Still Practicing

James has put in several hours already practicing for his audition this coming week. He is in the back room practicing now before he heads over to his drum instructor's house for more practice. He has all the pieces down that he will have to play and is now praticing them over and over to fine tune his performance on each one. (Each contestant is required to memorize three pieces of music that the Old Guard sends them ahead of time, as well as a memorized solo of their own choosing and open and close several rudiments.)

James normally plays on a stationary drum, but the Old Guard uses rope drums that you carry on a sling. Fortunately, one of his drumming buddies has a sling drum (it's not a rope drum, but much closer than a traditional snare) that he has let James borrow to practice on. James also got new marching shoes this week because his old ones are buried somewhere in storage. He will have to march both days of the audition, so the Old Guard recommended wearing marching shoes. Here's a pix of him with the sling drum wearing his marching shoes to break them in.

(And don't worry - he won't be wearing shorts with white socks when it comes to the audition day!) I have to say that I can't wait until Thursday to see what he finds out! We'll definitely keep everyone posted.