Welcome to Gaia! ::

My suggestions to people trying out for drum major:

Get advice from past drum majors - ask about the auditions and ask for them to "tutor" you in whatever it is you'll need to do.

If you conduct, practice in front of a mirror (in addition to taking lessons from the drum majors or even the band director).

If you have questions the drum major can't answer, ask the band director (especially if the drum majors won't tutor you). That way, you should know exactly what the director wants. After all, it is his band.


As for the rest of it, you can pm me if you have any specific questions.

Exactly! I love GNP. He's incredible. 600 people...that's insane. It would be awesome though. His drill downs (sorry, I suppose I should call them march offs) would be incredible! I want to try that... That sounds like so much fun! Although, admittedly, our little groups were kinda cool 'cause you learned everyone's name so easily and they all knew you.

He tried to pick a fight w/ his ex.

At the time, she was my gf.

So we had a problem. He got multiple bruises and I got a permenant scar.

What can I say? He's two years older and about 30 pounds heavier than I.

Still put some hurt on him lol.

I think they got our last one on TV, it should be on youtube somewhere, at least part of it.
Search 'Summer Symposium 2007' or 'Music For All' or something along those lines

But I never made it very far on those... sad
We did get split up into pods and I got to know everyone there really well, just not everyone at DMA

Isn't it the most amazing experience ever!? I loved DMA. By the way, that video was awesome, now that I see it, I think I've watched it before...but now I can look at it and say "I know someone in that drill down!" (sorry, march-off, whatever, my band calls them drill downs). Just watching that though...I anticipated about half of Parks' calls from that perspective (I can't do that when I'm marching, sadly). Just watching and thinking about what commands could be called...well, a lot of them were evident to me, meaning that's what I would have called if I were calling the commands. Kinda cool really.

To anyone who's interested: DMA is open to everyone in some form or another, but admittedly it's designed for drum majors (although I think section leaders could learn A LOT there too, so long as they don't get back to school and act as if they now know more than their DMs...which they would, if they went to DMA and their DMs didn't). Anyway, DMA is the most outstanding week of your life. You crawl into bed each evening sore in places you didn't know you had (seriously, I never knew how much conducting hurt your sides...) and by the end of the week, you're quite possibly suffering from sleep deprivation, but the experience is...beyond words. You learn more than you've ever learned in five days of school (it's not even five full days!) and it's more applicable to you, as it's about band and how you should behave. Going back my second year was the best thing I've ever done. ALL CURRENT DMs SHOULD GO BACK THEIR NEXT YEAR, it pwns. You already know all the weird commands and the routine, and you most likely get a squad to take care of. It's like being a section leader...of drum majors. Really, though, I think everyone should go to DMA. (and now I'll stop my odd advertising)



So x0-Pascal-0x, where did you go to DMA? I was at Phoenix...no chance you were there, too, right?

Hurrah!

I know what you mean. My first year, I yelled so loud during our last drill down, when he made us direct the star-spangled banner right afterward, I couldn't sing. It was bad. ^_^

Hummed the tuba part...that's great. I recall wishing I could put words to the mello part...