{"id":12,"date":"2011-06-05T14:35:03","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T18:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2020-11-03T13:36:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T18:36:03","slug":"drumline-the-review-time-to-weigh-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Drumline: The review. Time to weigh in."},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><strong>I\u2019ve been asked countless times whether my experiences paralleled the movie,&nbsp;<em>Drumline<\/em>.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20\" style=\"width: 220px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20 \" title=\"Film poster for Drumline - Copyright 2002, 20th Century Fox\" src=\"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/drumline_poster1-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"Film poster for Drumline - Copyright 2002, 20th Century Fox\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/drumline_poster1-220x300.jpg 220w, https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/drumline_poster1.jpg 332w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Film poster for Drumline &#8211; Copyright 2002, 20th Century Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In some ways, yes\u2014the spirit, the excitement at competitions and exhibitions, traveling to games, the high-energy adrenaline rush, the electric roar of the crowd, hosting DCI events \u2026 KKPsi \u2026 even the band romance. It\u2019s all there.<\/p>\n<p>However: This steaming pile of cinematic horse-puckey is awesomely bad only in its shameless irrelevance to bona fide college drumlines.<\/p>\n<p>The snares in the movie couldn\u2019t play a clean triplet roll. Their rudiments, drags, one-hands and attacks were sloppy.<\/p>\n<p>A line gets tight with sectional practice, not by challenging for a spot in a show just days away, somehow maintaining drill and musical integrity despite a last-minute member switch. The P1 \u2013 P4 ranking system was laughable.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s \u2018drill\u2019, not formations. What about stick height? Why march a multiple-bass ensemble but play unison, and not tune tonally? Sounded like dirt. Snare music does not contain sharps and flats, with no percussion markup.<\/p>\n<p>Placement auditions are heard not by peers in a public setting, but by Directors and staff. The ability to sightread a chart is a given, not learned by rote \u00e0 la Devon Miles. Dave Satterfield would have checked that chump day 1.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3J_LqCnPvgI\" width=\"750\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>No decent section leader rules by intimidation; there was far too much competition and animosity within this group.<\/p>\n<p>The field visuals were slick but would have been rendered much more effective with practice and attention to detail, particularly for a major motion picture.<\/p>\n<p>What &#8220;big time college marching band&#8221; performs in <em>half a stadium<\/em>? The on field rumble bears no need for elaboration.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly\u2014the &#8220;BET Big Southern Classic&#8221; allows Petey Pablo to crash the Morris Brown show\u2014thus not judging strictly by merit of their performance alone.<\/p>\n<p>Somehow they\u2019re a lock in a tie for first? The Drumlines &#8220;put it down&#8221; on the 50? Hollywood at its finest &#8230; CUT!<\/p>\n<p>As a former snare drummer with the nearly 400-strong West Virginia University Mountaineer Marching Band (1997 recipient of the <a href=\"https:\/\/bands.wvu.edu\/ensembles\/mountaineer-marching-band\/sudler-award\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sudler Trophy<\/a>), these non-conformities are in stark contrast to reality.<\/p>\n<p>The flick gets props\u2014but NOT for which it purports to be: A factual representation of a serious and polished college marching band drumline.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-13050\" src=\"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/drum-avatar-thumbnail-sm.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"75\" height=\"75\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been asked countless times whether my experiences paralleled the movie,&nbsp;Drumline. In some ways, yes\u2014the spirit, the excitement at competitions and exhibitions, traveling to games, the high-energy adrenaline rush, the electric roar of the crowd, hosting DCI events \u2026 KKPsi \u2026 even the band romance. It\u2019s all there. However: This steaming pile of cinematic horse-puckey &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/?p=12\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Drumline: The review. Time to weigh in.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drumline-the-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrummergirlslife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}