saw of Bell, I saw as I was being wheeled past on the way to the warmup area, but it was really cool from what little I did see, I thought Marcus was pretty cool too, though I saw it from behind.

We have a crazy big band, so most people looking from the outside in think that it must be horrible, but really, it's better, because we have awesome directors and totally awesome band parents, who help keep it all together, though a lot of it is the student comraderie, you meet upper classmen in middle school, then they learn from the upperclassmen above them when they go to the high school, and then when you move up, you're learning how the band works from people who are already your friends, not just some random upperclassman telling you to hold your horn higher. Also, the directors have a high standard of excellence set for us, so we try our hardest to achieve it, it sounds really stupid but it works.

Anyone have comments about Allen? I'm curious as to what outside eyes see. I'm the Timpani Tiger in the circus, just in case anyone's seen me

I play all percussion, but for marching season, I'm the one and only timpanist! Who else in the band can say that thay always have a solo? Just to prove that it's possible to have a life outside of band, I'm also in the Select and Show choirs, so my voice is my other instrument. I'd like to take up flute, just so I have a wind instrument just in case, but I don't have the money right now to get one.

Having an enormous band means that there's really no set thing to do for fun, we have kind of fads in entertainment, and they tend to be pretty strange, since they usually start in the drumline, for instance the "invisible dart" game went araound for a while, it started out as the pit against the cymbals, where you would make eye contact with your target and hold your hand to your mouth and make a sound, they then had a "dart" in their neck, and had to lie on the ground until someone pulled the dart out, the only defense was to either avoid eye contact, or hold you hand over your neck so you couldn't be shot, the Cymbal captain walked around school for a week with his hand continually on his neck, it got pretty stupid, especially when the entire band- all 600+ of them started doing it, and then it spread to the rest of the school, but it got kind of pointless after that, because most people didn't understand the game, they just pretended they did. The Drumline likes to quote movies, and try to stump other drumline members on which movie they're from. (I always lose, I haven't seen very many good movies, and no one watches the classics )

We have three, partially because the freshmen are on a different campus, and partially because we have the largest high school marching band in the world, and therefore the messiest percussionists in the world. At the High School, we have two, one with cubbies that's used for battery percussion storage and changing clothes/ storing stuff, and one for storing the pit instruments, though both are incredibly messy, and entrance is barred to all people except percussionists and boy/girlfriends of percussionists. The Drum room at the freshman center is meticulously clean, mainly because quite a few of the freshmen percussionists this year are s, though really, it only looks clean, the crap is well hidden in instrument cases and cabinets, mostly because the directors threatened to lock us out of the drum room if it became a mess.

I'm the timpanist, so my mallets don't bend But to practice for all-region auditions, I borrowed my friend's vibraphone mallets one day, it really messed with my mind that the mallets bend, mostly just because I haven't played anything but timpani in a couple of months. I really like the flexibility though, once I got used to it, it just has a cool feel.