[Magdalen] TECnical question

[Scott Knitter]

For a few years I participated in the MSU Alumni Band, and once each autumn
we'd gather on campus and prepare a real pregame and halftime show, and the
highlight for many was the elaborate ritual starting with a call to
attention at the rehearsal field and the march to the stadium, along with
many traditional things done just so. The drum line figures heavily in
this, with an impressive five-minute sequence of drum cadences called The
Series. It involves some choreography on the part of the various percussion
groups, especially the cymbals ("plates").

Developments over the years in the Series traditions are one aspect that I
think many of the alumni join me in being not only OK with but amazed by.
The MSU drum line has become a highly proficient and professional unit, and
the Series has become a tight, complex rhythmic web worthy of any
competitive drum corps. On one Alumni Band Day the alumni drum line and the
current Spartan drum line took turns performing their versions of The
Series, and I have to say the alumni version sounded like a bunch of
rubbish bins being thrown into an alley, although the traditional stuff was
still meaningful. Then the current drum line did their version, and it blew
everyone away. Young folk today would describe it as "sick." It is sick
indeed. And worthy of the pride of Spartans old and new.