Apparently I misinterpreted the sports analogy 🤦 He's saying: Good Flub Drummer = JV Pitcher, and Bad Snare/Tenor/Bass Drummer = Varsity Outfield. ...but wouldn't the flubs be on the varsity team? IDK. Sports are confusing. EDIT - I *flubbed the sports analogy.
I interpreted it to mean flub's is like playing outfield for the varsity team, and being put in pit would be like pitching for the JV team. Because let's be honest with ourselves, in the eyes of most high schoolers, being on flubs is just one step above being in pit. And to a lot of high-schoolers, Pit is where you go if you can't play anything else. This is not a good way to view mallet percussion and rack, but nonetheless this is the modern high school band mindset.
Ah Flubs. The "you're not good enough for snare, but not big enough for bottom bass, and the pit tech would kill me if I dumped you on him" section. I feel like everyone says "they're to train you for the harder drums" and then only write quarter notes and half note impacts.
It's definitely goes both ways. Some people just aren't good enough, and some people are actually put on there to be built up for another instrument. Like last year, 3 of our snares, all 3 quads, and the bass section leader were on flubs their freshman year. We won percussion at our state competition. It's all about the program and if you have good techs or not
Hey there, former flub player here, at my group personally I learned a tone from playing on flub, as we still played a hard part like many of the others, it allowed me to reform my technique and gain some experience playing harder music, while still allowing me to be part of an ensemble. I plan to play snare for that group next year, flub in the correct circumstances works, look at chino hills I see many of their flub players playing on the snare, tenor or bass line the next year.
@@WilliamBottka Why not play in front ensemble and spend an entire season developing your mallet and auxiliary percussion skills? Lotta cats that are in drumline for every year of band end up with glaring deficiencies in any non rudimental percussion setting. Not always the case, but you'd be amazed how many top-tier snare and quad guys haven't the slightest clue how to play with 4 mallets by the time they get to music school. But I guess that's what music school is for, right?
What the kid actually said, was that he would rather be the star of the B team instead of an insignificant player on the A team. The drumline version of this is not between the A drumline and B drumline, but it is between snare/tenor/bass(the A team) and flubs(the B team). He is saying he would rather be an awesome flubs player, than a crappy snare/tenor/bass player.
Still a terrible thought process no matter how you put it. Let’s take the NFL for instance.... Would you rather be the best player on the Browns team or the worst player on the Patriots team? This should be a no brainer. You get better by playing with people better than you. You don’t get better by playing with people less experienced.
Yeah the kids gotta have a bit of an ego to even think about it in those terms. You really shouldn’t think about how you stack up to the rest of the people in your band. As long as you improve from day to day you’ll get where you want to be.
@@greggchaffin1596 I've realized that sports analogies do not work well for this so I will just explain it in drumline terms. The options are, 1. playing snare/tenor/bass but not being ready for it yet and dragging the whole line down. 2. playing flubs and getting better through experience while still learning from those around you and then being ready to play snare/tenor/bass during the next season. or 3. not being a part of the drumline at all and not getting any better. As someone who has never personally played flubs, but has seen what others can gain from spending a season on flubs, I would say that a flubline can be very beneficial to a drumline in the right situation. For my drumline in particular, we don't have any more room on snare/tenor/bass but we don't want to turn people away and not let them participate, so they play flubs. It really depends on two things, the size of your drumline, and the level of performance. Like I said, if your drumline is very big, a flubline could be a way to let people participate while not dragging the drumline down. If your drumline is small, then just put them on snare/tenor/bass and help them get better. Then is the difficulty. The schools they showed in the video, Avon, Carmel, and Centerville, all have very high levels of performance that would be very difficult to reach without much experience. In their cases, they need experienced players on their snare/tenor/basslines to reach the level they are shooting for. In less competitive bands, the level of performance needed is achievable by less experienced players over the course of just one season. Not all drumlines should have a flubline, but many can benefit from them.
Well I don't think it was intentional; I think more just it can be detrimental to a prospective snare/tenor player to spend a year on mallets and letting their budding drum skills get rustier
I know Avon and their program definitely is much stronger in the drums than the pit, at least when I last saw them. Unfortunately it’s a lot harder to find good pits than it is good drumlines in this state.
@@psychedahlia it's been almost 30 years since we got the front ensemble, and we still have this pervasive perspective that front ensemble is somehow lesser than drumline, and does not contribute anything to personal growth as percussionist. Despite front ensemble containing a wider variety of percussion instruments than the Drumline. This goes both ways, the kid who stays on snare for 4 years is just as behind as the kid who stays on marimba for 4 years. Maybe they're both Masters at that one specific instrument, but in terms of being a well-rounded percussionist, essential if you want to be a working musician, they're both far behind.
It doesn’t exist in smaller schools. Also I have never seen a small band use flubs before. I have only ever seen clubs in bigger bands what have maxed out their sections.
I was just going to comment, even before watching the video: What do you think would Steven say 😂 I would never dare to dislike the Flubs with you as a section leader...
Our drumline was big enough to have a flub section. For reference, we had a ten person cymbal line at one point. The director wanted an experienced player, so when we went to sectionals, someone knew what they're doing. Just like that, I'm Flub Section Leader. I gotta say, though, that it definitely got freshman marching and playing without hurting the overall sound. They were also super light, and almost fun to march with.
I have never marched flubs but I have played the flubs in our indoor percussion but they actually called them impact drums when I was in 8th grade and now I'm a junior as center snare and battery section leader.
I can verify this; my high school frequently competed against Carmel and Avon during the main marching season (Lafayette Jeff High School here; last I knew they went to the non-competing sector of marching band, but I haven't checked on that in the last few years) and lost out to both high schools in state semi-finals multiple times. (One exception being 2014, where my school did finally make it to State Finals and got 7th place)
I think the flubs are a good tool for tone and accents.just like any drum it's just a different sound. but if I was on a flub line I would definitely be embarrassed.
I’m a sophomore at a big high school and I wish we had a flub line. I want to be in drumline, but keep getting put in pit. If I was on flubs, I would at least learn how to march with a drum in and help develop those skills.
@@spoderman9638 I think Eric Carr had to record himself at different drums and spliced it together to look like he duplicated himself. So, I think its the editing.
I’ve actually never heard these called flubs- the term I’m familiar with is “impact drums,” which is a lot sexier than, you know... “flub.” It helps to have them not only when you have a big line, but a greater disparity in proficiency between members of the line, I.e. someone who would be bored with your current bass crew but that would lag behind those currently playing snare and tenors
At my highschool we just called it the tom line. Since we had a fairly large drumline we would have a ton line in the fall but in the winter we had two groups so we did not use toms. If you didn't make the varsity group then you went and played in the JV group. That way everyone can play the instrument they want to get better at regardless of skill. That worked out very well for us and it helped the group improve a ton over the years since we started doing that. So for any educators reading this, if you have the members to make this work I highly encourage going for it
i just finished freshman year marching flubs, our school's flubs (or as we call them toms) play the same music as the snare except maybe a few rimshots taken out and some rolls that the snares need to have clean and our book is fairly hard so I think that flubs is a great way to get younger kids ready for snare in the years to come. We played basically everything the snares play. and our drums were actual parts of old tenors not just sawed off.
EMCproductions my school never has had a flub drum section this year. The reason why this happened is because since we’re short on time due to COVID my teacher wanted to add a pregame show and putt the people from pit into flubs or cymbal lines.
This has always been interesting to me. Especially because single tenors (Just called tenor by most) in the HBCU and Pipe Band world are very important. While in the corp styled world it’s just to help build chops to move on to another part of the section. I would love to see a comparison from Eric about this.
"Flubs are the most important instrument in the entire marching band! /s" Is that a challenge to write a marching band composition that depends on the flubs?
Imagine taking care of your snare drums all through high school (tuning, head changes etc.) working to make them the best they've ever sounded only to have them converted to flubs after you graduate. Wait just me? Ok
My high school started doing flubs (we called them toms) my sophomore year. The percussion section was certainly big enough in my opinion and they didn’t make cuts from the ensemble, just possibly from sections, so it was always getting bigger. The only issue I always had with them was our writing for them. It was always extremely simple, so it wasn’t that great at getting them to get experience and learn how to play harder stuff. This past year though we had two really good freshman that were actually put on snare for outdoor since they were almost hanging on and were playing traditional, but for indoor they wanted to keep the line smaller and easier to clean, so they ended up on toms. We did though have a new person writing our battery music for indoor and he actually gave them good parts. So a combination of good players and a good arrangement made it a lot cooler.
I think the first interview was of one of their snare drummers. As an active adjudicator, I’ve always wanted the performers to add in some way musically. These instruments are rarely featured and often hidden. Being exposed at whatever performance level you are helps you get better. Thanks for the video!
The indoor program I went to called them T2s. We were treated like a second tenorline...almost. It was a good learning experience for moving to an independent group from high school and established us in the group.
Our college line used 5 players on tri-toms (3 drums and a spock), tuned to the space between our tenors and bass 1. I think it filled out the sound nicely, but of course, I am heavily biased. Edit: Almost forgot the best part. Our tri-toms had cowbells too.
@@elizabethvazquez875 Don't get me wrong it's a lot of fun. I'm playing snare drum this year and playing flub has really helped. Good luck in your season!
@@elizabethvazquez875 yeah i got put into a flub this a couple months ago, im actaully quite glad i did because if i got put into snare line i would have a rlly hard time playing the music they gave us, playing the flub has helped me lot with marking time, wrist movement, and I personally think (biased opionion) that every beginner should play the flub before going to snare line.
@@Etan1 Now that I've been marching for awhile being flub is actually really fun! Last night we got 2nd place in percussion and beat some really good band so we celebrated! I've made some great friends as well 😊
I can relate to this very much, during my freshman year (I’m now a senior) I was Flub line section leader and we had the de-tuned snares as what we called “Toms” and I was sadly put in this group after failing to keep up with bass music and I wasn’t the most fit since before this I was used to middle school advanced band which requires no activity haha... the judges would be so confused when we listened to tapes and they would call us “Extra snares in the corner” until they realized we were flubs. Ultimately for our school we had a huge roar of attendance in band and so my instructor made the line more or less for me to stay in the line somehow and also we just happened to get some new kids who were placed there so I was the only one with some drumming experience. Eventually did bass 5 drumline season of my freshman year and now I’m tenors since sophomore year! Flubs definitely taught me my way around the drum and I got exercises down... also yes I’m more fit now
If one person picks up sticks and plays music because of “Flubs”, then we have achieved a very important goal. Not everyone needs to be a champion.... just enjoying the art of playing music is enough!
The Flub drum is from the tenor drum family. If used correctly you can get great sounds. The sound it makes reminds me of the caribbean sounds and Sepultura.
*Ouch* at that "pit is just playing outfield for the A Team" comment The marimba player in my heart just cried a little bit. An ensemble I taught at for a minute did a 2 snare, 2 quad, 4 bass, 4 cymbal and 3 flub line once...
Flubs are for “training” but it really is for HUGE bands only. We thought about adding flubs for all these reasons… but we didn’t do it. We added an extra bass drum to the line instead. I mean, we would have had 2 flubs. 1 real bass is better. We weren’t maxed out though. If we had 5000 kids we would probably march cymbals, flubs, and a kitchen sink. At 1200 we still have room to add “real” parts. Side note, lots of bands march vertical single tenors. I.e. like 4-6 bass 1s. They have their own part. They’re not a training tool. People want that thudding midrange. Not me or any band in my state, but lots of college bands and bands in the south.
Avon high school has two drumlines: Avon World and Avon A. Plus, the kid in the interview went on to be center snare for Avon world and marched for Shadow dbc
My high school had less than 1000 students. So thus the marching band was small. But I think I like that better. It just felt like everyone was important and the director could give more attention to everyone
Speaking on the topic of Varsity and JV marching band, my high school had a pretty dominant hold on our local marching band scene (only a school of 600 but the band was almost 200). No matter how hard we worked the bigger, richer schools near the biggest city in our state would always give us good competition at our state competition. My friends and I got bored and decided to do some research on these schools and found that one of them has THREE full marching bands that all meet separately. So yes, Varsity and JV marching bands do exist. And apparently JJV exists as well.
I joined percussion after already spending 3 years on a wind instrument. My percussion section was extremely over saturated and I played flubs before bass because I wasn’t used to marching percussion yet. But I genuinely think the year on flubs helped my technique and confidence, as well as my drive to be good at bass my other years. The other 2 flubs I played with ended up ended up being a snare, and a quad player the following years.
I think the flub has a way to be a sound part of the ensemble. Revelation percussion uses a T2 line which is a single tenor drum with a Spock, both tuned high and a cymbal mounted to it. This allows for members that would otherwise be put on a cymbal line to be marching a drum, creating an option to let a t2 fill a snare/tenor/bass position if a member is unable to finish the season AND fills the floor with more visual opportunity AND is audible to the audience. So big ups to rev for re-engineering the flub to be a core member of the ensemble
I’ve never been able to get into band before (except in 4th grade when I played the flute)until now where I’m going into high school, and I finally can join marching band, and I’ve been teaching myself for about 2 years now so it’s gonna be really nice knowing how things work in marching band thanks to you, thank you EMC 😁
at my school we dont have a "varsity" or "jv" band but we have a comp band and a football band that has everyone in the comp band in it. the comp d-line only has bass tenors and snare, and the football band has flubs and cymbals added in. if you play flubs or cymbles and want to be in comp band then you have to try out for the pit, also there is no football pit
We use single Tenors in Showstyle HBCU marching bands.. The difference is we play with Traditional tenor drum Mallets or small bass drum Mallets. We fill in percussion in gaps and play syncopated grooves. We use 14-16 inch floor Tom's converted into Marching single tenor drum. We call em tenor and we called multi tenors quints sixes and quads.. Some section play em like a snare drum and some play em side like a bass drum.. They have even developed a style of Mallets flourishing without using strings but its looks like using strings..
I definitely have to say that's a good point for what you said, that schools with smaller drumlins shouldn't have a flub line, and it's better to play the instrument you're supposed to play instead of a different one. Though, flubs were a resource I wish we had back in my high school. my drumline was also too small to have a flub-line, so I wasn't mad that we didn't have one, but the inexperienced drummers and the freshmen got put on the BASSLINE! this lead to our baseline being pretty crappy, and also giving freshman a harder time to transition to snare or tenor because the technique was completely different. If we had a flub line (and our drumline was bigger ofc) we would be able to have three options for freshmen to move up into, the freshmen would be able to learn good technique for snares and quads, and we would have a better bassline as juniors and seniors would be on it instead of freshmen and first year upperclassmen. But again, there are ways to use them improperly, and the circumstances you made up in your video make sense.
our school marched flubs in the form of 4 playing two tom drums sets (duos) and 4 playing two timbales. they were mostly used both for training new members, as well as to add more effects to the overall sound since the duos had a tambourine and the timbales had a cowbell installed. our drumline was huge, however, we marched like 9 snares, 6 tenors, 4 duos, 4 timbales, 6 basses, and 12 cymbals and still had alternates who would sub in if anyone was sick. check out olentangy orange high school marching band!!
In my first year of high school, there was no front ensemble during marching season because of COVID. So they just stuck all the freshman (myself included) on flub
As an Avon alum (not a drummer, but my younger brother was) I can confirm that they have had two winter drumlines since the 2004 winter drumline season. They are the A line and the world line. They have had a huge line in the fall since 2003, but I don't know when they added flubs. The footage in the video was from 2018 I think. The school was nowhere near as ginormous in 2003 as it is now.
My school is so small. Literally like less than 800. Our whole indoor season this year is gonna have 1 snare, 1 tenor(me), 3 basses, 2 marimbas, I xylophone, and 1 rack person. Sad. I was also the only tenor last year and probably will be for the rest of highs school. (I’m a sophomore)
For concert season, many schools have bands sperated by years. The only exception to this at my school was percussion. We had our own percussion class, and performed with every band on top of our own music
Agree with Queen especially at schools developing a drum line and schools with an overflow of members. Corps used a version of the flub in the earlier tears before tenors - marching timp like SVG 78 and the single tenor drum. HBCU still use the single tenor.
Back in the '70s when I was 7 years old we called them tenors. I played one for about 2 months before I got promoted to snare. When did they started calling them flubs?
our school doesn't have this but we have a "snare b" line which are snares with a silent head. They play all the same parts as snares. It accomplishes the same thing as flub drums without adding a whole other section. Also our drumline is huge so we aren't missing out on other sections, the people put on snare b would otherwise have been our 17th 18th and 19th cymbal lol. also im snare b this year hoping to improve and be a snare next year
100% Agree with you here ... I only once had the luxury of teaching a line at a huge HS, and we a sizeable battery that did not have flubs ... those students with less chops were assigned spots that best utilized their level had of skill ... some were in the cym line, some in the front ensemble. But 99% of the other schools where I taught, we were lucky to field a battery of 10 people total... I guess I understand the flub idea (if the line if huge, or if you have 7th & 8th graders to participate)... but it;s not a practical idea for the majority of schools.
In my 6 years of being in my high schools marching band, we had 1 flub player, in one show. We have a really small school but a really powerful horn line and a decent percussion section. I was a sophomore on center snare and there was one senior who switched from trumpet to snare and a 7th grader on snare. Obviously, being in 7th grade, he just didn't have the technical facility to play the book, so we took the guts off his drum and put a tenor head on with chop out sticks. It was obvious if you knew about it,, but other than that, it looked like we had 3 snares. He's a sophomore now and is a pretty great tenor player.
@@ooinvsaoo yeah, my first season, I was in 7th grade on synth and then it was mainly pit percussion, a few guard kids an two or three really good middle school wind players, but over the years, the band got smaller and a lot of high school kids graduated and not enough more joined, so by my senior season, the 2019 season, next to a third of the band was middle school kids. It's amazing too because of the six years I was in band, we one three division 4 open championships, two back to back in 2015 and 2016 and again in 2019.
My old school called them accent drums and in previous years they actually gave then tough music. They were tuned to what a tenor should sound like so you definitely heard them in shows and what not.
Didn't Star of Indiana use flubs in 1993 or were those just two-head tenors? Not a percussion person here, I couldn't tell the difference from the multi-cam.
My school uses snares that make no sound if you aren't ready for the main snare line. But you still play all the same things as the main center drums you just don't make any noise.
As a Squeeky Cock (Patreon) I knew this was coming, but then got busy and missed the 9 am (Pacific time) release. I am so glad to finally know all about the flubs. Great analysis ... and I do love Steven 😍 as the Flub Drum 🥁 Section Leader!
2:21 This is the worst comparison I've ever heard. both 3rd chair parts and things like flags have their own respective qualities and each takes skill. Sure a 3rd trumpet part might not be as high as a first, but it can add rich harmonies and dramatic fills while other chairs play their own part.
You explained the analogy wrong, he said what you said. “It’s better to be the pitcher for the B team rather than being the outfielder for the A team.”
My school (when they had flubs) called them “mono-tenors” or just “MTs”. The MTs doubled the snare part, but could be heard and were a good learning tool. All of the people on MTs went to snare the next year.
I would never add a flub drum section, but I would add a double tenor section. I have a tenors that are 8,10,12,13, I would use double tenors 14,16. Run bass drums starting at 18. Use the double tenors to bridge the sound between the quints and bass drums. Again would arrange the ensemble with the doubles part of the overall sound not just something added on. This could be helpful if you are dealing with an ensemble of younger players who can’t carry big block tenors.
My high school had 3500 students. We still didn’t use flubs. We had 5 bass, 5 snare, and 3 tenor. We stuck extra kids in pit, on cymbals, or just had them play in the stands only and had them shadow a snare or tenor or bass at practice and fill in when kids were sick.
My high school decided to have two marching bands once our band got to more than 300 people. It got to be too much to handle for the staff that we had at the time.
I think the A team/B team analogy was a nice way of saying he didn't want to be center marimba, he wanted to march, even if it is not a real instrument.
Our best quad, snare, and bass last year were all flubs their freshman year. The point is to get them ready for whatever instrument they choose to go to next. We won state percussion back to back years with them as the top people in our drumline. There's a reason for flubs.
I go to carmel high school and there is actually about 350 kids in the marching band and 20 in the Drumline. I played fulbs in my 8th grade year because of covid which was a snare without the snares but now I'm on quads my freshman year so, big flex
As a former flub drum section leader 😉 I’m not crazy about the single drum thing. But the way we did it at Crossmen and how Star used them, basically just big quads playing ostinatos made sense. If I had to guess, I’d say either Hannum or Colin came up with the name, so you should take it up with them.
BUT, probably the key difference there is it was only an effect for part of the show. Crossmen had them in the opener and then we switched to cymbals, Star had 4 people from the pit play Flubs for the closer.
Apparently I misinterpreted the sports analogy 🤦
He's saying: Good Flub Drummer = JV Pitcher, and Bad Snare/Tenor/Bass Drummer = Varsity Outfield.
...but wouldn't the flubs be on the varsity team? IDK. Sports are confusing.
EDIT - I *flubbed the sports analogy.
How can you deem yourself worthy to wear the baseball shirt and then commit such a flub, rookie mistake honestly😤😤😤
I interpreted it to mean flub's is like playing outfield for the varsity team, and being put in pit would be like pitching for the JV team.
Because let's be honest with ourselves, in the eyes of most high schoolers, being on flubs is just one step above being in pit. And to a lot of high-schoolers, Pit is where you go if you can't play anything else.
This is not a good way to view mallet percussion and rack, but nonetheless this is the modern high school band mindset.
Arcadia hs has an A line, an open line, and a world line. So basically frosh, JV, and varsity.
I went straight to the comments after you said it lol
It's always nice to admit when you have flubbed your analysis ... (Like your review of "Drumline" ). 😜
Haha flub is a funny word
@@noah-berg very fnuuy
bibbers is funnier
It probably is used to describe yo mama
If you're high
Lol diddle still makes me giggle sometimes
My schools had a flub line once, because the directors kid wanted to be on snare but wasn’t good enough so he made a whole other line for him.
😂😂😂😂
F
Well at least they didn't throw him on snare which I've seen happen
Ah Flubs. The "you're not good enough for snare, but not big enough for bottom bass, and the pit tech would kill me if I dumped you on him" section.
I feel like everyone says "they're to train you for the harder drums" and then only write quarter notes and half note impacts.
It's definitely goes both ways. Some people just aren't good enough, and some people are actually put on there to be built up for another instrument. Like last year, 3 of our snares, all 3 quads, and the bass section leader were on flubs their freshman year. We won percussion at our state competition. It's all about the program and if you have good techs or not
@@jasoncrocker881 lmao we don’t even have a tech
@@lucscott3631 Y'all are screwed then
Hey there, former flub player here, at my group personally I learned a tone from playing on flub, as we still played a hard part like many of the others, it allowed me to reform my technique and gain some experience playing harder music, while still allowing me to be part of an ensemble. I plan to play snare for that group next year, flub in the correct circumstances works, look at chino hills I see many of their flub players playing on the snare, tenor or bass line the next year.
@@WilliamBottka
Why not play in front ensemble and spend an entire season developing your mallet and auxiliary percussion skills?
Lotta cats that are in drumline for every year of band end up with glaring deficiencies in any non rudimental percussion setting.
Not always the case, but you'd be amazed how many top-tier snare and quad guys haven't the slightest clue how to play with 4 mallets by the time they get to music school.
But I guess that's what music school is for, right?
What the kid actually said, was that he would rather be the star of the B team instead of an insignificant player on the A team. The drumline version of this is not between the A drumline and B drumline, but it is between snare/tenor/bass(the A team) and flubs(the B team). He is saying he would rather be an awesome flubs player, than a crappy snare/tenor/bass player.
then he should play the snare and get good problem solved
Still a terrible thought process no matter how you put it. Let’s take the NFL for instance....
Would you rather be the best player on the Browns team or the worst player on the Patriots team? This should be a no brainer. You get better by playing with people better than you. You don’t get better by playing with people less experienced.
Yeah the kids gotta have a bit of an ego to even think about it in those terms. You really shouldn’t think about how you stack up to the rest of the people in your band. As long as you improve from day to day you’ll get where you want to be.
@@greggchaffin1596 I've realized that sports analogies do not work well for this so I will just explain it in drumline terms.
The options are, 1. playing snare/tenor/bass but not being ready for it yet and dragging the whole line down. 2. playing flubs and getting better through experience while still learning from those around you and then being ready to play snare/tenor/bass during the next season. or 3. not being a part of the drumline at all and not getting any better.
As someone who has never personally played flubs, but has seen what others can gain from spending a season on flubs, I would say that a flubline can be very beneficial to a drumline in the right situation. For my drumline in particular, we don't have any more room on snare/tenor/bass but we don't want to turn people away and not let them participate, so they play flubs. It really depends on two things, the size of your drumline, and the level of performance. Like I said, if your drumline is very big, a flubline could be a way to let people participate while not dragging the drumline down. If your drumline is small, then just put them on snare/tenor/bass and help them get better. Then is the difficulty. The schools they showed in the video, Avon, Carmel, and Centerville, all have very high levels of performance that would be very difficult to reach without much experience. In their cases, they need experienced players on their snare/tenor/basslines to reach the level they are shooting for. In less competitive bands, the level of performance needed is achievable by less experienced players over the course of just one season.
Not all drumlines should have a flubline, but many can benefit from them.
Yeah, the outfield vs pitcher analogy was pretty dumb. But he’s a kid. So whatever
When he said "instead of just going to pit" with such disgust in his voice... That hurts man.
Well I don't think it was intentional; I think more just it can be detrimental to a prospective snare/tenor player to spend a year on mallets and letting their budding drum skills get rustier
I know Avon and their program definitely is much stronger in the drums than the pit, at least when I last saw them. Unfortunately it’s a lot harder to find good pits than it is good drumlines in this state.
@@psychedahlia it's been almost 30 years since we got the front ensemble, and we still have this pervasive perspective that front ensemble is somehow lesser than drumline, and does not contribute anything to personal growth as percussionist. Despite front ensemble containing a wider variety of percussion instruments than the Drumline.
This goes both ways, the kid who stays on snare for 4 years is just as behind as the kid who stays on marimba for 4 years. Maybe they're both Masters at that one specific instrument, but in terms of being a well-rounded percussionist, essential if you want to be a working musician, they're both far behind.
I legit didn't know flub drums were a real thing until this video lol
It doesn’t exist in smaller schools. Also I have never seen a small band use flubs before. I have only ever seen clubs in bigger bands what have maxed out their sections.
Your opinion is biased, good sir. YOU'VE NEVER EVEN MARCHED FLUBS!!!!
I was just going to comment, even before watching the video: What do you think would Steven say 😂 I would never dare to dislike the Flubs with you as a section leader...
Steven has a point
Exschacktly.
Our drumline was big enough to have a flub section. For reference, we had a ten person cymbal line at one point. The director wanted an experienced player, so when we went to sectionals, someone knew what they're doing. Just like that, I'm Flub Section Leader.
I gotta say, though, that it definitely got freshman marching and playing without hurting the overall sound. They were also super light, and almost fun to march with.
I agree, as a part of my high school flub section
I have never marched flubs but I have played the flubs in our indoor percussion but they actually called them impact drums when I was in 8th grade and now I'm a junior as center snare and battery section leader.
Way to move up!
Me who’s still on flubs 👀
These are 3 of the best high school bands in/around Indianapolis. They have fully developed recruiting and training programs.
I can verify this; my high school frequently competed against Carmel and Avon during the main marching season (Lafayette Jeff High School here; last I knew they went to the non-competing sector of marching band, but I haven't checked on that in the last few years) and lost out to both high schools in state semi-finals multiple times. (One exception being 2014, where my school did finally make it to State Finals and got 7th place)
I think the flubs are a good tool for tone and accents.just like any drum it's just a different sound. but if I was on a flub line I would definitely be embarrassed.
That school that has 5000 students has more students than the 2 high schools in my city
It has twice as many students than in my entire district
There are whole towns smaller than that high school
lol i go there ya schools pretty big. We have 8 snares, 4 quads, 5 bases this year
@@Brian-rj1un You still in the marching band?
@@aether7841 yeah
I’m a sophomore at a big high school and I wish we had a flub line. I want to be in drumline, but keep getting put in pit. If I was on flubs, I would at least learn how to march with a drum in and help develop those skills.
0:16 yoo not to alarm you but there are ghosts behind you in the recording of this lick
Indeed 👽💀
WHAT THE FU-
what happeneddddd😫?????????
@@spoderman9638 I think Eric Carr had to record himself at different drums and spliced it together to look like he duplicated himself. So, I think its the editing.
@@qwertyuiop-jf1lm i think the ghosts didn't notice spocktober has already passed.
I’ve actually never heard these called flubs- the term I’m familiar with is “impact drums,” which is a lot sexier than, you know... “flub.” It helps to have them not only when you have a big line, but a greater disparity in proficiency between members of the line, I.e. someone who would be bored with your current bass crew but that would lag behind those currently playing snare and tenors
3:05 Bassdrums *inserts picture of his beloved cowbell*
President: *Is elected*
EMC: FLUB DRUMS
At my highschool we just called it the tom line. Since we had a fairly large drumline we would have a ton line in the fall but in the winter we had two groups so we did not use toms. If you didn't make the varsity group then you went and played in the JV group. That way everyone can play the instrument they want to get better at regardless of skill. That worked out very well for us and it helped the group improve a ton over the years since we started doing that. So for any educators reading this, if you have the members to make this work I highly encourage going for it
my school used flubs one year, and my band director called them "mono-tenors" he would get pretty annoyed when people called them flubs.
I see you made this too. Scroll up and you’ll see mine, Felix ;)
@@emperorofgaming8146 whats good Payton
Back in the 60's single tenors were a thing and perfectly respectable.
@@foistboinder yes, but these weren’t actually single tenors, they were flubs. They had muffled heads.
@@foistboinder In Drum and Fife bands single tenors are still a thing.
i just finished freshman year marching flubs, our school's flubs (or as we call them toms) play the same music as the snare except maybe a few rimshots taken out and some rolls that the snares need to have clean and our book is fairly hard so I think that flubs is a great way to get younger kids ready for snare in the years to come. We played basically everything the snares play. and our drums were actual parts of old tenors not just sawed off.
Eric, I must say. The video quality is becoming phenomenal! Keep up the great work!
EMCproductions my school never has had a flub drum section this year. The reason why this happened is because since we’re short on time due to COVID my teacher wanted to add a pregame show and putt the people from pit into flubs or cymbal lines.
This has always been interesting to me. Especially because single tenors (Just called tenor by most) in the HBCU and Pipe Band world are very important. While in the corp styled world it’s just to help build chops to move on to another part of the section. I would love to see a comparison from Eric about this.
"Flubs are the most important instrument in the entire marching band! /s"
Is that a challenge to write a marching band composition that depends on the flubs?
It’s kinda like marching practice pads.
send this to a flub player
I have no friends ._.
Shadow the Hedgehog friend is different than flub player
@@123whistle u shouldn’t be friends with a flub player anyway
Imagine taking care of your snare drums all through high school (tuning, head changes etc.) working to make them the best they've ever sounded only to have them converted to flubs after you graduate.
Wait just me? Ok
My high school started doing flubs (we called them toms) my sophomore year. The percussion section was certainly big enough in my opinion and they didn’t make cuts from the ensemble, just possibly from sections, so it was always getting bigger. The only issue I always had with them was our writing for them. It was always extremely simple, so it wasn’t that great at getting them to get experience and learn how to play harder stuff. This past year though we had two really good freshman that were actually put on snare for outdoor since they were almost hanging on and were playing traditional, but for indoor they wanted to keep the line smaller and easier to clean, so they ended up on toms. We did though have a new person writing our battery music for indoor and he actually gave them good parts. So a combination of good players and a good arrangement made it a lot cooler.
5:00 ERIC, RUN! There's a ghost behind you!!
0:16 ._.
There was probably somebody walking so they far to edit them out
@@NASA-sl6yg Probably something to do with the 3 separate shots
Yeah
@@tacocraft604 All this time I thought it was just really tall midgets and cloned and dressed into him. Nice drumming though.
I AGREE they are for people who can’t play snare drum
They are for inexperienced future-snare drummers
Nice name bro
I think the first interview was of one of their snare drummers.
As an active adjudicator, I’ve always wanted the performers to add in some way musically. These instruments are rarely featured and often hidden. Being exposed at whatever performance level you are helps you get better. Thanks for the video!
The indoor program I went to called them T2s. We were treated like a second tenorline...almost. It was a good learning experience for moving to an independent group from high school and established us in the group.
Our college line used 5 players on tri-toms (3 drums and a spock), tuned to the space between our tenors and bass 1. I think it filled out the sound nicely, but of course, I am heavily biased. Edit: Almost forgot the best part. Our tri-toms had cowbells too.
How dare you insult my instrument that I'm currently playing...
Edit: Now I'm playing snare lol
Im being put on flubs my freshman year 😔
@@elizabethvazquez875 Don't get me wrong it's a lot of fun. I'm playing snare drum this year and playing flub has really helped. Good luck in your season!
@@shaanfliesplanes thanks!
@@elizabethvazquez875 yeah i got put into a flub this a couple months ago, im actaully quite glad i did because if i got put into snare line i would have a rlly hard time playing the music they gave us, playing the flub has helped me lot with marking time, wrist movement, and I personally think (biased opionion) that every beginner should play the flub before going to snare line.
@@Etan1 Now that I've been marching for awhile being flub is actually really fun! Last night we got 2nd place in percussion and beat some really good band so we celebrated! I've made some great friends as well 😊
I can relate to this very much, during my freshman year (I’m now a senior) I was Flub line section leader and we had the de-tuned snares as what we called “Toms” and I was sadly put in this group after failing to keep up with bass music and I wasn’t the most fit since before this I was used to middle school advanced band which requires no activity haha... the judges would be so confused when we listened to tapes and they would call us “Extra snares in the corner” until they realized we were flubs. Ultimately for our school we had a huge roar of attendance in band and so my instructor made the line more or less for me to stay in the line somehow and also we just happened to get some new kids who were placed there so I was the only one with some drumming experience. Eventually did bass 5 drumline season of my freshman year and now I’m tenors since sophomore year! Flubs definitely taught me my way around the drum and I got exercises down... also yes I’m more fit now
This had me in tears. Literally the best call out on the internet for drums. I will share this with ALL of my friends and drumming pals . . Lmao
I woke up upset because the sun woke me up. I saw your thumbnail and heard in my head "GOOOD MORNING!" and I smiled, laughed, and the day is better
If one person picks up sticks and plays music because of “Flubs”, then we have achieved a very important goal. Not everyone needs to be a champion.... just enjoying the art of playing music is enough!
We call flub drums at our school “Altos”. Geez 😒 😂
I mean...... if ya think about it that makes sense.
Snares (Sopranos)
Flubs (Altos)
Tenors
Basses
Viola Drums
@@mogmason6920 underrated comment
The Flub drum is from the tenor drum family. If used correctly you can get great sounds. The sound it makes reminds me of the caribbean sounds and Sepultura.
*Ouch* at that "pit is just playing outfield for the A Team" comment
The marimba player in my heart just cried a little bit.
An ensemble I taught at for a minute did a 2 snare, 2 quad, 4 bass, 4 cymbal and 3 flub line once...
Flubs are for “training” but it really is for HUGE bands only. We thought about adding flubs for all these reasons… but we didn’t do it. We added an extra bass drum to the line instead. I mean, we would have had 2 flubs. 1 real bass is better. We weren’t maxed out though. If we had 5000 kids we would probably march cymbals, flubs, and a kitchen sink. At 1200 we still have room to add “real” parts. Side note, lots of bands march vertical single tenors. I.e. like 4-6 bass 1s. They have their own part. They’re not a training tool. People want that thudding midrange. Not me or any band in my state, but lots of college bands and bands in the south.
Flubs are kinda weird I agree with EMC on this one
Avon high school has two drumlines: Avon World and Avon A. Plus, the kid in the interview went on to be center snare for Avon world and marched for Shadow dbc
That's actually epic oh my goodness
Couldn’t get past the fact that Jeff Queen was the snare lead for the Blast broadway show on DVD
As someone from a high school Indiana that has to deal with these schools on a regular basis.
“They’re freakin’ huge” is right.
7:10 That girl in the background: *Mr. Stark... I don't feel so good...*
My high school had less than 1000 students. So thus the marching band was small. But I think I like that better. It just felt like everyone was important and the director could give more attention to everyone
Speaking on the topic of Varsity and JV marching band, my high school had a pretty dominant hold on our local marching band scene (only a school of 600 but the band was almost 200). No matter how hard we worked the bigger, richer schools near the biggest city in our state would always give us good competition at our state competition. My friends and I got bored and decided to do some research on these schools and found that one of them has THREE full marching bands that all meet separately. So yes, Varsity and JV marching bands do exist. And apparently JJV exists as well.
I joined percussion after already spending 3 years on a wind instrument. My percussion section was extremely over saturated and I played flubs before bass because I wasn’t used to marching percussion yet. But I genuinely think the year on flubs helped my technique and confidence, as well as my drive to be good at bass my other years. The other 2 flubs I played with ended up ended up being a snare, and a quad player the following years.
I think the flub has a way to be a sound part of the ensemble. Revelation percussion uses a T2 line which is a single tenor drum with a Spock, both tuned high and a cymbal mounted to it. This allows for members that would otherwise be put on a cymbal line to be marching a drum, creating an option to let a t2 fill a snare/tenor/bass position if a member is unable to finish the season AND fills the floor with more visual opportunity AND is audible to the audience. So big ups to rev for re-engineering the flub to be a core member of the ensemble
I’ve never been able to get into band before (except in 4th grade when I played the flute)until now where I’m going into high school, and I finally can join marching band, and I’ve been teaching myself for about 2 years now so it’s gonna be really nice knowing how things work in marching band thanks to you, thank you EMC 😁
Update?
5:01 Bro in the back spawned in 💀
at my school we dont have a "varsity" or "jv" band but we have a comp band and a football band that has everyone in the comp band in it. the comp d-line only has bass tenors and snare, and the football band has flubs and cymbals added in. if you play flubs or cymbles and want to be in comp band then you have to try out for the pit, also there is no football pit
Star 93 and Thom Hannum named them the flubs. There is a small section in the show with a flub line.
The closer
We use single Tenors in Showstyle HBCU marching bands.. The difference is we play with Traditional tenor drum Mallets or small bass drum Mallets. We fill in percussion in gaps and play syncopated grooves. We use 14-16 inch floor Tom's converted into Marching single tenor drum. We call em tenor and we called multi tenors quints sixes and quads.. Some section play em like a snare drum and some play em side like a bass drum.. They have even developed a style of Mallets flourishing without using strings but its looks like using strings..
This video was made 3 years ago today. Happy birthday
"If you got a problem deciding if you like flub drum or not then you ain't in my drum line" -Corn Pop
@6:20 emc I might be wrong but I think he meant he rather be low on Drumline then be high on pit or front ensemble
I definitely have to say that's a good point for what you said, that schools with smaller drumlins shouldn't have a flub line, and it's better to play the instrument you're supposed to play instead of a different one. Though, flubs were a resource I wish we had back in my high school. my drumline was also too small to have a flub-line, so I wasn't mad that we didn't have one, but the inexperienced drummers and the freshmen got put on the BASSLINE! this lead to our baseline being pretty crappy, and also giving freshman a harder time to transition to snare or tenor because the technique was completely different. If we had a flub line (and our drumline was bigger ofc) we would be able to have three options for freshmen to move up into, the freshmen would be able to learn good technique for snares and quads, and we would have a better bassline as juniors and seniors would be on it instead of freshmen and first year upperclassmen.
But again, there are ways to use them improperly, and the circumstances you made up in your video make sense.
I've never heard of a flub drum. But thank you for helping realize this is exactly what I need in my band! 😆😆😆
I’m from Pike HS (northwest Indianapolis) and when we saw Carmel compete they were about 3x as big as our marching band
It’s also common knowledge for everyone to hate them bc they always think that they’re better than everyone
our school marched flubs in the form of 4 playing two tom drums sets (duos) and 4 playing two timbales. they were mostly used both for training new members, as well as to add more effects to the overall sound since the duos had a tambourine and the timbales had a cowbell installed.
our drumline was huge, however, we marched like 9 snares, 6 tenors, 4 duos, 4 timbales, 6 basses, and 12 cymbals and still had alternates who would sub in if anyone was sick.
check out olentangy orange high school marching band!!
I’m a flub member and we use snare parts on flubs but we use match grip
In my first year of high school, there was no front ensemble during marching season because of COVID. So they just stuck all the freshman (myself included) on flub
7:10 my man in the background just faded into nothingness
As an Avon alum (not a drummer, but my younger brother was) I can confirm that they have had two winter drumlines since the 2004 winter drumline season. They are the A line and the world line. They have had a huge line in the fall since 2003, but I don't know when they added flubs. The footage in the video was from 2018 I think. The school was nowhere near as ginormous in 2003 as it is now.
My high school(Allen High School) has a varsity and a JV Drumline with 9 snares on varsity and we didn’t even have a flub line until this year.
"Ready to play snare, tenors, or bass drum"
* snare, tenors, and cowbell appear on screen *
3:26, Well that’s Avon marching band for ya
My school is so small. Literally like less than 800. Our whole indoor season this year is gonna have 1 snare, 1 tenor(me), 3 basses, 2 marimbas, I xylophone, and 1 rack person. Sad. I was also the only tenor last year and probably will be for the rest of highs school. (I’m a sophomore)
For concert season, many schools have bands sperated by years. The only exception to this at my school was percussion. We had our own percussion class, and performed with every band on top of our own music
4:00 My local High School's drumline has 8 snares, 7 bass drums, 6 quints, 5 cymbals, and 0 flubs.
My school calls them impacts we also have 3 impacts 3 snares 3 tenors 5 bases and they all sound good together
Agree with Queen especially at schools developing a drum line and schools with an overflow of members. Corps used a version of the flub in the earlier tears before tenors - marching timp like SVG 78 and the single tenor drum. HBCU still use the single tenor.
Back in the '70s when I was 7 years old we called them tenors. I played one for about 2 months before I got promoted to snare. When did they started calling them flubs?
our school doesn't have this but we have a "snare b" line which are snares with a silent head. They play all the same parts as snares. It accomplishes the same thing as flub drums without adding a whole other section. Also our drumline is huge so we aren't missing out on other sections, the people put on snare b would otherwise have been our 17th 18th and 19th cymbal lol. also im snare b this year hoping to improve and be a snare next year
100% Agree with you here ... I only once had the luxury of teaching a line at a huge HS, and we a sizeable battery that did not have flubs ... those students with less chops were assigned spots that best utilized their level had of skill ... some were in the cym line, some in the front ensemble. But 99% of the other schools where I taught, we were lucky to field a battery of 10 people total... I guess I understand the flub idea (if the line if huge, or if you have 7th & 8th graders to participate)... but it;s not a practical idea for the majority of schools.
In my 6 years of being in my high schools marching band, we had 1 flub player, in one show. We have a really small school but a really powerful horn line and a decent percussion section. I was a sophomore on center snare and there was one senior who switched from trumpet to snare and a 7th grader on snare. Obviously, being in 7th grade, he just didn't have the technical facility to play the book, so we took the guts off his drum and put a tenor head on with chop out sticks. It was obvious if you knew about it,, but other than that, it looked like we had 3 snares. He's a sophomore now and is a pretty great tenor player.
so, your HS had 7th and 8th graders?
@@ooinvsaoo yeah, my first season, I was in 7th grade on synth and then it was mainly pit percussion, a few guard kids an two or three really good middle school wind players, but over the years, the band got smaller and a lot of high school kids graduated and not enough more joined, so by my senior season, the 2019 season, next to a third of the band was middle school kids. It's amazing too because of the six years I was in band, we one three division 4 open championships, two back to back in 2015 and 2016 and again in 2019.
My old school called them accent drums and in previous years they actually gave then tough music. They were tuned to what a tenor should sound like so you definitely heard them in shows and what not.
I competed at state finals for winter percussion at Avon this year!
Didn't Star of Indiana use flubs in 1993 or were those just two-head tenors? Not a percussion person here, I couldn't tell the difference from the multi-cam.
My school uses snares that make no sound if you aren't ready for the main snare line. But you still play all the same things as the main center drums you just don't make any noise.
As a Squeeky Cock (Patreon) I knew this was coming, but then got busy and missed the 9 am (Pacific time) release. I am so glad to finally know all about the flubs. Great analysis ... and I do love Steven 😍 as the Flub Drum 🥁 Section Leader!
2:21
This is the worst comparison I've ever heard. both 3rd chair parts and things like flags have their own respective qualities and each takes skill. Sure a 3rd trumpet part might not be as high as a first, but it can add rich harmonies and dramatic fills while other chairs play their own part.
My school had flub drums lady year in indoor and they were board out of their minds because they only played downbeets and their feature got cut. 😂
You explained the analogy wrong, he said what you said. “It’s better to be the pitcher for the B team rather than being the outfielder for the A team.”
My school (when they had flubs) called them “mono-tenors” or just “MTs”. The MTs doubled the snare part, but could be heard and were a good learning tool. All of the people on MTs went to snare the next year.
Single tenors were actually a thing back in the 60's.
My high school just added flubs and the percussion principal decided to make them play base 5 parts, what are your thoughts on that?
I would never add a flub drum section, but I would add a double tenor section. I have a tenors that are 8,10,12,13, I would use double tenors 14,16. Run bass drums starting at 18. Use the double tenors to bridge the sound between the quints and bass drums. Again would arrange the ensemble with the doubles part of the overall sound not just something added on. This could be helpful if you are dealing with an ensemble of younger players who can’t carry big block tenors.
I just checked, and my highschool has 866 people going to it
My high school had 3500 students. We still didn’t use flubs. We had 5 bass, 5 snare, and 3 tenor. We stuck extra kids in pit, on cymbals, or just had them play in the stands only and had them shadow a snare or tenor or bass at practice and fill in when kids were sick.
My high school decided to have two marching bands once our band got to more than 300 people. It got to be too much to handle for the staff that we had at the time.
I’m really glad that I found your channel tonight. Keep doing your thing, Man.
I think the A team/B team analogy was a nice way of saying he didn't want to be center marimba, he wanted to march, even if it is not a real instrument.
Our best quad, snare, and bass last year were all flubs their freshman year. The point is to get them ready for whatever instrument they choose to go to next. We won state percussion back to back years with them as the top people in our drumline. There's a reason for flubs.
I go to carmel high school and there is actually about 350 kids in the marching band and 20 in the Drumline. I played fulbs in my 8th grade year because of covid which was a snare without the snares but now I'm on quads my freshman year so, big flex
Flubs: you’re not good enough to play snare and not big enough to hold basses
Might as well strap some tom toms on from a dumb set
As a former flub drum section leader 😉 I’m not crazy about the single drum thing. But the way we did it at Crossmen and how Star used them, basically just big quads playing ostinatos made sense. If I had to guess, I’d say either Hannum or Colin came up with the name, so you should take it up with them.
BUT, probably the key difference there is it was only an effect for part of the show. Crossmen had them in the opener and then we switched to cymbals, Star had 4 people from the pit play Flubs for the closer.