Home football games are always an event NHS students eagerly look forward to at the end of a long and tiring week of school. While the scoreboard at the end of the night may not always be victorious, the school spirit throughout the student section is enough to keep students attending week after week. One major part of the student section experience is the drumline. 

This year the drumline has shrunken down from around 20 members in 2019 to six in 2021. This change has had a drastic impact on the drumline’s moral and overall effectiveness. In particular, due to the lack of symbol players, symbols have been placed on top of the snares, forcing the change of playing style for those affected members.

“There are pros and cons to [having a small drumline], we have a very small line, so on one hand that allows us to sound really clean because there are less people that are able to not be together while playing but the downside is that there is a little less hype for performances,” drumline captain Kaden Anderson said.

The drumline has relied on passing down songs by teaching new members how to play the music, since the number of players in drumline has decreased, this practice can not be used anymore and instead the upperclassmen have to figure out something different.

“One of the big cons is that songs we have been playing for years have to be passed down in different ways such as actually writing the music instead of just showing people how to play them,” junior snare Brendan Thompson said. “We don’t have enough players to pass the songs down anymore.”

Bass drums provide the drumline with the beat and rhythm that the rest of the players follow. Usually a drumline would have at least five bass drums, though with the amount of players this year the drumline only has two players.

“Normally [we have] five bass drums in a drumline but now Newton only has two. As long as the bass drums can play clean however it’s okay to only have two,” Anderson said.

The drumline might be smaller and might not provide as much hype as it has in previous years but it is still a major and effective part of the NHS gameday experience. When time constraints come into play during half time or a time out, the student section becomes greatly disappointed when the drumline is not able to play their set.

“The NHS drumline is by far the best piece of crowd hyping technology and beat maker that NHS has,” senior Joel Franz said.

To boost the spirits of the student section the drumline often plays songs that involve crowd participation such as the song Remo in which the crowd sways back and forth along with the beat of the drums. 

“By far my favorite part is when they sway, it’s hilarious because you look at the student section and everybody’s going crazy and it’s like a whole body of students swaying back and forth and just trampling each other,” Franz said. “It’s awesome because they bring rhythm to the student section.”