If you have ever been to the band concerts here at San Juan Hills, you might have been surprised to hear those echoing sounds behind the woodwinds or brass players; this is percussion which consists of an extensive variety of instruments. These musicians help maintain the rhythm and add vibrancy to the music.
Percussion is in every band group offered at San Juan Hills High School. The most advanced band for musicians who play wind, brass, and percussion instruments is wind ensemble. This class is heavy musical literacy, so it really focuses on literature more than the other band classes.
Concert Band is the beginning entry level course where students can join without any prior knowledge to playing music.
Marching Band is a seventh period course after school that students enrolled in any music class can participate in. This group in particular recognizes the most number of percussionists, as students in the orchestra also join to play in the drumline.
However, percussion doesn’t play alongside the band or symphony all the time. In the spring concerts, the percussion ensemble rehearses and performs music that only consists of percussion instruments.
I want our students to be able to play everything…Each instrument has a different skill set, so we teach all the instruments to all [the percussion students]”
— Dean McElroy
“You are given different parts…like, “you do that, you do that”. You gotta organize and see who is doing what, make sure you know your part and make sure everyone else knows that,” said Zach Eggert.
Percussion students use their full attention to cooperate with each other and listen for their musical cues in order to play at the correct time because the ratio of students to instruments is much smaller in percussion than the other musical groups. For example, wind ensemble has a total of 6 percussionists who are in charge of around 20 instruments.
An important component of percussion is the preparation. Every musical piece is unique, so percussionists take effort in organizing the certain equipment needed for the specific song, as well as demonstrating their adaptability in the change between instruments.
“If you are a tuba player, you know you are gonna play tuba; if you are a percussion player you may have to go on a timpani…marimba…snare drum…gong, cymbals. You don’t know what you’re gonna do based on the piece. So there are lots of different instruments that they gotta be able to have technique and ability to play.” said orchestra and musical director Dean McElroy.
McElroy is proud of the way he structures his class and points out that having this kind of diverse skill set has helped his past percussion students who have gone to play percussion in college or beyond.
“Some schools just focus on one thing, like “I’m just gonna be the snare drum player,” but that’s not how I structure our school. I want our students to be able to play everything… Each instrument has a different skill set, so we teach all the instruments to all [the students],” said McElroy.
