2017 WGI Independent Percussion Auditions
Welcome back to the Chops blog. Audition season for indoor percussion is upon us and many of you may be considering marching in an Independent percussion ensemble this winter. Indoor percussion, although a relatively young activity, has become very popular, both locally and nationally, over the past 10-15 years. Over this time, many “Independent” ensembles have been started to give percussionists the opportunity to continue performing after they graduate from high school. It also gives those whose high schools do not have a performing ensemble, an opportunity to join and experience the thrill of performing in an indoor percussion ensemble. For those of you not familiar with this, there are “Scholastic” and “Independent” classifications in indoor percussion. Here is the class description from the WGI website:
Scholastic – units whose membership comes from the SAME High School or a school that feeds to that particular High School.
Independent – units whose members are not necessarily associated with a particular school.
Scholastic and Independent units are then further divided into classes:
- A Class – Beginning programs and performers.
- Open Class – The intermediate developmental level of performers.
- World Class – The most advanced programs and performers.
Here also is a link to the WGI 2016 Eligibility Rules (as of this writing, WGI has not updated to 2017 rules): https://www.wgi.org/files/2016PercRules.pdf