By Aiden Lupian
On January 27th Redwoods winter percussion group went to Clovis West High School to compete in their SJVCGPR circuit. The group managed to place 4th out of 4 with a score of 65.050. And while it might not seem like much, the students of the program still stay hopeful and can’t wait to keep the season going.
Section Leader and Snare drummer Chris DeBrie ‘24 feels pretty good about the performance and thinks it went well for the first competition.
He says, “I feel we did pretty good, our scores were exactly the way I wanted it to be.” and while he is very optimistic about the future DeBrie does admit he isn’t super happy about the placement. He says, “It’s a little disappointing but there’s not much we can do about it. We just have to recognize we did as much as we can do.”
Jovial Blair ‘26 who plays Bass drum 1 feels like the score was pretty good for the first competition, she says, “We didn’t place very high, but I do think we did the best that we could do?”
Lots of preparation and practice goes into these shows and each section sets goals before each show to meet. With the competition being Clovis schools the Redwood students hold themselves to these goals.
Blair had a few goals from her section to meet and she feels that they were met. She says, “We wanted to all play all of our parts and not forget anything and we wanted to play our split run pretty well and I feel we played that pretty well.”
Tejas Bisal ‘27 plays the Tom drum and he had some goals for his section as well, he says, “Our goals were for everyone to at least play their part and do one of the hi-moms.”
After each show the group gets some comments and feedback through judges tapes. This gives them an idea of what they need to work on and revise before the next performance. And the students waste no time in making new goals for their next show.
As for the goals in the Snare section, Debrie says, “Getting through as much of the drill as possible, just executing it to the best of our ability. I think once we get our new floor going, it’ll be worth the wait.”
The Redwood winter percussion still has 4 more shows left in their season. Despite the placement of this competition they remain determined and ready to take on the rest of the season. And although they have lots of time to perfect the show, they have no desire to slow down or stop.
Aiden Lupian
Aiden Lupian (´25) is a second year writer for the Gigantea who loves to tell a good arts story and really looks forward to all the stories he can write, and people to connect with
Tags: band, drum line, musical pit, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, visalia ca, winter percusion