Dan Schack is the Battery Coordinator/Choreographer of Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps and the Creative Director of George Mason University Indoor Drumline. Outside of his musical endeavors, Dan is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Delaware.

As the 2019 Winter Guard International season kicks off, designers are finally beginning to see their projects materialize, experiencing the ultimate litmus test for effect: live performances with real-time crowd response. 

Thinking about my own group and our design and implementation process, something occurred to me: even though what we all see at the end of the season is a bunch of well-crafted percussion ensembles with many similarities, HOW the organizations arrive at WGI finals is mostly a mystery.

What jump starts a show idea? 

Where does a designer go from the initial idea phase? 

What kind of ideas will make good indoor drumline shows? 

What are the next steps to composing, arranging, drill writing, choreographing, costuming, set designing, and the million other little details that need to be accounted for to design a show thoroughly? 

These questions come to my mind as I realize that there is no single way to design an indoor drumline show “correctly,” and that each show demands its own attention, effort, and experimentation.

In order to tackle this head on, I will take you through a perfected step-by-step process that will guarantee you perfect scores in all your sub-captions.

Just kidding! 

What I will do is walk through some of my own processes as to how to design an indoor drumline show. My contributions, as always, are highly subjective, and it is up to the reader to pick and choose what works for them and what doesn’t.

Down the rabbit hole we go!

Big Picture Inspiration - What?

Where do ideas come from? 

This question could lead us down some seriously existential pathways about consciousness, neurological activity, and possible alien probes, but I think the answer is simply-represented in a famous line by the painter Pablo Picasso: “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

This may sound pretty aggressive, but the truth is we all get our design ideas from other ideas out in the world. 

Designing a show is less about creating a concept that is literally brand new and more about appropriating and rearranging a good idea that's already available. Not to mention, the source material is endless. 

Amazing indoor shows have been inspired by books, short stories, famous speeches, material art/artists, theoretical concepts, science, math, architecture, religion, words, nature, education, history, the future; and the list goes on and on. There are great design ideas abound as long as you look outward into the world.

That being said, I make inspiration sound pretty idealistic. At times, though, it is not so. 

One of the important parameters of designing a show is that the fundamental concept allows for tangible ideas to come to life through the medium of drumline. 

You may have the best idea in the world for a show about gravity, but if you cannot actualize that idea through a drumline performance, the concept will fall flat. I have had plenty of great ideas for drumline shows, but then I remembered it is a drumline show and not a massively-budgeted movie with a special effects team. 

At the very bottom of all of our design efforts is still the education of students, and we must keep this in mind when choosing a concept that may be impossible to demonstrate through our specific medium.

Music Inspiration

Because our activity is heavily music-focused (though arguably less-so, these days), finding the right music is critical to setting the correct tone for your concept. The musical choices trickle out in every direction; they influence the character, the mood, the pace, and the overall style of the show. 

Choosing the right music can also allow you to juxtapose seemingly contradictory elements: a romance scene set to Gwar, or a fight scene set to Debussy. Music can also be used to enhance certain moments through dissonance.

According to Ian Grom, the front ensemble arranger and a designer for Pulse Percussion and Chino Hills High School: 

“Concept is always decided before musical selections. There are infinite ‘cool’ pieces of music – but often only a handful pieces that will actually help propel your show concept to the highest level. We will often have music that inspired ideas, or while developing a visual concept already have some music in mind, but the visual motion picture is the most important element to consider. The music is the soundtrack, the action on the floor is the movie itself.”

Here, Grom signals the primacy of the visual layer, and that the music needs ultimately to support what an audience will SEE. Thinking of the music as a “soundtrack” will inherently make you more tuned into the audio/visual alignment of your show.

Getting excited by a piece of music is certainly part of the early inspiration process, but attempting to restrict a concept within a single song is likely backward engineering, as suggested by Grom. 

Instead, flesh out your concept and start digging for music that feels like it matches and ideally enhances the concept. Many groups go wrong by insisting that a piece of music be the leitmotif of their show, and then when their concept actually unfolds, the music doesn’t really make any sense.

To echo Ian: concept comes first.

Visual Inspiration & Aesthetic - Where?

WGI percussion set designs have grown ever more immersive in what feels like a very short amount of time. Props and uniforms have gotten more grandiose, headed away from the small scale shows viewed in high school gyms and towards Broadway-level productions.

It would be difficult, might I argue impossible, to successfully put together a WGI show without the use of ANY props.

When considering the set design, it is important to ask yourself WHERE you believe your show takes place. This does not mean that the show needs to be in a specific location or geography, but rather, where is the conceptual location you can explain, understand, and bring to life throughout the production. 

The set design is going to be the first (and constant) impression of your show, so it needs to be clear, readable, and set the mood you are trying to convey throughout the program.

According to Linsdey Schueller, drill designer for Legends Drum and Bugle Corps, Genesis Indoor Percussion, G2 Indoor Percussion and Q2 Indoor Percussion:

“From a set design perspective, the goal is to bring the audience into the world of your choosing. The tarp, prop(s), and uniform design are the best ways to initially establish that visually. A floor that portrays the setting, but isn’t too busy; a uniform that has a level of coordination with the visual design, but doesn’t get lost in the set design as a whole; props that are interesting, engaging, and useful throughout the program. There is a lot that goes into the setup of the show that has an effect on the show as a whole, and the visual design should not be secondary to music design, or vice versa."

Considering the color palette, scope of the performers/audience, and scale of the props as they relate to each other and the members are all important decisions that could set you in the right direction or tarnish your image from the get-go. 

Groups with great design conceptual ideas have fallen competitively flat because of clashing visual elements in their stage design. Those kinds of issues can cause judges to have negative reactions to other parts of your production, even on a subconscious level. 

Crafting the right set design takes a lot of time and thought.

Character - Who?

At the beginning stages of show design, I try to ask myself who is the appropriate character for this show? 

While many WGI productions ask the audience to suspend disbelief and enter into a fictional world, making a character accessible and relatable is of the utmost importance. 

We, as spectators, read ourselves into any character. Self-recognition and connection in a character will make them all the more believable, even if they are overtly fictional. Oops, is my English degree showing?

Good characters are ones that are round, not flat. 

You should build a character that has range; the audience wants to feel the ups and downs of the players and not just be immersed in a single energy and performance output for the entire show. 

What are the highs and lows of the character? If they are angry, do we ever see happiness?  If they are happy, do we see forlorn? 

Yes, I’m presenting this in pretty binary terms, but truthfully a character should have a dynamic personality, and finding a concept that allows this is important from the start. For example, think about how you latch onto character development in long-form TV shows or movies.

Once you’ve figured out your character, the next step, or perhaps a simultaneous step, is figuring out a movement style.

The days of holding a randomly placed forced arch or passé are long gone. Your character must have a certain body quality that calls back to the overall concept. 

If you have an animalistic and “organic” show concept, doing pristine and cute dance vocabulary really doesn’t make any sense. 

Similarly, if your concept is buoyant, heavy pliés and overly dense, grounded movements don’t fit. However, clearly constructed juxtaposition can be very effective, but only after you have first established a clear style before you shatter it through counterpoint.

Lastly, and perhaps most abstract, is constructing a total drill and staging package that fits the overarching concept. 

Like with choreography, arbitrary drill formations are as obsolete as marching timpani and the cassette tape. WGI (and really DCI as well) have moved away from drill “pictures” and towards focused stages that are supported by secondary and tertiary visual layers that enhance the primary stage. 

The look of these stages, and how the players go from point A to point B, should once again ultimately support the total concept. This will obviously change depending on the intensity or velocity of the music, but overall there should be an attention to the macro-staging aesthetic and how it enhances the concept.

Considering the Arc of the Activity 

Even more abstract, and for some not useful, is considering the trajectory of the activity as a whole. It can be useful to do your research and look at what the top groups are doing to place themselves at the top.

Where can you pick up on some of those traits without being a straight rip-off? 

I find it useful to familiarize myself with the patterns and trends at the top of the activity so I know where I can stake my claim and also diverge away from certain trends and patterns. It is important to know what is going on out there so you can establish your own niche and identity amongst all the other groups. 

Though WGI judges evaluate the “show of the night,” building an identity both stylistically and competitively takes years, and educating yourself on the major trends of the activity won’t hurt when it comes to constructing your group’s identity.