Interview with Brenden Posner - Mandarins Trumpet

1. How does drum corps differ from high school marching band?

Drum Corps is a lot tougher than HS marching band, drill, music, and most importantly your mental and physical endurance. Not to mention Drum Corps is on a national level, going to countless cities performing day after day. 2. How would you describe a typical day in the world of drum corps?

A typical day would normally be what we call an all-day. Probably the most annoying of days because you have them day after day during spring training and training camps. You wake up around 7, eat breakfast for an hour, then start morning block (visual block) which lasts 4 hours, then lunch for an hour, then afternoon block (music block) which also lasts 4 hours, but contains sectional time, tuning, warm ups, and full brass, dinner, then night block which is full ensemble which lasts 4 hours, after we have 1 full runthrough then we go to warm downs. Then announcements, eat, shower (and yes, we shower together) and lights out at midnight. 3. What motivated you to join the Mandarins?

What motivated me were my techs and band director, always trying to push me in HS marching band, which drove me to want to be great, I joined the Academy not knowing how hard paying for it would be, then dropped out, then a lead spot here opened and I sent in videos and here I am. 4. What have you enjoyed most about your corps?

What I enjoy most are the people and performing, whether it be for an audience or for our sake, what's nice is that even though there can be tics, everyone here are all here for the same reason, to be great, to perform on a national level. Nobody is here that doesn't want to be, we practice, rehearse, and keep doing that for that final moment, that final day when we show everybody who we are and why we're here, that is my favorite part of drum corps and will always be the reason I do it. 5. What has been the most difficult thing you have experienced in drum corps?

My most difficult experience I've had are probably all days in dead grass with like 100 degree weather. It's stupid hard because you get dehydrated so quickly and your so fatigued, especially when you halt and all your momentum stops and all you feel is that hot glaring sun. That's probably the most difficult experience that drum corps has to offer, but in the end it all pays off.

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Brenden Posner is a Junior at Liberty High School, and has marched two seasons of HS marching band and is currently marching his first season of Drum Corps. He hopes to join the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps in the future as for it is his dream corps.

Be sure to see Mandarins' 2016 program "Forbidden Forest"

You can learn more about their program here.