Standing on the edge of Confederate Park next to his large bass drum, Mike Bishop waits anxiously for practice to begin. Bishop, 21, traveled all the way to Fort Mill from New Jersey to join the rest of his percussion line from Carolina Crown, a nonprofit youth music organization.

"I come down here once a month, and I either drive the ten-plus hours or I fly," Bishop says. "It's lots of fun. I do this all year. Music is what I want to do with the rest of my life."

The group caught the eyes and ears of passersby last Wednesday, when their rehearsal but some upbeat rhythm into what had been a typical quiet downtown afternoon.

Bishop is just one of more than 150 members of Carolina Crown who journeyed from across the country to South Carolina to begin their summer tour. Beginning in 1988 as the Charlotte Drum Corps Association, Fort Mill-based Carolina Crown now boasts a percussion group, a brass section and a color guard. The group just finished their spring training in April and will soon begin its annual summer performances.

Membership for the corps is generally restricted to youths between the ages of 17 and 22, and can cost as much as $1,800 to join.

"Essentially, we're like a marching band without the woodwinds," says Ray Linkous, director of operations for Carolina Crown. Linkous, 37, says members of Carolina Crown first meet in the spring at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs for training. Soon after, they hit the road and begin touring.

This summer, he says the group will travel to 25 states, perform more than 30 shows and see an average in excess of 300,000 fans. In addition, they will be competing in several shows against other drum corps units, such as the NightBEAT event and regional competitions at the Georgia Dome and the Alamo Dome.

Bishop, a music education major at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, is currently practicing for a performance later that day at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena. The event, called the Pit Crew Challenge, showcases each member of the drum corps, from bass drum players like Bishop to those who play snare and tenor drums.

Their big event, though, was a performance Saturday at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. Zach Schlicher, a member of the corps who writes and arranges the music, looked forward to the NASCAR event.

"The NASCAR production company gives us lots of current songs they'd like us to play," Schlicher says. "They usually like us to jam on stage while they announce the drivers."

This year at the event, the corps will be performing songs like "Low" by Flo Rida and "Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna.

"We don't get paid," Bishop explains. "We actually pay to do this.

"This is something we do because we love it."