On January 20th, the Granby Raw Ambition Drumline flew down to Dallas, Texas to compete in the second annual Clash of the Drumlines. Drumline groups from all across the country gather to perform the beats they have been preparing for months.

Competing with 17 other drumlines from Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, Granby cinched first place in four unique categories: snare, cymbal, bass drum, and drumline feature.

Led by seniors Amarion Thompson on snare, and Anthoney Anderson on tenors, the group practically swept the competition, making Granby’s presence heard at the national level. The weekend proved to demonstrate the musical talents, commitment, and determination of students in the music program at Granby, making the music department and student body both extremely proud.

Thompson was confident in the group’s ability to succeed going into the competition. “It’s a different style, but I still expected us to do well because of how hard we work”.

As one of the group’s leaders, Thomas is especially proud of the win, since “a lot of the time we don’t get the support or the recognition we deserve” and winning this national competition demonstrated the incredible amount of work each member put in.

Freshman and second bass drummer Eli Saunders said that in previous years, the group has “done a lot of drumline comps.” They’ve won first place in snares before, but being able to get first place in bass, tenors, snares and everything else has been a product of immensely dedicated practice this year.

“The competition itself was definitely something we weren’t used to, because [it’s] different from up here,” Saunders said, “we considered [the other bands] a lot of noise… there wasn’t much musicality in what they were playing. But when we went up there, we definitely had the most musicality out of all the groups.”

Competing with groups that were a lot bigger than their own, the Raw Ambition drumline took on a serious challenge in Dallas. However, through the excellent direction of their director, Jordan Green, they were able to blow the other bands out of the water.

Green said they were “placed against a bunch of people we’d never seen before, all with different styles.”

He explained that “in drumming, you have different styles, there is SWAC (South Western Athletic Conference) and MEAC (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference), and we were going down there as the only MEAC line. So it was interesting to see other SWAC lines in person. It was a great experience.”

Unlike Thompson, Green did not go in with such expectations for the group’s success, thinking that the judges of the region wouldn’t understand their style. In fact, Green’s main goal for the Raw Ambition drumline was to “expand the minds of percussionists all over the place.”

Green spoke on Freshmen Saunders’ comments about the musicality of the group as a whole, saying that they are “keen on a lot more technicality-based percussion.” This is primarily because the SWAC style comes from drummers or musical groups  “not having enough money”  to pay for a full arrangement of percussion. This makes drumming much more dependent on refining the small details to create a great musical experience. He remarked that “their loud is just not our loud” when talking about the different styles that the group competed with in Dallas.

Continuing their momentum into next year will ride on upcoming leadership being ready to rise to the occasion in the loss of seniors. Many already have scholarships to drum in college next year like section leader Amarion Thompson, who earned a full band scholarship to Norfolk State University.

Furthermore, the drumline has plans to grow and evolve even more. Green, who founded the group as a student in 2016 says that his goal is to see the “evolution of kids understanding all types of percussion.”

“I never want to build just a snare player or just a bass player. I want to build a percussionist. So in the future, I hope to see the incorporation of all types of styles. Even if it’s not just your style, you should be able to play any type.

You can find the Raw Ambition Drumline practicing until 7 pm almost every day after school, a true testament to the hard work the students put into making their talents heard around the country.