Mr. Adamson's Monkey

This 60-second warm-up used by the Santa Clara Vanguard is somewhat revolutionary, not just due to its rhythmic complexity, but for its exploration of an aspect of musical expression not easily achieved in the drum line medium. As the performance notes state: "Typically, ensemble battery music must be clearly associated with a subdivided metronomic pulse for purposes of clarity. In these cases that is not so, and the reference point may be the half note or the whole note. Time is maintained but the rhythms inside those large phrases can be bent. This requires that the players approach these figures as an ensemble of instrumentalists, rather than a drumline. This is very liberating."

The goal here seems to be the ability to flex as a group to allow some ebb and flow in the time while still maintaining the group precision characteristic of drum corps. This is achieved through the use of asymmetrical rhythmic phrasing and complex odd-note groupings.

This material is not for the typical high school or even college marching percussion section. The rhythmic sophistication is more like Zappa's "The Black Page" than any standard warm-up. But it reflects the continuing trend toward musical sensitivity in a medium that for too long has been unfairly associated with the label of mere regimentation. Those days are long gone, and "Mr. Adamson's Monkey" proves it.

—Tom Morgan
Percussive Notes 
Vol. 38, No. 4, August 2000