66 people...one heart By: Jennifer Williams

Without us the band doesn't have a pulse. What are we? We're the
drum line. The band must memorize the show music and stand tunes. We do
the same plus cadences, which are the "songs" that just the line plays.
Cadences pump up the team, the crowd, and the band of course. This year
we had two guys who were on the line write cadences.
Being on the drum line takes a lot of time. We have practice
with the band every Monday from 4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m., and each drum
section has a practice another day of the week aside from that. Snares,
which are just the single drum, have practice on Tuesdays from
4:00-5:00. Tenors (a.k.a. quads), which is four drums with two gawks,
have practice Wednesdays from 4:00-5:00, and basses, which is a single
drum but splits notes between each drum has practice on Thursdays from
4:00-5:00. There is also what we call the front ensemble or better known
as pit, which is a bunch of different types of percussion instruments.
Being on the line takes dedication, teamwork, sacrifice, and
hard work. Each of these traits fall hand in hand with each other to
form four snares, two tenors, four basses, one big pit, and Mr. Woolsey
(the drum instructor) who holds it all together.