EdwardsvilleHigh School’s Drumline is performing at the World Championships in Dayton, Ohio this weekend – and it won’t be for the first time, either.
This won’t be the first time that the drumline will compete in the World Championships. Last year, the drumline attended and placed 17 out of 70 drumlines, including those from Japan, England and the Netherlands.
Junior drumline member Jacob Vietch understands the weight of performing in an international competition. “It’s an awesome feeling. The arena is such a great venue that it’s a great honor to march in,” Vietch said.
This year, the drumline will be doing something a little different. They will perform a show called “Conflict,” which was written by EHS class of 2012 alumni Duncan Robbins.
“Conflict” was written to portray how America, as a nation, is impacted by tragedies such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary and the Boston Marathon bombing that occurred on Monday.
The drumline’s performance will be scored based on three different categories: General Effect, Performance Analysis, and Visual Performance.
General Effect is how the judges react to the performance and how effective the big moments are.
Judges use the Performance Analysis category to score the difficulty of the music a band is playing and how well the drumline plays the music.
The scoring for Visual Performance is based on the drumline’s appearance when performing.
The drumline has put in a lot of work to prepare for this competition.
“We held auditions back in early November, and have been practicing twice a week almost every week since then,” senior drumline member Anna Stamer said. “Practices start with warm-ups, and then we focus on trouble spots within our instrument groups. We usually end the night with a couple of full run-throughs before we pack up.”
Director of Bands Marvin Battle pushes his students to work for their success. “Our motto is: how you practice is how you perform. Being successful doesn’t start at the performance, but the work prior to the performance. This philosophy has served us well in all aspects of the program.”
The preparation has given confidence to the drumline members. “If we perform the way that I know we can, I’m almost positive that we’ll be able to do just as well as we did last year,” Stamer said.