Tough Drill

[290Piika]

So, my band's only through with two of the four movements drill-wise. Our first and second movements are at 160 bpm, with the second increasing to 180 the last four or five sets.

The problem isn't so much the speed, though. It's the step size. A lot of us have steps 4-5 or 3.5-5 at some point in the show, both forwards and backwards. Jazz running is okay for forwards, but we're bouncy and clumsy going backwards.

Any advice for tackling such large, quick steps?

[tromboneking87]

Our Ben Folds show has similar drill, about 14 pages of marching at 160 (we had to move it down from 180, the guy that wrote the drill made it physically impossible at some points). Here's some things that made it easier on me...
1. Maintain your posture. If you start letting your upper body sag, it's only going to get harder to move at that speed. If you focus on keeping yourself from sagging and keeping a good roll step, you'll find that you are able to go faster and be able to play while doing it!
2. Always think ahead to the next set. The killer in our show wasn't the speed, or even the step size, it was the transition from one move to the next. If your first step isn't big enough, you're going to be running to try and keep up. As you're coming into a set, remind yourself of where you're going next, and what kind of swivel/pivot/flank/whatever you need to do to get there.
3. When all else fails, bend your knees a little bit as you move, moving your upper body lower. It makes moving at high speeds a touch easier.
Hope that helps. Good luck!
Oh, almost forgot, we had to perform that drill on a completely rain drenched field. Thankfully we didn't have anyone fall.

[bluescalesdragon]

As opposed to a roll step, we're supposed to try to stay on our toes for bigger steps, sometimes even for a 6 to 5. If you are jazz running, you definitely need to keep off your heels.

The difficulty with our drill is there are 85 pages of it in a 7 minute show. 10 direction changes in the first 14 seconds of the show. And any part during the show where I have to play loud and strong is also coincidentally the parts where I have to take the largest step sizes...

[290Piika]

Yeah, I'm not liking the amount of heavy marching we have. Bleh. And our ballad is not much better; we're still marching at double-time (160) in it. :\

Now, one of my freshmen has a lot large-step, fast sets, but they're at a very horizontal slope (so it's near or actually sliding). Is it possible to jazz run at a slide?

[KUguardgrl13]

yeah, in my senior year of high school, the woodwinds and brass had diamond cutter drill which has some pretty crazy direction changes.

speaking of flanks, i need to work on mine for the counter-march in KU's pregame...

[the_sousabone]

^ love that pic.

[KUguardgrl13]

that sock tan is epic . i was looking at my friend's homecoming pics. all the girls had sock tans because they're in band