A very large 8 man snare line came rumbling out of the east, the first juniors to successfully expand to eight snares - Blue Rock of Wilmington, Delaware.  The Joe Marrella headed line - a young pioneer in his mid-twenties - used a lower playing height with a tighter controlled grip to win 30 of 32 contests in 1971.  The Rocky-Knockers snare line were very experienced small corps locals that were into jazz and classical music, all with similar instruction by Connecticut influenced Reilly Raider and Vasella Musketeer staff. The drum solos were some of the best "scat" type rudimental arrangements this author ever heard on the competition field.  Marrella, after all, was a Buddy Rich fan and had assimilated the jazz drum set sound. Unlike the predictable melodic mastery of McCormick and Markovich, Marrella used fast voicing trade-offs and textures with accent patterns that alone created interest. Your ear had to move around the voices quicker. Blue Rock was like listening to a well-trained rudimental drummer behind a drum set that artistically knew what to do.

 

 Joe Marrella (Blue Rock):  “I get bored easily.  I don’t like long development.  Most things are overdeveloped.  If it’s clean, clear and crisp, I like it.  We didn’t do difficulty for difficulties sake.  I wanted the music to be entertaining and evoke emotion.  There was no boredom. And yes, we played some stuff!” 

 

The 1956 commander of Vasella Post 277 A.L. was Joe’s father who had friends in drum corps in the early 1940’s.  He became Vasella’s corps director.  “Not knowing what they were doing, they started a drum corps. I had uniform B-1 – Boys-1.  Don Mihok from Archer Epler was our instructor.  We were taught standard rudiments and portions of pieces like Hell On The Wabash.  The Long Roll is very important.  It is the building block.  And you know what happens if the foundation is not solid…

 

            “Don took us to a certain level.  His Flams were taught too open. John Dowlan took us to the top of the Empire State Building.  He was from the Reilly Raiders and Air Force Corps.  There was nobody better.  He was always positive and challenged you.  He and Bobby Thompson were both gentlemen.  John always had an open mind and would often ask, “What do you think of this?”  Vasella’s quartet beat everyone in the country in ‘61 and ’62, heavy rudimental drumming with Dowlan’s phrasings and structure - more creative.  He worked a drumline for an hour and improved it one or two points. He knew what the judges were looking for and would drop out a passage or change a part.

 “I saw Blue Rock and didn’t think they were too good.  A snare drummer in the line came up to me and asked what I thought.  I could have avoided it but, “What the hell did you do all winter?”  They hired me anyway. I taught Blue Rock from 1966 to 1972.”

John Dowlan: “Four of my guys went to Blue Rock.  Joe taught and wrote a lot like I did.  There was influence there.  I could usually tell if a corps had somebody I taught. My wife would notice it too.”    

    

To start judging at the age of 21 is notable, but Marrella judged DCA finals as a 22 year old. That takes courage.  Joe has reasons:  “An instructor is limited if he is not a judge.  You look at it from a different perspective.  I always tell an instructor to judge his own units at practice.”  

 

The 1971 Rocky Knockers book had much rudimental difficulty: ample Flam work, rolls, cold attacks, visuals and voicings that scatter all over the spectrum.  Marrella is an interesting character.  He seems gruff and with a slightly hard edge until you realize after a few minutes that he has a sharp memory, like a good boxer who studied calculus – and he loves drumming.

 

Wally Parks (Blue Rock): When I marched with Blue Rock in the early 1970’s, I was 16 and 17 years old.  I knew what we were doing was forward thinking but never really comprehended the impact it would have until much later. We practiced at the VFW post in Pennsgrove, New Jersey.  The drumline practiced in the kitchen!  No wonder I can't hear!  I was the youngest drummer; most of the players were college age.  Many had been with Blue Rock for a while; the rest of us came from the Pennsylvania/New Jersey area.

            "Instead of a full arm motion (leading with the elbow) we developed a controlled wrist motion.  Every stroke was dictated and matched across the line.  It was clean, even with that type of tuning and heads. Rudiments were stressed constantly and worked on as a unit.  I came into the line with experienced players who had been hitting high and hard for some time.  Joe broke down the music phrase by phrase for practice with repetition.  We had a fantastic center of pulse.  We did a real controlled style of playing.  Every finger and knuckle was accounted for with a full wrist stroke - no bounce or finger action.  The middle finger on the left hand was extended and rigid.  We pointed the index finger down on the right hand instead of curling it under.  This kept our remaining fingers firmly on the stick.  It took me the longest time to break that habit.”

 

Joe Marrella (Blue Rock):   “We played low because there were so many different styles.  I was building on peaks and valleys trying to level it off.  Instead of teaching my personal style, I had to smooth out lumpy ground.  I studied Bobby Thompson.  I loved Blessed Sacrament and would go watch them. They held their grace notes very low.  They weren’t moving their grace notes yet drummed twenty inches off the head!” 

 

Tudor O. Bompa (Soviet Block Olympic Coach, The Theory and Methodology of Training): “When athletes of different backgrounds and experience are assigned to train in the same group, the coach should not underestimate their individual characteristics.”    

 

            Marrella told Blue Rock they were not 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 that equaled 8. Each was one-eighth and that added up to one.  When the author told him “if you can hear yourself you’re too early, too late or too loud” he said: “That’s got to be one of my guys!  And it worked!  Height differences can cause more problems.  Better drummers tend to overplay to cover for the rest of the line, which causes even more problems and uneven balance.  Blue Rock was balanced.  We would not overplay.  I saw that problem as a judge.  In a line, your feet are your metronome.  You can’t rely on your ears.  You use feet and eyes.  How do you do that?  Stick visuals!  I see it before I hear it.  Visuals opened that door.  It looked naked to me - bare.  It had to be exciting and interesting. The downbeat is a smidge longer if you’re marking time.  You have to lock in your eyes.  The heads and feet will be there.  Most are not aware of this even today.  The next year [1972],  Aneheim Kingsmen had a big line like us and were even more visual than we were.  It became a never ending thing.”  (Author’s note: St. Andrew’s Bridgemen marched 9 snares in 1973.)

 

Ralph Hardimon (Anaheim Kingsmen): “VISUALS!  We were the visual kings.  We got most of it from Blue Rock and took it to another level.  All of us participated in throwing them in.  They had to be cool though, and we had to execute them with as much clarity as the playing or we didn’t do them. They didn’t change a thing in terms of execution, that’s for sure.”

 

Jeff Queen (Star of Indiana): “There are four and only four possibilities when making a mistake: too fast, too slow, too loud, too soft.”

 

Wally Parks (Blue Rock): "The 1970 drum book was written so that the tenors would double the snares in many sections with snares off (similar to wind instruments playing in octaves) and at high impact times the tenors would throw on the snares creating an 8-man snare line. I do remember one of the highlights was in the drum solo. The snares started a soli section for about 16 counts, then the tenors with snares were added finishing out the solo - clean and dramatic!  This led to the full-time 8-man snare line. 

"We tuned the heads as tight as we could back then.  We broke many a drum key.  Both heads were tuned tight and we used gut snares.  The batter heads were a standard 2-ply and the bottom was thin Ambassador weight.”

            “Members of Blue Rock had a real keen interest in jazz and classical music.  We were truly a group of musicians.  It was a significant influence on me to continue as a performer and educator.  Joe also was notorious for changing music.  He changed a drum part just before we were to perform in prelims at VFW Nationals in Dallas [1971].”    

 

Wayne Campbell (Blue Rock):  "Marrella was a Vasella snare drummer, a John Dowlan instructed line and had Harry Ginther’s Reilly Raider influence.  Ginther was judging a lot in the AL/VFW ranks.  Both those guys - Dowlan and Ginther - used to get together and play all night under a streetlight and pioneer everything. Marella had their influence.  Blue Rock's second solo in '69 with all the backsticking was a tribute to John Dowlan.  Our members came from the Jersey, Penn, Delaware circuit - the Garden State Circuit.  We all came to Blue Rock to beat the big boys - Boston, Blessed Sacrament and Cavies.  Those were the lines back then - real drumming lines. As kids we would go to the Dream contest to see Troop and Cavies.  We dreamed of being on that field.  Roosevelt Stadium was right next door.  We all saw VFW prelims and finals in '69.  It was either go north to Garfield or Sac or to South Jersey and Blue Rock. 

            “Blue Rock had the cream of the crop of all the small local corps in our snare line, the Philly PAL, Blackhawks, Seahorse Lancers, Earls of Bucks.  Almost every VFW had a corps back then.  It might not have been big or real good, but they had one.  It was a Delaware Valley connection.  All of them had 10 or 12 years experience.... 17, 18, 19 years old and had been competing against each other for years - serious drum corps experience.  Blue Rock lost many members due to age out in '69 just as we were rounding the bend.  We all lived within an hour or two of practice.  Marrella fine-tuned us.  We used the Connecticut style elbow/wrist snap - but lower - down four to six inches.   It was 'low and go' with only accents coming up.  We were 2 or 3 inches off the drum most the time.  We didn't use the flailing arm style and maintained 128 to 132 tempos for long periods."           

 

            Blue Rock’s coordination was perfected via breakdown-trained arm motion drummers, giving them the consistency to expand to eight players with a difficult book. A line taught to play low asked to play high could never make that change.  Campbell tells another Blue Rock secret:  "Our speed came from developing the left hand. You had to have a good left hand.  You could not play in our line without it. We worked hours and hours on the left.  To do this we would play 9-flam-9 and switch to the left.  Nine-a-diddles were used a lot such as 9-Paradiddle 9-Paradiddle / 5 Paradiddle 5-Paradiddle Paradiddle. We also would do soft Paradiddles at pp or Triple Paradiddles with no accents then accent high FF.”

 

Wayne Campbell:  "The center of the line was not the lead.  We went by height, the tallest in the center so the drums were level when we marched.  It was an illusion to stack the line for visuals.  We were the first to do large visuals down the line both ways and from end to center and out.  There were stick to stick visuals no one had seen before.  We did the 'wave' before there WAS a wave - what they do at stadiums now.  We had the angle bars back then but the drums still moved a bit.  Clean was not good enough.  It had to be visual as well."

            "The judges were blown away.  Kaufman of Archer Epler was out there, Perrillouix, Goodhardt.... they knew what it took to be clean.  We would get two or three ticks an entire show sometimes.  At '71 World Open Goodhardt simply threw up his hands after concert cause he couldn't get anything.  We won 30 of 32 shows in drums that year - got beat by Boston by a tenth and Anaheim on their east coast swing.  We were beating four man snare lines.  Boston had some great players.  Shellmer was there with his odd tempos - a great line.  

            "Next year in 1972, everyone had 8 snares.  Tenor lines were already playing snare parts with rolls and five's.  It was easy to switch to eight.  The talent was already there.

            "We had ten snares all winter but cut it to eight by spring of '71.  The cut people went into the double tenor line.  I was one of the ones cut and learned the double tenor parts in a week and a half.  Everyone knew it was going to be a good year. There was still a month to go before the season and one of the guys bailed - girlfriend, car and military problems. I was asked back into the snare line. Do you think I was going to argue?"

            "One of the things you had to do was groove.  Blue Rock could play marches and then swing with a groove.  We did Blood, Sweat and Tears numbers - a Midnight Cowboy concert.  Lines were not 'grooving' back then.  We turned that page.  What we did was unheard of.  The Pink Panther drum solo in '71 was syncopation and swing. But I will tell something else that was unheard of.....

            "NOT ONE NOTE OF OUR MUSIC WAS EVER WRITTEN DOWN. Yet, we were up to then the cleanest, most dynamic and most visual drum line that had ever been.  We could play PP or FFF.  Old time drum corps. That part in American Salute was on the sticks like Buddy Rich used to do.  When have eight guys ever done a stick-to-stick visual like that out in the open.... and clean?  We would practice in some town and always draw 25 or 30 people that were not even corps people.  They could tell it was good.  It had that sound.”

            "We were doing Inverted Flam Taps and Swiss. In one part of the show we had right hand Swiss Sixes then left handed Swiss.  The left one was tough.  We were always cleaning.  That did get taken out after a while.  The judges would just gape at the 12th note triplet flams - hand to hand - at the end of 'Salute'.  There weren't many singles in the show - lots of Rolls - Flam Stutters, Flam Ruffs and Inverts."

             

The "numbers explosion"  began with Rochester Crusaders 8 snares and 6 tenors in 1966 and Blessed Sacraments 5 and 5 line in 1969.   Many corps practiced more than four and four in the early 1970's.  Wintertime 5 and 5 went down to 4 and 4 for cleanliness. Cavies tried six one year then cut later.  Cadets Lasalle from Canada marched a 6 snare - 6 single tenor line at the 1970 Shriners International in Toronto, accompanied by Blue Rock’s well-tuned 5 and 5, tenors flipping to snare on occasion, most notably, the end of the second drum solo and the exit number Requim For the Masses. The 1971 Blue Rock eight-man line was actually a reduction from 5 and 5 in 1970, but they added double tenors. Most everyone else had 3 or 4 snares. 

 

Bill Searson (Cadets LaSalle): "We were 6 - 6 at the 1970 Shrine show but finished the season 5 - 5 after a snare and tenor player got cut.  I aged out in 1973 - the last of the big traditional lines - 6 snares and 5 straight tenors.  We couldn't compete financially – we were still using single tenors - and were isolated from the formation of DCI.  We went to the World Open in Boston rather than Whitewater - money again!  The corps folded after that season.  The activity in Canada really died after Seneca Optimists merger corps - Toronto Optimists and De La Salle Oaklands – folded."    

       

Surprisingly, Blue Rock’s mastery might not have happened if their drummers didn't stand up to their 'drill designer'.  Ralph Pace, who would later have the 27th Lancers running (and falling) all over wet fields in the mid 1970’s trying to reach assigned spots in extended sets, wanted Blue Rock drummers for himself.  Fortunately, Pace's misplaced artistic ego was checked by an angry drumline.

​

Wayne Campbell  (Blue Rock): "Ralph [Pace] wanted us to use harnesses in the 1970 season.  He was told the players would never go for it.  To us it was "band high step stuff", and you remember what we thought of bands back then.  He thought he could move us differently in the drill.  We would NEVER have tolerated that..... ever!  FORGET ABOUT IT!"       

    

Olympic routines are never changed hours before important competitions. It disturbs concentration and memorized physical habits – coordination patterns.  Corps instructors bet experienced players with high levels of concentration and confidence could do it.  They did, but didn’t like it. The five or six changes removed (watered) from Blue Rock’s repertoire hours before a national championship was enough to worry good players. Many instructors decided the risk worth it; judges couldn’t differentiate last minute changes.  A good instructor writes music to a demand level that students will be at in eight to ten months, which happens to be the normal training macro-cycle for Olympic athletes whose coaches disagree with drum corps last minute habits:  

 

Tudor O. Bompa (Soviet Block Olympic Coach, The Theory and Methodology of Training): “Only under special circumstances, like the invention of a new element or the discovery of a new skill that does not pose a learning problem or place stress upon the athlete, should the coach consider introducing a new skill to his/her athlete close to a major competition… “Unfamiliar elements stimulate the CNS (central nervous system) more, forcing the muscles to do more work and consume more energy which taxes the cardio-respiratory functions.”  

 

The concentration level drum instructors achieved in their students created professionalism Olympic coaches begged for. 

 

Blue Rock was a fine ensemble, but Marrella’s decision to lower the playing heights and rock the house with “8” did not fit Perrilloux’s requirements of “range” even with rudimentally involved parts.  Fife and drum corps players and various Canadian judges of the 1970’s swear the maximum number of players anyone would ever need on a competition field was four. That Blue Rock was successful in trading more players for a lower height tested off-season winter strategy.  Judges who were not good players were slowly capitulating, awarding the same difficulty marks for different height styles - an inherently different risk.  In Olympic competition, “height” and “amplitude” determine winners. There is more risk.  In drumming, height and amplitude are also dynamics and articulation.  Orchestral judges creeping into the activity equated “height” with “unmusical” comparing outdoor balance and technique with needle-point stick methods used indoors having nothing to do with “line” drumming. In drum corps, it became something you could get away with, causing the proficiency level of drummers in the late 1980’s to waver, then drop in the 1990s. New students copied winners playing low to the drum, never learning proper form or coordination from the high arm motion style. Their ability suffered.  Band directors copied this too. After height, uniformity was next to be attacked,  one of the reasons for “style”. Grand-students of east coast Ancients were all over the country, but once they aged out, part of drum corps technical ability went with them.

 

Jack Cassidy (Reilly Raiders):  “Blue Rock was three inches of the drum.  They gathered the best kids and lowered the height to three inches because of style differences.  They had two difficult drum solos but in other numbers played as little as possible.  They didn’t get credit all the time for that.  Other lines were beating them in exposure.”

Bill Kaufmann (Reilly Raiders): “Blue Rock was not playing as high. They weren’t getting it off the drum.”

 

Cavaliers full Arsenault/Sturtze height of "sticks to the eagles" deserved more credit than Blue Rock's 3 inches. This "risk/reward" ratio was what held drum competitions together IF there was competent judging. 

 

Marrella chose the low style because he did not believe he would come out ahead in the demand/execution trade-off.  Instruction time needed to match eight higher playing styles would be difficult to come by.  The Cavaliers carried Arsenault’s tradition past the formation of DCI as would Marty Hurley with Bleu Raeders, Bellville Black Knights and Phantom Regiment.  Cavies were attacked in 1976 - Phantom not soon after. The risk/reward failed when people who never marched but had a college music degree began judging in the mid 1970s. 

 

            Rudimental contest integrity was under attack before the formation of DCI due to the risk/reward trade-off.

            Amplitude is considered in all Olympic comparisons. The Cavaliers or anyone similar in height should have been rewarded

            for greater risk and the two inch downstroke penalized. Individual contest placement show a difference in skill.

            Demand is considered in all Olympic comparisons. They flash both an execution and a demand mark with thick rule books.

            You risk execution to add demand (difficulty). 

            Olympic judges all must have a background in their discipline. A music degree doesn't mean you have the ability to judge

            rudimental demands. Many of the music degreed judges hired by DCI to gain "credibility" were poor players, completely                     unreliable when comparing demand or arrangements.

​

            Formed in 1972, DCI currently markets itself as the “Summer Music Games”, a comparison to Olympic adjudication.

            Demand and amplitude were wiped off DCI score sheets by socialist "Outcome-Based" music educators taught by teachers

            unions that the "social outcome" of a class was more important than learning skills. The result?

            Contests resemble an art circus. Only 30 corps remain and half of those can't draw a crowd.

 

Bill Bernert (Audabon Bon Bons):  DCI was organized to be beneficial for all the corps.  DCI ran us [Audabon] out of business.  We got a standing ovation at DCI prelims only to be told that we couldemand dn’t win with that type of music, the type of music you whistle while you sweep the garage.  A standing ovation mind you!”     

 

You could tell post World War I drumlines apart by their uniforms, post World War II drumlines by the number of rudiments they played, mid 1960’s drumlines by their phrasing and flam difficulty and after 1968, by tuning and tonality. Arranger’s pet rudiments now went into these shows – McCormick, Markovich, Meyers and Shellmer all with distinct writing styles. Pitched drums separated them further, producing even more unique sound. Drum corps had built a brand image on music competitions by those few who could play their charts.

. 

Everyone was beginning to add their own mixtures of rudimental, Scottish, Swiss and orchestral buzz rolls, which all came together with an objective tick system in the early 1970’s before the formation of DCI.  St. Patricks Imperials from Milwaukee used a snare soloist in their 1971 opener using pure Scottish pipe band phrasings.  Santa Clara’s Paul Siebert was on the west coast using fast Scottish buzz work for 1971 individual contests. The Racing Kilties and 27th Lancers used these variations to support themes.  Many copied Alex Duthart rhythms.  The author’s instructor, Jay Toumey, taught pipe band variations at his rehearsals; he performed in a local pipe band with very light and hollow sticks.

 

The Scot champion everyone studied -Alex Duthart - died during the 1986 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. A blacksmith by trade, he traveled extensively because of his drumming ability. Duthart attributes his innovative ability to being able to play the drum set.

 

Frank Zeigler: “The West Chester College marching band drumline had many junior and senior corps snare drummers.  They went to play the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Tom Aungst, Lee Rudnicki and Dan Cortso were there warming up with a pipe band drummer who could almost do a roll with one hand.  They played with him for about a half hour.  He died in that parade.”