Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 10, 1993                   TAG: 9312100081
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SALEM DRUMMERS COOLEST AROUND

Dennis Reaser has seen too many warm-weather quarterbacks fumble the ball in cold-weather games.

He's determined not to let that happen to his team in the Stagg Bowl in Salem on Saturday.

A coach? Sort of. He's the band director at Salem High School, whose "Pride of Salem" marching unit will be providing the halftime show for college football's Division III championship game.

To prepare for cold weather Saturday - the forecast calls for, brrr, highs in the 30s, a gusty blast of 30 mph winds and a 40 percent chance of snow - Reaser adopted a chilly practice technique of his own Thursday.

He had his drummers hold ice in their hands for two minutes before rehearsing the drum solo that's the highlight of the show.

"It's just a harebrained idea," Reaser said.

Maybe not that harebrained. "If it's important to prepare a football team for the weather," he said, "I thought it was important to prepare the band."

Especially the drummers. The brass players can wear gloves; they need worry only about their lips freezing.

But drummers aren't the ham-handed bangers that stereotypes often make them out to be. Instead, Salem's drummers must perform all sorts of complicated hand motions during their drum solo, from tossing - and, presumably, catching - their sticks to rolls, paradiddles, flam-taps, cheese dogs, fu-bars and cheese fu-bars.

"It's small-motor skills," Reaser explained.

(Good thing he did; the list also sounds like the hors d'oeuvres menu for the pregame reception).

Just to be fair, Reaser agreed to endure the cold-hand treatment, too.

So there the percussionists were as the sun sank over the mountains Thursday, digging into the donated cups of ice from McDonald's.

"Don't cheat yourself!," Reaser called out, exhorting his drummers to dig a little deeper. "Greg, I think you've only done one hand. . . . Rub it in on both sides of your hands. . . . Feels great! . . . ."

Although that wasn't the consensus of his drum unit - and the fellow stick-wielding "pit players" from the xylophones and cymbals and vibratones who joined in on the experiment.

Within moments, a cacophony of groans went up.

"Oh my God!"

"Ow!"

"Wow!"

"This makes my hands feel kind of dead!"

"Aargh!"

"Give me more ice - my ice just got warm!"

(There's always one show-off in any crowd).

Then, as the last seconds of the freeze-out ticked off, Reaser shouted the warmest words the kids had heard: "Go!" And they raced off to pick up their drum kits and flam-tap away.

The effect?

"It hurt my hands," said drum captain Faisal Khan. "A couple of rolls were dirty, but nothing drastic."

Others thought the cold-hand treatment improved their performance.

"It made me work harder," said cymbal player Missy Jefferson.

That's music to any band director's ears.