By Gerardo Sanchez, March 4, 2025
Spending thousands of dollars in tuition and tour fees and hundreds upon hundreds of hours of practice is the best way I can describe indoor drumline to someone who has never seen it.
With the 2025 Winter Guard International professional music ensemble competition season starting, online talk has begun regarding the indoor groups that will be competing this year. Talk surrounding their show design, the music, the uniforms and score placements have started with Instagram accounts like @drumrank posting weekly score updates and placements for each ensemble class. YouTube podcasts like the Aged-Out Podcast and Perc Talk began discussing early season thoughts on the ensembles as they perform the first five minutes of their show, usually the first two movements.
The highest skill level of indoor drumline, the Percussion Independent World classification, is one topic that is heavily debated this season as the lineup of groups are all promising to make the WGI finals night competition in April a dogfight for first place. At the PIW level, 1/100th of a point can make the difference between first and second place, as seen during the 2024 WGI season.
This comes down to every single note placement and every step taken. Every little detail for seven straight minutes can mean the difference of getting a medal or not.
As such, rehearsals are long and brutal. Friday nights until 11 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. is the typical rehearsal schedule for the group I am currently marching in. called Meraki Percussion, a PIW group that increased in classification this season. I marched there for the 2024 Percussion Independent Open season, the class below World, where we broke the WGI PIO record for highest possible score.
This is in no way bashing Meraki for their culture, as I think they have a welcoming and respective culture. However, the demanding nature of the activity can lead to toxicity within the group, and it can be physically, mentally and emotionally harmful and draining.
The ensemble, consisting of 53 performers, all arrive Friday around 5:30 p.m. We unload our truck with our equipment, and we set up according to the schedule staff give us. Sometimes this is individual time if we received new music; sectional time where we put together the show as a section, such as snares, tenors, woods and rhythm section; or ensemble time.
At this point in the season, the first two hours of Friday nights are sectionals, where we work to make the show as clean as possible. Saturdays are usually where we ensemble what we had worked on and try to get it up to tempo. Sundays are then moving into playing it with the full ensemble and trying to get the metronome out.
The weekend is very fast-paced, and as a result, there isn’t room for error or bad reps. Every single rep we take is important as we are two months away from the season ending.
Due to the fast-paced nature, messing up or not performing at your absolute best 100% of the time is not an option. The perfectionist requirement and high standards stem from this problem and usually begin to become visible around February and March, when the competitive season starts. The expectation and the demand for perfection every single rep for an entire weekend is difficult, but it’s to be expected from ensembles in the PIW bracket.
On top of the weekend rehearsal, video assignments during the week and individual practice time are also required.
In a standard wood line of seven people, for example, all seven must be perfectly together all the time. The issue happens when one person doesn’t improve as fast as the rest of the line. The toxicity begins as this person is now being seen as holding the line back from being clean. This can and has led to gossip or exclusion from group activities as they are not seen as good enough to continue being on the wood line.
This kind of exclusion and toxicity in an already physically draining environment is harmful to the performers, who range in age from 16 to 22. The mindset a performer needs to be better than the person they play next to has turned people away from the activity after experiencing this high level of toxicity in certain world class groups.
But as much as this environment is toxic and the demand for perfection is harmful to the performers, I support it, and I believe this is one of the highlights of indoor drumline.
Rehearsal weekends are difficult, especially in March, when every little detail matters. Groups spend hours cleaning two seconds of music for 1/10th of a point that could mean the difference between qualifying for finals in April. Performers use every single ounce of their being in every single rep, and by the end of Friday night, performers drive upward of an hour back home just to do it all again Saturday and Sunday.
These expectations of having high standards and perfection can cause performers to feel like they are not good enough and can lead to mental health issues during the season as there are no breaks once contracted.
The strive for perfection is something I wrestle with as I continue to balance school, work, drumline and practicing whenever I can to ensure I am doing my part to make the ensemble better. That is what I love about drumline.
The toxicity is a byproduct of members not exceeding expectations while others around them are. This is an unfortunate side effect I believe must happen for groups to get better. It’s a draining environment and my hands feel nothing except soreness after a full weekend, yet I drive home excited to come back. I finish every weekend knowing I not only made it past that weekend, but I excelled through it.
“I think I’ve been fortunate enough to either be good enough at the instrument where I wasn’t the main focus of scrutiny in the group, or the staff was mature enough to not try and achieve a high standard through toxic measures,” said Kyla Stivers, a member at Meraki Percussion. “However, I have witnessed several people go down this track of toxicity leading to practicing.”
The demand drumline has on your body, mental state and emotions can be seen as unhealthy. The perfectionist culture has led to performers quitting or having to take breaks for their own sanity, but it’s a part of the process to greatness.
After every weekend, the ensemble wraps up after we load the truck and debrief on the weekend about what to expect going into next weekend. By the end of the weekend, every member is visibly exhausted from a weekend straight of being pushed past their limits. But if we trust the process, we will go far.
Our battery caption head, Zakk Hollander, said it the best: “Success is not built in the spotlight. It’s built in the darkest parts of the shadows, where no one will know what happened.”
Feature graphic by Connor Lālea Hampton
