r/drumline • u/Capeworks Snare • 5d ago

Discussion Need help making visuals

My band director wants me to come up with visuals for our drumline, specifically more movement focused (no stick tricks). I would really appreciate any ideas, because I can’t really think of anything.

6 Upvotes

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5

u/JaredOLeary Percussion Educator 5d ago

The thing is the visuals need to match the music, otherwise the suggestions on here won't make sense. For example, I taught a WGI group that had some bird flapping visuals that made sense because the show was based off Hitchcock's The Birds, but those visuals wouldn't make sense in another show. I'd recommend watching show clips of WGI (and maybe even DCI) to find inspiration for body movement that can match your show.

3

u/PersistentSushi Tenors 5d ago

I would consider ANY ideas through this ^ perspective! Context is really what is going to make visuals “cool” and effective or not

2

u/atomicnova9 5d ago

Throw it back crazy style

2

u/AbsoluteRandomGaming 5d ago

When it comes to visuals, it usually just boils down to 3 things: creativity, time, and consistency.

I suggest watching different drum corps and indoor drumlines to get an idea of what’s possible. It doesn’t hurt to take a few visuals from them but part of adding visuals means to take ownership of your own show, so give it your own style.

Also, always account for how much time you have to do it and whether everyone can do it in that amount of time. It could be 1 count, or 1 bar, or even 10. If even one person isn’t able to do it, reconsider your options.

Finally, don’t prioritize visuals over the actual music or your marching technique. Sure, its cool and all, but it’s a lot cooler to be clean and look good when moving

1

u/No_Function_8879 5d ago

I've generally just used visuals as more of a timing reference. Let's say you end a phrase on count 1 then you have no notes for the next 3 counts. I'd put something in there just to fill up the space and help keep the time. There's a lot of crazy stick tricks out there nowadays but one thing I won't let my high school kids do is let the stick leave the hand. Most of us can flip a stick repeatedly for an hour without even thinking about it and never drop it. At some point you're going to miss though. Letting the stick leave the hand increases the chances of dropping it exponentially.

I would just watch some lot vids or some WGI shows to get some ideas.

0

u/ironmanchris Snare 5d ago

When I was in high school we spelled “NICET*TS” with our sticks at a show opening up the Miss Illinois pageant. 🤣