| I've never really figured that out, but I'm pretty sure you had to have two years of piano experience so that you could blay xylophone and such better so they could teach you other stuff. You have to understand, because of the way it was set up, it was like percussionists had to learn twice as much as the other instruments. I had to learn melodic and battery percussion and they only had to learn to play sax or trumpet or whatever. I also think it helped stop everyone from playing percussion because it was the "cool" thing to play. So then instead of half the sixth grade playing percussion, only I could because I was the only one qualified that wanted to.
I would say it has helped a lot as far as knowing different rhythms and stuff. When I see the upperclassmen play I notice they can do more "rhythmic" fills if you get my meaning. It's like they have a better feel for doing different rhythms instead of just doing sets of four sixteenths on each tom for a fill. It's kind of hard to explain with out being able to show the difference by playing it.  |