MHS’s Indoor Percussion ensemble is off to a good start after the Hillsboro High School MCCGA Festival on Feb. 11. This was their first time competing since the 2008-2009 school year.

“In total, there were six schools competing in the Scholastic Regional Division,” Nithya John, sophomore, said. “I think we did pretty well considering we had to borrow other groups’ instruments and we didn’t have our floor to march our show on since our truck to transport them wouldn’t start that morning of the competition.”

Many of the indoor percussion members are carryovers from the fall marching band, which was undefeated for the past two years except for the last competition of this past marching season in which they were beaten by .05 of a point.

“People think we are like the marching band, or they don’t know who we are or what we do,” John said. “For starters, Winter Drumline is indoors on a vinyl tarp, and we perform our show in gyms at different schools. We do not have any brass or woodwind instruments in our group. It consists of just percussion players.”

The drumline has two different types of players: the front ensemble, also known as the pit, and the marching percussion, called the battery. The battery consists of three snares and four basses.

Mike Owens, sophomore, is one of the basses.

“It’s my first year playing the bass drum in the Winter Drumline,” Owens said. “I’m a tuba player in the marching band in the fall and I thought it would be fun trying out for drumline. It was difficult to learn how to play at first but our staff is really amazing and they are all great teachers.”

Winter Drumline’s staff consists of a director and two techs.

“Herschell Clark is our director and we have Nathaniel Hoyle as our snare tech and Rick Stacy as our bass tech,” Claire Krofft, sophomore, said. “Herschell also works with the marching band in the fall.”

All three instructors are also involved with Freedom Percussion, an Independent Open percussion group.

“Our show this year is called ‘In the Moment’ and our music is based on music by Imogen Heap,” Nathan Krofft, senior, said. “It was arranged by our instructor. One of her songs that the show contains is called ‘The Moment I Said It’. The show is all about living life to the fullest and I hope that we can portray that through our music.”

Drumline will be competing in three or four competitions this spring.

“We usually practice twice a week and we also have some camps during the weekends,” Claire Krofft said. “I hope we will be ready for our upcoming competitions and state, which happens during the second half of Spring break. It’s probably what I am looking forward to the most this season.”

The ensemble will compete next on Saturday, Mar. 17, at the Winter Guard International Show at O’ Fallon High School.