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I love Percussion and I'm the best percussionist in my band (Not boasting my BD said sweatdrop ) and I hate it when Percussion is always put down?
Everyone's like "Oh, you don't need to learn fingerings, Percussion's easy, all you have to do is hit stuff", but it's really actually hard, especially in my school, you have to do every single type: mallets, drums, and other random instruments. Percussion is one of those things where if you mess, the tempo screws up and the band fails. I wish other instruments would realize we were just as hard and maybe even harder.
Anyone agree?

Percussionists are awesome. Even though I don't play drums, they are a needed section for rhythm and keeping time. So seriously if any of the wind players give you grief, throw at boot to their head. Seriously, they'll be very quiet afterwards.

Besides, Drum solos in jazz band are EPIC! XD XD

People just need to lay off us middle school percussionists also. I've seen a few posts that say stuff along the lines of, "Well, we're not as bad as middle schoolers!" And I'm just like, HEY! We've feelings too, even though we're younger! ANywhoodles, back on subject. The reason people put us down(in my opinion), is because they're jealous. Everybody wants to be a percussionist. They can't. Like, in our school, Mr. V had to take the people with the top scores in rhythm and other tests who wanted to be percussionists, and only seven, eight MAXIMUM make it. The eight in our 6th grade band this year were Bailey, Jared, Marcus, Abby, ME, Jenna, and Taylor.

Yes, yes I do.

Well, the drumline basically does what Sikki-MCRmy- said. We practice one or two months in advance of the marching season, so we receive our music first and learn first.

Actually, my director is a percussionist, so he kind of favors us. For instance, we have a week of percussion camp prior to band camp. In fact, in our band handbook, my director says, "A good band is not good without a prepared drumline." or something along those lines.

Other instruments are hard, too. When my non-battery friends start talking about chords and stuff like that, I kind of space out. I have no idea what that stuff is (thus why I failed my concert band proficiency test, and also why I'm not on mallets). I envy others for knowing that.

Well, that was a bit more than a ramble. =/

In our band in elementary, The Flute section was the hardest to start out with, you need major muscle strength to get ahold of it, or you'll look really bad if you hold it low. We hold ours high and straight, just like Mrs. Petrossi taught us! Though I love the drums playing with flutes, it sounds WONDERFUL! <3

i totally agree. if you want the other sections to respect your drumline and pit and what yall do, tell them to do the following:

Paradiddlediddle into a flamacue followed by a buzz roll link that to a 2 beat triplet rim shot into another paradiddlediddle.

sounds easy right? maybe, if your a drummer. oh yeah, give them a tempo of 160 bpm, that was the tempo of the drum feature from my senior year, and that rythem is just made up.
pirate

Personally I HATE it when any instrument player who hasn't actually played the instrument makes an assumption that it's easy based on the way it looks like!!!! I think that every instrument is hard AND somewhat easier in different ways and there's just no way that people who don't play the instrument can judge! It definatly makes ME mad! Oh, and percussion is DEFINATLY more than hitting stuff! U learn notes too and u have to control your hands a lot. BBbbbbuuuuuuuuttttt I don't feel that percussion is ALWAYS put down....I mean in my band class all the percussion people act like they're all bad and then some days we spend the WHOLE period fixin' one dudes hands!!!! But i think that it just depends on the day and the place....still. It is so rude that those people in your class say that bout ur instrument!!!! SOOOO OFFENSIVE!!!!! xd

My percussion group has actually never been put down, although we do goof around and act cocky. We do understand what we play and we march nicely, too. The rest of the band, however, sometimes goof off as well, so they can't really put us down.

Though being in a band of atleast 60 people and/or less, every section always acts the same, even though that's because we all focus really hard on what we do. We all take the suffering of marching in the mornings around 8:00 and on Monday afternoons 'til 9:00 P.M. But when we do, we march better, and play our music better.

I really enjoy being apart of the band I am in, because of how caring everyone is, though there are some jerks. In fact, my drum captain was one! Although he taught what was needed to be taught (not really.) He was the one to be goofing off the most.

If you want to understand more of my band, please go ahead and PM, I promise that I don't bite. xp