Frosty Roofs

Frosty Roofs is an explicitly Christmas-oriented parade cadence that takes inspiration from a couple of popular Christmas tunes. There is a dedicated sleigh bell part for that festive holiday sound, and all the music is relatively simple, so you can squeeze this in at the end of the year as needed. The run time is fairly short, but different segments could easily be repeated as necessary to stretch things out.

Sheet music is packaged as a PDF binder including separate scores for 4– and 5–bass arrangements, as well as printable battery parts.

Kick Rocks

Kick Rocks takes a very simple syncopated pattern in the bass drums and layers it with some basic accompaniments in the snare and tenor parts to pack a big punch that nonetheless offers very limited demand for vocabulary and ensemble cohesion.

Sheet music is packaged as a PDF binder including separate scores for 4– and 5–bass arrangements, as well as printable battery parts.

Pound Sand

Pound Sand is a parade cadence that punctuates a round split between the bass and tenor voice with a recurring accent pattern in the snare drum voice. Despite its simplicity, it offers great opportunities to maximize dynamics and shaping, and everything should fit together nicely without too much investment of rehearsal time.

Sheet music is packaged as a PDF binder including separate scores for 4– and 5–bass arrangements, as well as printable battery parts.

A Milli

A Milli was introduced to the NC State drumline in 2008 by drum captain and tenor guru Brent Bass, and it was an immediate hit. Inspired, of course, by the Lil Wayne tune that was brand new at the time, it was fun to play and fun to hear, so it became a staple of the line’s repertoire. In 2010, I got a little indulgent with rewriting the snare part, trying to channel my inner Mike McIntosh, but the piece would certainly work perfectly well with a much simpler snare part (prior to 2010, it was rim click quarter notes with drum on beat 3, and the more intricate part was something 8th note based with rim shots on beat 3).

Because of the accessibility, adaptability, and popularity of this piece, I think it is worth sharing.

Since the character of the piece would be well-preserved with a much simpler snare part, I’m going to give this a “Green Circle” designation, even though the snare part is a bit demanding, as written.

Enjoy this one!

Zapatitos

Zapatitos builds out of the traditional taps from the anchor bass that most marching units use to stay in time (when they aren’t playing music or drumline cadences), and it also uses this idea as a musical motif to build up to the reprise of the main groove at the end. A simple walking bass line is coloured with texture from the snare drum before a lyrical melodic line is introduced by the tenors, and then more or less the same thing happens again. Nice mix of highs and lows here, and it should be plenty of fun without too much commitment of rehearsal time.

Cottonwood Crunch

Cottonwood Crunch uses simple dynamic phrasing and a little bit of visual flair to bring life to a very straightforward rhythmic idea. Nice and accessible, this piece could easily be embellished with repeats, endings, and section soli content in order to bolster the composition while still playing to your performers’ strengths. Enjoy!

Relaxation Time

Relaxation Time is a straightforward street beat that was written for a parade band that included drumlines from three different high schools; accessibility and adaptability were the goals here, but this piece still manages to create some interesting moments and pack a nice punch too!