High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A drumline is a section of percussion instruments usually played as part of a musical marching ensemble. High school and college marching bands, drill and drum corps, drum and bugle corps, indoor percussion ensembles, and pipe bands usually incorporate drumlines; however, drumlines can exist independent of these ensembles. Drumlines call the stationary percussion within a marching ensemble the "front ensemble" or "pit." This also describes the area where those percussion instruments are set stationary on the field.