Sharbot Lake Drum Camp

Last weekend at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn we held CADRE’s first ‘Drum Camp’.

Special thanks to our excellent hosts: Kathy & Dave Saban for their friendship and hospitality. They made the entire Sharbot Lake Country Inn available to us - including rehearsal facilities! For more information, visit Kathy & Dave’s web site:

The simple objectives were to:
1. Re-launch Fred’s Rope Drum Performance Ensemble
2. Provide some additional rehearsal time for the I&E groups
3. Have some fun and camaraderie in a beautiful, ‘away from home’ setting.

In addition to the current CADRE Playing Members, we also invited some guests to drop by:

Brian Fazackerley attended with his – and our – long-time buddy Terry Kirkpatrick (Cadets LaSalle, DeLaSalle; CDCA Judge). Terry is a premiere snare drummer and it was good to see and hear him drumming again. Terry, you’re always welcome at our events!

Fern Lafontaine (Cadets LaSalle). Fern is another elite snare drummer with whom I’ve had the pleasure of drumming over the years.

News Flash!

Fern has expressed his desire to drum in the Rope Drum Ensemble as well as the Large Rudimental I&E Ensemble. Although the timing doesn’t work for any further snare drum auditions in 2006, Fern is a generous,”can-do, whatever-it-takes” kind of drummer.
Accordingly, he has offered to provide some much-needed assistance for the ‘red shirt’ group on bass drum. On Sunday morning, Fern & I managed to go over the entire bass score and he’ll start working on the parts this week.

Fern: welcome to the CADRE I&E groups! I’m sure you’ll be a valuable addition – both as a great drummer and a great guy!

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, we began learning the first five of Fred’s original Rope Drum Group compositions. On Saturday afternoon, we also went over the ‘red shirt’ and ‘rudimental classics’ repertoires.

We also managed to learn “Tap Toe” – our rudimental tribute to this year’s APRDC Hall of Fame inductees. This selection features some tricky split snare parts. No problemo! On Saturday night, the CADRE snare drummers pretty-much had it ‘nailed’ (with valuable after-dinner-assistance from Brent McLaren on bass drum; nice work Brent; much appreciated)! By early Sunday afternoon, it was sounding pretty decent; we’ll be in good shape for the APRDC banquet.

Fred and I have discussed the ‘drum camp’ at length and I want to pass along that Fred is very, very pleased with the weekend’s results and the cooperation he received.

Again, Fred wants to compliment the CADRE drummers on their noticeable improvement in reading skills. Fred was also pleased that the CADRE drummers ‘took a good shot’ at some new and unusual rudimental combinations - such as those contained in ‘Heritage Hands."