I yawned as I walked out of the room. The sun wasn't even risen yet as the five of us walked through the woods. None of us were fully awake, David was still muttering to himself from some dream he had, and Richie wasn't even walking straight. Storm was walking slowly, while Dale was rubbing his eyes the whole way.
"So remind me," Richie began. "why the HELL do we have to get up this early?"
"Conditioning.." Dale muttered as we made it to the field, where the rest of the drummers, and four people were waiting, all four were men.
One of them had short black hair, and a tan complexion, wearing a green jacket with the big white letters MU. The second had a bald head, glasses, and a goatee, wearing a Glassmen t-shirt, with khakis. The third had long brown hair, was a little chubby, and wore a nice button up shirt with a white one underneath, and khakis. The fourth and final one had long brown hair, kinda wavy, with a American Eagle shirt on and tight jeans.
"Dale how many times do I need to tell you? Don't be late." said the chubby one, while Dale laughed a bit.
"Whatever Sean, you know I don't follow rules."
"And to think that guy got section leader.." said the tan one.
"Well Stewart, he can be a good leader when he wants to be." Sean said, laughing a bit, while the guy standing next to Sean kept staring at me. I didn't understand why, but I just yawned.
"So..." Sean said, looking at the line. The fourth guy kept staring at me, it was pretty weird. I didn't say a word though, I don't like to complain.
"Art, take the basses and show them their warm ups. Stewart, take the snares. Danny and I will work with the quints. Well, one of them." Sean said, while Dale blinked.
"What?"
"Tyler wants to work with you. He wants you to meet him at his car." Sean said, pointing a strange direction, while Dale sighed, and started to jog there. Great, I was left alone with two guys I didn't know.
Sean looked at me and beckoned me over to him, I just walked over towards him without really doing anything.
"So you're the new quint player? Zane right?" I nodded, and Sean smiled. "Nice to meet you, I'm Sean, and this is Danny, we will be personally teaching you."
"Nice to meet you dude." Danny said, holding out his hand. I shook it, and I put my hand back down.
"So why aren't you teaching Dale too?" The two quickly looked at each other, then looked back at me.
"That's...not really important. Anyway, we are going to begin with a simple exercise...running!" Sean said, a big smile on his face, which made me just blink.
"Why running?"
"Quints are by far one of the heaviest instruments in the band, and the heaviest in the battery. You don't hold them, you wear them, and if your not strong enough, you can't put up with them. So, we're going to get you stronger and faster." Danny explained, and I sighed deeply.
"Alright..how long do I have to run?"
"Until 7:30."
"Thats when all the winds get up and have breakfast!" I said, and Danny smiled.
"Exactly, now, get running!"
Hours later, I was laying on the ground, breathing heavily. My legs felt like jello as the sun was beating down on me. All of a sudden I saw a hand extend out to me, and I reached up. The hand grabbed me and pulled me up, when I was up I saw Dale, who was sweating as well.
"You ok?" Dale asked, and I nodded, he sighed deeply. "Trust me it'll get better, just don't quit on us."
We walked towards the cafeteria and L noticed us as we were walking. He smiled at us, and patted me on the back. "How was your first morning run?"
I was pretty surprised he was speaking to me, and I just smiled back. "Pretty good. Just kinda exhausting."
"Trust me, when you march corp you'll do that alot. Anyway, you should get eating. You need to get some energy." L said, returning to whatever he was doing.
Dale just kinda shook his head as we walked into the cafeteria, where everyone was already eating. I looked over to see Alex waving over towards me, and I walked over to him.
"Hey dude!" Alex said, smiling, and I smiled back. "Come sit with us, I'm sure you want to get away from the line right now...you all looked pretty pissed off."
"I do?"
"Well, not you. I'm talking about the rest of them." Alex said, and I turned around to look at the line. Alex's words were true, everyone on the line was pissed off somehow. The snares had their heads down on the table, while the basses were cussing and bitching about something. Dale, whom I was with a minute ago, was no where in sight.
I didn't know what they had to go through, since all I did was run around the field. I couldn't help but feel guilty that I didn't have to go through anything they did. I'm sure they're training exercises were alot worse.
"Hey!" My thoughts were broken when I saw Raquel run up to me, smiling, but as soon as she was infront of me, her smile disappeared. "You look exhausted!"
"Yea, thats what happens when you run for two hours." I said, laughing a little, and I noticed Jason was behind her. He was giving me a nasty look, as usual, while I just ignored him. I couldn't stand the punk, but I wasn't gonna let him get to me.
"I'm really sorry to hear that...but you don't have to march for another three hours cause we're just going to be practicing the opener!" She said, smiling, while I sighed deeply.
"We haven't even worked on the opener, all we've done is the feature." I muttered, and Alex shrugged.
"Kyle said that you guys always learn the feature first."
"Kyle?" I asked, and Raquel started to giggle.
"He's the senior clarinet. He's really good."
"Yea, so is Alison-"
"Hey Zane," I turned to see Sean, who shocked most of the other freshman. "We're going out and learning the opener. Tyler requested it."
"Seriously?" I sighed, and Sean nodded, shrugging a bit.
"Don't worry, if you guys learn it quickly than you all can come back and rest."
I ran my hand through my hair, making Sean to laugh a bit. "By the way, you are coming with the instructors after it."
"What? Why?"
"You'll see why."
"Why the HELL are we out here? I should be eating scrambled eggs right now dammit!" Ryan yelled, hitting his drum.
"Because we're going to learn the opener." Danny said, putting the music up for Dale and I to look at.
Minutes went by as we were taught the opener, the beginning was quite simple. The quints and the basses set the tempo, the quints hitting the shells of their drums, while the basses hit the rims. The tempo was not fast, yet not slow, and was set to whatever the drum major saw fit. Afterward, the snares come in, playing on their hoes, making a small dinging sound. After all the snares come in, playing one full measure together, Dale comes in playing a rhythm that counters their hoe playing on the spock drum, and two measures afterward I come in playing the same rhythm. The basses still play on the rims, keeping the tempo.
Finally, the basses come in playing a simple split, and the snares play a little bit. Afterward, Dale and I come in playing paradiddles across all four main drums, which was a little tough for me, but they didn't snap at me for it. We go through the song flowing, the basses playing splits and unisons with complete ease. Finally, we are stopped by Sean, who held his drumstick up in the air.
"Alright...now, we are getting to the solo parts." Sean said, looking at Tyler's folder. Tyler, shockingly, was no where to be in sight. I didn't ask questions, like a good boy. Though, I couldn't help but ask one particular question.
"Why do we have solos in the opener of the show?" I asked, and Danny was playing with his sticks.
"So it's not some boring unison drumline stuff, a little variety."
"Alright, snares, you guys start off with your solo, Woody will keep beat. Woody, play your part." Sean said, and Woody got to playing position.
He played a very simple part, which he continued to play as Stewart went up to Ryan's drum. Over Woody's playing, Stewart played a solo, which surprised me, and afterward, he held his hands in the air, a visual affect.
"That's your solo." I heard him say to the snares, who nodded. I looked over at Dale, who took his drums off and gave it to Sean. I pulled my drums up. Sean cracked his knuckles, and grabbed his sticks. He started to crab step, and played this amazing solo on the tenors. It started up with hertas, then did a herta crossover, hitting the spock drum once, and then he started to do multiple sweeping crossovers, ending with hitting drum one and the spock two times.
"That's your solo quints, do you think you two can do it?" Dale nodded, while I gulped. Woody kept playing the part, and we got in set.
"Alright, lets see how this works out. Ok. When Woody restarts the second time with the same pattern, begin to play your solos. Bass one, two, three, stay set during both solos. After the snare solo, the basses will do a run up the drums, and you all will do a 16th note transition up into the quint solos." Sean said, and we waited. I was sweating from the pure nervousness. I knew I was going to screw up.
The snares began to play their solo, which shockingly, they got with ease, but it sounded dirty. The 16th note transition came, Dale and I played from drum four to drum two to drum one, and I began to play the solo.
I got the hertas down easy, even the crossover part, and then we began to do the sweeping crossovers. At the end of it, my left stick got stuck into a rim and I cussed a little bit, causing Danny to cut us off. I looked down, ashamed of my blunder, but Danny patted my shoulder.
"Not to bad. Just gotta work on that part."
Shockingly, after five run thrus of the solo part, I got it. However, I hit the rims sometimes, but Dale didn't mind. He said it was a natural thing, that I'd get it eventually.
Finally we kept going, and we got to a break down part, where Art described it as: "a break down before we get to the big exciting stuff."
The fourth bass would play a extremely simple half note melody, while the other four would come in playing on their rims. The flat drums would come in in a fugue like manner, each of us playing the same parts but on different beats. I was the last one to be heard, hitting the shell of my drum with my left hand and the right hand going from drum four to drum one to the spock.
After the fugue, we would hit our drums, crescendo in, and played a diddle passage, where we broke into solos again. This time, the basses were not playing a simple melody. The basses played a run during the snare's solo, then Woody would play quarter notes while Dale and I played our simple solo, doing a crossover at the end.
We got to the final part, where we had a measure of rest. Sean cut us off.
"Ok...now I hope you guys know what to do here." Sean said, and Dale quickly did what he was speaking about.
"DUT DUT DUT DUT!" He growled as he yelled the strange words I've never heard before, and Sean nodded.
"Very good. Now, Storm knows what that is, but do you Zane?" I quickly shook my head, kinda surprised by that. It sent, strange chills up my spine.
"Dutting is one of the most important features of being a drummer, it basically keeps the tempo of the movement, but it also makes you all sound badass." Art said, smiling a little bit.
"When we get to that part, it'll only be the pit playing while everyone else has that one measure of rest, then you come back in. Do you all got that?"
We all nodded, and we got in set. Richie counted us off, and we began. I never dutted before, but then suddenly I was stared at after I gritted my teeth.
"Dut dut dut dut!" I said, and all of a sudden, Sean cut us all off.
"Holy shit dude."
"What?" I asked, and Dale laughed a little.
"That was badass."
Later on, after completing the opener, Sean told us to go to the field, except me. Art took my drums, while Stewart, Danny, and Sean smiled as I just looked at them.
"What?" I asked, and they beckoned me to follow. We were walking to the teacher's cabin, and as we walked in, I saw Tyler with a woman, who was wearing a simple white dress and had short blonde hair.
"Hey guys! And Zane! Good to have you in here...we have to have a little chat."
"About what?" I asked, and Danny shockingly flicked my hair with his drumstick.
"Getting rid of this."
"Uhh, what?" I asked, and Tyler sighed.
"Trust me, if you marched with that this season you will regret it so much. So, my niece here is a hairdresser. We wanna give you a new look."
"Uhh, well I'm not really in love with my hair...so..." I muttered, and I was picked up by Stewart and Danny, put in a chair, and the young girl walked over to me.
"You'll love this, I promise."
I sighed deeply as I ran my hand through my new, spikey hair.
My hair was spiked up, and I could fully see now. I didn't look half bad to be honest, and I was walking with Sean back to the field. When we made it, everyone was in a arc, the drumline in the middle. As soon as I made it through the trumpet line, Ryan saw me and started to laugh.
"Oh my they actually did it!" Ryan said, and the whole drumline laughed. I put my head down and grabbed my harness, putting my drums on.
"Screw you guys..." I muttered, though I felt I looked good, I was a little self-conscious.
"Ok...so, drumline, do you have the opener down?" We stopped our immature and looked up at L, who was speaking through a mike. Up on a podium was a girl with long brown hair, and bright green eyes. She was pretty, and was staring at all of us. I was guessing that was the drum major.
"Yea." Dale said, pulling his sticks out of the bag.
I looked around and saw a girl with a trumpet in her hand, just looking at me. She was short, and had blonde hair, looked pretty fit to me. She simply smiled and waved at me. For some odd reason I could feel my face turning red. She seemed, older than I. I simply waved back. I looked over near her and Jason was glaring at me. All of a sudden I felt a drumstick hit my leg, and Dale muttered. "Get set."
I did as told, and waited. The drum major held her hands up. "Set!" She yelled, and we prepared.
She started to set the tempo, and the drums began to play.
I started to play the measure of paradiddles after awhile, the band coming in, chills going up my spine. I was shocked by the epic feel of the band, the sound. The power of the horns, however, I focused, trying not to lose my chops from one moment of weakness. But I had to admit, my knees felt like jello as the trumpets behind me screamed in my ear.
The solos came, I marked time as I waited for my part. Finally, the transition came, and I began to play with Dale as I did not take my eyes off the drum major. I had to admit, it was hard looking away. She was pretty cute. The solo went fairly well, I hit the rims twice but I noticed a pleased look on Sean's face. Tyler was just walking up when he saw, and he smiled a little bit.
The part of the breakdown came up, and we started to do the fugue. Sean came up to us, whispering in each drummer's ear. And at the crescendo, he came up to me and said in my ear.
"You are the only one to dut, understand?."
I was nervous, he could tell, and he laughed. "Don't worry...just get angry." He walked over near L and Tyler, while I sat there contemplating.
How am I suppose to get angry? I had nothing to get angry about. Then suddenly the thought of Jason's unfair treatment towards me appeared in my mind. Of how he angrily treated me like shit while I did nothing to the kid. I gritted my teeth as the snares played as the basses did a run, then we entered the tenor solo. The moment was almost here, as I gritted my teeth harder and harder. I was really starting to show my anger towards the trumpet player, then suddenly, the moment came. I looked directly into the eyes of the drum major, and I growled.
"Dut dut dut dut!"
I noticed L look at me in shock as we played again, and finally we ended the movement, standing sideways and nodding towards the invisible audience as a "bring it bitch" to the crowd.
We stayed like that for a minute, and the drum major sighed. "Relax."
Everyone sighed and got down on the ground, while the drummers took their drums off. I sighed deeply as I wiped the sweat off my forehead, only to be poked by someone.
"You're that Zane kid right?"
I turned to see the blonde girl just staring at me, smiling. "Uh, yea, that's me." I said, and she held her hand out.
"My name is Helen! Second trumpet! It's nice to meet you!"
The enthusiasm of this girl shocked me, and I just smiled back. "Nice to meet you."
"So I heard you moved here from Virginia. I moved here a year ago, from California. Ha you should see how bad I was before I came here"
"Well it's kinda different. The weather is the same, but there's just that different feel." I explained, rubbing my arm. I was a tad nervous, this girl was pretty cute and she was talking to me? Of all people.
"Yea I know how you feel. Don't worry though! You'll come to love it here! Especially with friends like these!" Helen said, smiling, then was surprised when the drum major ran up to her and hugged her. "Ah! Oh, hey Lisa!"
"Hey Helen! You played really good! I kinda wish I was on the horn line again...and this is Zane, right? Dale told me about you!" Lisa said, smiling at me as she hugged me. I was pretty surprised by the openess of this one.
"Dale told you about me?" I asked, and Lisa nodded while she had her head in my chest.
"Yea, didn't you know? We're cousins!"
I had no idea that Dale had a cousin, let alone the drum major. It was hard to tell, since they looked different, and how Dale was this mysterious badass while Lisa was this very outgoing and open girl. I was a tad bit confused of why she continued to hug me, and Helen noticed, laughing.
"Hey Zane!"
I looked over to see Raquel, who walked over towards us with Alex. She had a huge smile as she looked at Lisa hugging me. "Seems like you met Lisa."
"Ahh my little band runner! How much I missed you!" Lisa jumped from me to her, and I just breathed as Helen patted my back.
"You'll get use to her, she's always like that. It's to bad she's leaving this year-"
"Now don't say that! I am going to come back, so don't say those words! You'll make me cry!" Lisa said, as she buried her head into Raquel's shoulder, who just laughed.
"So, anyway, Zane, you are a good drummer. Not as good as Dale, but pretty good." Helen said, and I smiled a bit.
"Thank you."
"Dale's such a beast!" Alex said. "I saw him play last year as the only tenor player and he was awesome!"
"Yea, he's really good. I'm glad he's on the line with me." I said, pretty shocked how much praise he was getting. Suddenly, I heard a scoff behind me.
"Yea. You'll never amount to that."
Helen didn't even turn around. "Jason, stop, you're just going to get yourself hurt. Seriously."
Jason scoffed again, walking off. I just watched him as he walked back to the camp. Why was this kid so bent on insulting me? I did nothing to him. I shook my head and ignored it.
"Ok guys, lets do it again. Drumline, take a break, you all need one." L said, and all the drummers screamed while the hornline and woodwinds moaned. The four around me went back to their spots as I sat beside Dale near our drums.
I smiled a bit, listening as the horns started to play their part. Today was going to be a good day.