Since November of 2007 I've auditioned at three different corps and have been to nine drum

corps auditions (keyword: auditions; all nine of those were actual auditions, not rehearsals as
a member). I figure that now I have some do's and dont's on what you should do. As you read
along, try to keep an open mind as experience may vary from person to person. I'll pride
myself on one thing before I do this. This is actually coming from someone who made a
snareline not a brass or a colorguard guy.
The reason I pride myself on that is because I can't tell you how many cliche' 1-liners I've
heard from brass members on how to go about making a drum corps that DOESN'T seem to
apply to drummers. What led me to finally making a drum corps was having many auditions
that didn't have the happy ending of getting a contract. In other words- I learned my lessons
by doing something wrong, and then fixing it, this process repeated until I succeeded at my
goal. I'm not trying to sound like I have achieved the end-all-be all of things to accomplish, I
would just like to write now what I would've liked to read a long time ago - compile a guide of
things I've learned.
Hopefully this will help those who aspire to do well at an audition!
Practice:
So you figure this would go without saying, but it needs to be said. You need to practice if you
would like to make a drum corps. How much should you practice? Well when you want to get
good at something you need to practice a lot. This boils down to how disciplined you are, how
determined you are, how much time you have in the day to set aside for practice, and simply
how much you like to (or can stand to) drum.
When it comes to discipline, it's about as straight-forward as you can be.
-Instead of watching Heroes or playing Left 4 Dead, grab your pad and sticks.
-While watching TV, do a diddle grid!
-From now on. Free time = Drum time
Also, you have to discipline yourself by creating an environment for success. Go somewhere
where you have a pad in front of a mirror. If you don't have a mirror to spare In your room,
see if you can buy one. Nothing fancy, just a simple investment that will go a long way. It
worked for me because over time I could see my flaws in technique----HOWEVER! In my time
as a drummer I've also learned you can get too used to a mirror. Take my bass drumming
experience for example. On bass drum, you don't have the luxury of seeing the center of the
drum without a mirror. If you have a bass In front of a mirror, you're basically relying on that
mirror. Instead of looking it constantly, think of it as a check. It doesn't even have to be
case for being at proper playing position, it could be your interpretation 3' inch rolls or how
that hi-mom stick trick looks like. Use the mirror, then memorize the motions. You wont have
a mirror when you're in front of an instructor.
Use the time you have in the day wisely. Obviously not everyone in the world has the luxury
of spending 6 hours on a drum because we have other prerogatives. But you need to try to
get some time in. However much time you can spare is what you should drum. Personally, I
don't spend ALL of my free time on drumming because to be honest I feel like I need a break
sometimes. However, in the past making my practice time productive has turned out to be the
most important part.
Things to ask yourself after you practiced:
Did I mindlessly hack? Or did I practice something I needed to improve on?
Did I get better at something?
Do I now have more questions about my drumming? (this is actually a good thing, the more
you try to understand about yourself, the better off you are)
Do I understand what else I need to work on?

Sometimes you might end practicing something that can get boring pretty fast, the best way
to change it up is to do something you enjoy while applying some attention and some
definition of a concept ( for example: playing The Ditty but paying attention to how much
velocity you're using on the singles, or how closed or open your flams sound), then breaking
down your problem spots and making exercises out of it. This prevents mindless hacking, and
mindless hacking is NOT productive.

Preparation:
Preparation is the key to success. Before you go to the place that the audition is being held,
you need to have all of the exercises memorized. Yes. Even if they have 15 of them. You also
need to MARK TIME to all of them. The best way to make sure you've prepared enough is to
be able to play each exercise with a metronome and without a metronome 10 times in a row
each. So if you mess up on the 9th rep, you have to start over.
Sometimes at auditions you're asked to prepare a solo during individual auditions. I learned
the hard way that you ARE NOT being asked to play what would play at PASIC or I&E, you're
simply being asked to play something that shows your skills. My suggestion would be a
collaboration of licks you've seen or heard that you liked that you might consider something
that would exhibit yourself and meld them together into one thing. You can also play a
cadence or ram you are familiar with. If you simply aren't familiar with anything, my
immediate suggestion would be to look up Year of the Ram (ala, Darkshadyturtle forum
moderator). It's the perfect length in time, just long enough for you to show off your skills. If
some parts are too choppy, then water it down a little. Instructors usually care about what's
happening right there and now, but if they do happen to ask what that was, refer them to
snarescience =)
If you can, try to prepare on a drum as much as possible. There is a phenomenon that you
might have heard of called pad hands. It basically means that after you get used to the feel
of a pad, when it comes time to drum on a REAL snare drum it feels so foreign to your hands.
I've learned this the hard way, when it came time to actually drum on a real drum...my hands
said um what? What is this?.
Fighting Nerves:
I figured this deserved it's own section. Most people simply say don't be nervous but that's
easier said than done. Getting nervous is natural. It doesn't mean you suck, it doesn't mean
you'll do bad, it just mean you're anxious. However, I'm not going to lie to you. The less
nervous you are, the better you do at an audition.
I feel this is the best place to share some experiences with you, it's off subject but it will help
finish my point. In 2007 I auditioned for a snare spot at Phantom Regiment for the 08 season.
It was my very first drum corps audition, and looking backman what a first to pick! I really
didn't understand the magnitude of what I was actually doing, but I did it anyway. I'll explain
further on what you should expect out of your average corps audition, but I'll explain now
what I learned from the experience. Over the course of that weekend, Paul Rennick was doing
the individual auditions while the snare tech was running through exercises with the snare
auditionees. I was actually pretty optimistic just because I'm that type of person, but when it
came time to get on a drum a lot of that confidence went out of the window. I was the very
first person according to who they are asking to go audition while the others are playing
exercises with the snare tech. great I thought. Why out of 40-50 people auditioning for
snare, do I go first?! He asked us to prepare exercises that we were familiar with on the basics
(legatos, double beat, flam accents, etc.) and a prepared piece. My strongest part of the
audition was 8s, he said I had a great sound. Looking back I remember trying to imitate the
look and the technique of the center snare for 07 (Joe House), which translated to how
confident I knew I would be on something as simple as 8s.As for everything else, I was just
simply inexperienced. The solo was all over the place, and he could even tell I was very
nervous. I knew I could play better then that, and it was very frustrating to walk out knowing

I could have done better. Auditioning at Spirit last November--I had the hands this time
around, but long story short I simply didn't overcome a factor that ended up cutting me once
again nerves.
Eight auditions later I have basically narrowed down the nervousness factor, for myself at
least. The key is confidence, but when it comes to combining performance with confidence you
cannot go about achieving it in just one way. If you are prepared, you will be less nervous,
and more confident (see Preparation). After my first audition I decided that If you are half as
good as you normally are when you're nervous, then come 150% prepared for the audition.
That's the easy part.
The hard part is playing as good as you do while you're on the couch lazily hacking around
when you are now in front of an instructor that is wanting to know if you have the talent for
the line. This part has eluded me in the past, but I'll tell you what I've come to decide to be
the keys to breaking the feeling of nervousness level out, and create a desire. If you aren't
nervous when you're at home, why should you be at an audition? Obviously there is a natural
reason to be, but you have to play that game with your mind. The best thing to do is take
your metaphorical totem pole of situations, with the laid back situation (your house) being at
the bottom and the nerve racking situations (the corp's percussion caption head staring you
down) at the top, and knock them down. You then have both settings on the ground level, tell
yourself it's all the same. Technically, It is! Isn't it? You're just drumming in front of different
people!
The next important part that really helped me is to create a desire to audition. My best
auditions were the ones where I couldn't wait to show the instructor my stuff. Obviously you
want to make a corps, or you wouldn't take the time out of your life to do it, but this is
different. You need to be excited, not just hopeful. I've found that a desire can
psychologically take more importance in your subconscious then worrying about what ifs
such as messing up and not making the line when it comes time to perform what you know.
What helped me make the corps I am in now was a sense of excitement when I touched the
drum, I really couldn't wait to play and show him some stuff. Get yourself excited, this is drum
corps! If you do these things I promise, at the very least you will see an improvement in your
stage freight.
What to expect
What you should expect during an audition weekend depends on the corps. Let me give you
an average expectancy for most corps out of my experiences.
-Most corps have exercises on a website for you to download so you can practice it before
coming to the audition.
-Most corps will suggest or ask that you memorize every exercise, even if when you get there
they decide to run though two exercises out of the fifteen you printed out.
-Most auditions will have visual auditions added to the weekend around December/January.
On that note, I'd like to add that they don't expect you to understand their visual technique,
but they do look for you to adjust to it over time. Just put effort into it and try, and you'll do
fine.
-Most corps will begin with registration, a meeting, and then sectionals (ex: snares in a room
by themselves with a tech or some other instructor). At some point during the weekend there
will be an individual audition. Usually if the audition begins on Friday, Saturday is usually
when they start pulling people out of sectionals and give everyone a chance to have an
individual audition, if there's a lot of people it might last until the next day on Sunday. And
individual audition is usually where there is a separate room where a person or two is there
and they'll ask you to play whatever they'll call out --usually the exercises you've been playing
over the weekend in sectionals--and then most of the time they ask you to play a short solo
after that (the prepared piece we went over earlier in the guide). At some point, either
between exercises or after the whole thing, they'll give you some helpful critique.

-Mark time to everything. This has cut me a few times in the past. Don't walk in the room with
good hands but bad feet!
-Rotation of the line doesn't mean the line is being set. If they ask you during sectionals to
switch with the dude who is center, or the dude who is on the outside, don't analyze it.
They're working something out in their head, and it currently means nothing. They usually,
however, will set the people playing the best AT THE TIME in the center of the room and the
ones that aren't playing very well on the outside. I've seen people get contracts from all
angles of the room, again, don't analyze it. Just drum.
-Most of the time a lot of people show up, that means you should have a pad with you
because there will almost always be more people than drums. Don't worry, they will switch
you out so you'll get a chance to drum on an actual snare.

To close, I'd like to say you still need to experience of auditioning somewhere. I don't expect
you to read this and then instantly make a corps, but I know that I would have liked to read
this a long time ago.
Here are my experiences:
November 2007 - Phantom Regiment - snare - cut
January 2008 - Memphis Sound - snare - made it to the next camp
February - cut
March - Memphis Sound - bass - made it to the next camp
April - made it to the next camp
May - was cut via email over a week after the camp
Summer 08' - Managed to march with CorpsVets in the pit.
November 08' - Spirit - snare - cut
December 08 - Memphis Sound - snare - made it to the next camp
January 09 - Memphis Sound - snare - Contract
Sometimes you have to go through a bunch of failures to reach your goal. If I could, I
wouldn't take it back though. I believe things happen for a reason. I hope all this helped!
ADD ONS
Interaction
Even though the staff may seem intimidating, there's no reason to be afraid. Unless you're at
a crazy competitive corps, they're going to want to help you better yourself and provide the
best possible experience. In most cases, the staff will be pretty friendly, and that will be pretty
obvious. So, if they are, it's great to be friendly back. Respond to what they say, casually,
though, because like most people, they're going to get annoyed with some guy that answers
"yes, sir" to every single question (I've seen a few of them). A simple nod works.
During sectional evaluation, they'll be rotating people around the line, walking around fixing
anything they see. This is also a time for people skills. If a tech comes up to you and lets you
know to fix something, ask anything you need to THEN while he's there, and once you fix it,
it's always nice to thank them, or just in some way acknowledge that it helped. Also, pretty
often you'll find yourself with a tech playing on your drum with you. This is NOT the time to
keep staring off in the distance like you're a badass Blue Devil. Check out what he's doing, and
if it's something obviously different from you, take note of it. They'll usually emphasize
something about how they're playing so as to hint that that's how you should be doing it. Be
humble, let them help you out.

On the Drum
Your first instinct when everything's set up, and the staff isn't ready, is going to be the urge to
start hacking. Although there's really nothing wrong with that, try to avoid it. It's just kind of
considering that everyone else is around and probably doesn't want to hear eight or nine
people on snares playing completely different things. It also somewhat shows some maturity
in that you're not just like, "OOOOOOOOOOOH A DRUM! PLAY!" However, if you want, play on
a pad. To reiterate, it's not that big a deal.
Of course, the first thing they're going to teach is the set position and playing position. I will
warn you now: they're going to teach it as if you've never seen it before, but you most likely
will know some form of it. Just be patient, and adapt to it.
As you should always be practicing, your sound needs to be strong as opposed to timid. Now,
that's not just accents; at Mystikal and Yamato, I got dinged for feather-tapping. What's that?
Basically, I was just letting all my taps drop in, not giving them a full sound. It's a problem
that a ridiculous amount of people have and aren't even aware of.
-----------Do not skimp on preparation, especially if you are given the exercises before hand. Master
every single one, even if it's insanely choppy. Mastering an exercise doesn't necessarily mean
you have to reef the hell out of it. The techs would much rather hear you play an exercise at a
controlled tempo with great sound quality rather than reefed with horrible sound quality.
Chances are you won't be playing exercises extremely fast with the whole line anyway.
This really applies to when they go down the line and have each individual play the exercise
being worked on. Last time we had rehearsal at BDB, they had each snare play triplet diddle
on their own. When we were finished, the snare tech pointed out how he had a feeling almost
everyone was trying to show up the last person who played (e.g. Snare 1 plays triplet diddle
at 150bpm with 6" heights, then Snare 2 decides to play it at 180bpm while trying to keep the
6" heights). He told us to just relax and play it with a good approach instead of being all
After he said that, we played
"AHHHHHHHHH I GOT BIGGER BALLS!!!!! YEAHHHHH!!!!!!"
another rep of triplet diddle as a line and I couldn't stop smiling while we played.
I also think it's important that you show nothing but utter confidence throughout the whole
audition but don't be cok-ee, be humble, but don't be a wuss. There's a difference between
cok-ee/confident and humble/wussy.
When we had our first audition/rehearsal this year at BDB, I purposely put myself close to the
end of the snare line even though I knew that I had everything prepared and was ready to
show everyone "I had bigger balls" lol. I did not want to portray the image that I thought I
, then
was so good that I deserved to be in the center. Go to the end, let your balls hang
have the techs tell you to move in towards the center. I did this the past two rehearsals and
they've turned out the same way each time. The techs got impressed so they tell me to move
in and stay on during the rotation. Voila! I stayed confident but humble, and it got me results
I wanted.
Oh yeah, and learn GRID INSIDE OUT and be able to mark time to it. Play any variation you
can think of (16th grid, diddle on 1, on e, on an, then on uh, w/e). That really messed up a lot
of people at the last BDB rehearsal, and apparently at the last BDA audition tons of people got
f'd over from it as well.
--------I'd like to add that while it's okay to have fun with people you just met and play stuff you both
might know it's best to perfect the exercises you're playing as much as possible. so instead of

messing around with latin lover during the break, play the exercises you're going to have to
play.
------I'm not sure how it works at the other corps, but at BDB after you complete your single person
audition, they have you sit down then they give you a critique (I'm pretty sure this happens at
all corps), but that's not what I'm trying to point out. After the critique, they proceeded to ask
me a couple of questions. Such as "Why do you want to march for BDB? What do you believe
you'll get out of marching here that your high school can't provide you?" and "Why Blue Devils
and not any other corps?" Be ready for these kind of questions and have honest answers. My
answers were "Well, I'm hoping that marching with BDB will help me gain the experience I will
need later when I try out for the A corps."; "Back when I started drumming in 6th grade, a
friend of mine found out and it turned out he marched at the high school I'm attending right
now. So he showed me a bunch of Blue Devils videos and ever since then I've always wanted
to march with the Blue Devils." Give honest answers, but not dumb honest answers, such as
"This is the only corps around. I'd rather march with Phantom but I'm stuck with this".
-----just try to stand out. Make them remember you, or else you might not make it simply
because they overlook you. Maybe you're better than another guy who made it, but they just
didn't notice.
Something I've noticed, is that even wearing a cool colored shirt or something like that can
help. I know it sounds cliche and dumb...but it works.