Big. Really BIG: Vintage drum sticks

As part of a bundle of old sticks I purchased a few months ago, this pair stood out.

They were the biggest, longest pair of drum sticks I'd ever seen, or played.


They're so big that, with a diameter of 7/8 of an inch, they won't fit into the holes on my stick display rack.
They're so long -- just over 18" -- that when I play with them I have to completely readjust my approach to holding and controlling the sticks. These things are monstrous.
Here's a little video of me messing around with these sticks, and mixing them up with the ProMark Ardsmores (which I use daily for practice) just for fun.
The Perlmutter's are ridiculous. Seriously, you have never played anything like these unless you have a pair in your possession already. (And if you do, I want to hear from you because I want to compare notes.)

 

(Below: Comparison alongside other more conventional sticks. Top to bottom: Perlmutter gigantic, 1960's Slingerland 3S (marching),  ProMark Jeff Ardsmore (marching).

I'd never seen sticks this big before anywhere in my life, in all my years as a drummer.
So I've been researching them online.

 The only identification on the sticks is this name: Robert Von Deck A Perlmutter Inc.





















Searching under the entire name got me nothing but photos of doctors currently in practice named either Von Deck or Perlmutter.

Searching under Von Deck got me the same thing.

So searching under the name A Perlmutter got me at least closer to something related to music: Aaron Perlmutter, a composer of Yiddish theater music. Which makes sense since Perlmutter is a Jewish last name. Closest I got who's currently alive was an Adam Perlmutter who is, depending on which one, a guitar reviewer or a urologist. (I'm thinking of reaching out to the guitar guy to see if there's any connection to an ealier Perlmutter who was a music retailer back in the day.)

Then I looked under the possible pairing of Von Deck AND Perlmutter, Inc.
Nothing. Nada. More doctors and some whitehaired guys deep into academia (in non-humanities subjects)

I've spent about a month (on and off because, well, I have a life) trying to figure out different ways to research the origin of these sticks and have come up surprisingly empty. I even checked under Google Patents, under each name with and without the word Drumstick added, but again came up empty (I actually though I might since these sticks are likely at least fifty to sixty years old, and maybe even older).

So I'm not giving up, but I'm gonna toss it out to my readers. Where to go next?
I welcome your suggestions and ideas.

I made a thing, again: Homemade pad # 2

While I was happy with how my first homemade pad turned out, the silicon offered rebound but its density left my hands feeling a little tired after only ten minutes of playing time.
So I wanted to try again with some natural gum rubber.

I was able to order a foot-square sheet of 1/4"-thick gum rubber from Grainger Industries for less than $15 shipped. I divided this into 6" x 6" squares so I could make more than one pad.

This is my first effort, with the base made from scrap lumber from a nearby construction site.
I began with the top platform for the rubber, a single sheet of plywood that I sanded and painted.
Then I added a middle layerof two more pieces of plywood, spaced a few inches apart; and finally mounted that on a third layer of plywood (two pieces placed flush because I didn't have anything else), and this created a sound chamber to give the pad a little more volume.

I connected all the layers of plywood with wood screws, and glued some mousepad material to the bottom to help reduce slippage on a tabletop. The wood is slightly warped but doesn't rock noticeably enough to bother me; next time I'll try to find some nicer wood scraps, maybe indoor stuff for countertops that would be heavier and denser.

Some photos of the finished, albeit rough/DIY-looking pad.

Three layers of plywood. I used what I could find for free, which is why the top layer is wider than the bottom one. Still, it's stable enough.

Bottom, covered with old mousepad material (rubber side showing for greater traction).

Pro tip: Super glue GEL works great, but use it outside and don't breathe the fumes!



Below: I had a little fun with this rough-hewn pad by adding some decorations with gold paint pen.

Below: Video of me farting around with the new pad.
Note when the sound changes depending on where I play on the rubber.
That's the sound chamber doing it's thing.

I have a few pieces of gum rubber left, and I may try to make some other kids of pad bases to ee if they play or sound better.

drumitation: meditating with rudiments

When I was having health issues over this past winter, my counselor suggested I look at a meditative practice to help ease some of my symptoms and create a consistent way to begin my day.

I tried sitting still for five minutes, every morning.
That seemed doable. So I upped it to ten.
It got harder, but I hung in there.
I thought about upping it to fifteen, but my last day at ten minutes crashed and burned at around Minute Six. I was fidgeting and squirming and I couldn't sit still anymore.
So I gave up.

One morning after my failure, I was in the studio, fiddling with my sticks and a rubber practice pad (definitely a happy place). I pulled up my dog-eared copy of Stick Control and opened it to the first page.
I set up my metronome at something stupid slow like 70 beats per minute, and forced myself to play the entire first page as instructed: each exercise twenty times without break before moving onto the next one.

So the whole point of Stick Control is that it's meant to be sequential, methodical and very gradual. You don't jump from Page One to Page Ten. (You could, but you won't really benefit as much from just burning through and sight-reading. This is not a sight-reading book.)

By the time I'd gotten through the entire first page at that speed, I noticed two things:

a. My hands felt jerky and klunky at the beginning, and pretty smooth and comfortable by the end of the page.

b. Repeating every figure twenty times before moving on at 70 bpm took me something like 10 whole minutes.

I knew I was onto something.

 Every morning after that, after eating breakfast and taking my meds, I went into the studio and played the first page of Stick Control, at gradually increasing tempi with the help of a metronome.

When I was done with that, I decided I wanted to play something else. So I pulled up book number two: 128 Rudimental Street Beats, a collection of drum cadence figures from the 1960s, by John S. Pratt (a master drummer of the time and the head drum instructor at West Point).

These beats are deceptively simple.

I figured that, if I could nail down the snare drum part, I could then get the bass drum and cymbals in my little community band to play steady time, with beats on the quarter-notes. (None of them are experienced drummers and a couple don't read music at all, so I have to introduce new material by ear and repetition.)

What I discovered along the way of selecting two or three street beats I could string together is that these things are actually a lot of fun to play. I memorized a couple and have incorporated them into my morning drumitation.

 

Finally, if there was time left in my half-hour time limit, I'd pull out my favorite solo book of all: America's NARD Drum Solos, published in the 1940s and reprinted with fresh plates about 20 years ago.

 The NARD Book was compiled by the first members of a new drumming organization formed in 1936, called the National Association of Rudimental Drummers. Their goal was to standardize the 26 basic rudiments (the "drummer's scales") known at the time and to encourage new drummers to adopt these standard rudiments as part of their training.

The original organization lasted until it disbanded in the late 1970s. A new version of NARD was established in 2008 and remains active today. This book, now in its third edition, remains a gold standard for rudimental drummers around the world, and it's the book I learned from in high school. (I still have my old copy!)

I don't always work out of this book every morning -- sometimes I get lost in Stick Control and allow myself to just zone out, because the point of drumitation is to chill out and calm down, not to work up new material all the time. But when I reach for it there's always something more for me to learn.

I learned a couple of these solos for contest in school. Because I couldn't afford private lessons I figured them out myself, and was scolded for taking this approach at contest. "You're a good drummer," the judge told me. "If you're serious about your drumming you'll make finding a private teacher a priority." (This was back in the good old days when it was unseemly to admit that your Dad was looking for work and you were eating tuna casserole for the fourth night that week. So I kept my mouth shut and nodded. Then I went home I continued to play and work out stuff myself. I did not have a private drum teacher on a regular basis until I got to college.)

In my return to rudimental drumming I find that I'm sometimes paying for my lack of private instruction early on. But since my primary goal is to enjoy myself and to use rudimental drumming as part of a meditative practice, I don't worry about that. I'm not currently looking for a private teacher (and I can't afford one, anyway). And sometimes I don't get to the drum pad when I'd planned to so I end up doing it a little later in the day. But drumming on a rubber pad has definitely helped me musically and emotionally, and for that reason I'm grateful I can still play.

Let us now praise famous Drum pads: Remo

I joined my school band in 1973, when I was ten years old. We had moved to Concord, California about three months after I started fifth grade, and I wanted to join the band and learn an instrument.
My first choices -- trumpet and french horn -- were not available. My parents told me they couldn't afford to rent something from a store, so I had to make do with whatever I could borrow from the school. After considering multiple options, I chose the drums, and rode home with a brand new pair of 5-A sticks and a Remo tuneable practice pad in my backpack.

The Remo pad was the first practice pad for a whole generation of drummers, most of whom began playing in the late 1960s through early 1980s. It's portability and tuneability were the main selling factors, as was the reasonable price. Because the school bought pads and sticks in quantity, I could obtain my pad and sticks for a total of $10 in 1973 ($45-50 today, adjusting for inflation).

The Remo pad was also popular because it could be played on a tabletop (or on a tilted music stand, which was standard practice when I was a kid) or mounted on a threaded cymbal stand; the raised rim allowed you to experiment with something cool called a "rim shot" (played on a real drum, this would eventually break the stick; played on the Remo pad, this would eventually crack the plastic rim. I admit I broke at least four Remo pad rims on my way to High School, when I switched to a rubber practice pad). Another nice feature was the replaceable head -- though I never played mine hard enough to have to replace one. The largest size, 10" in diameter, was almost big enough to practice brushes on.

The pad, first patented in 1962 (only a year before I was born!), revolutionized drum practice for tens of thousands of school and professional drummers for decades, and nearly every drummer my age remembers starting out on one of these pads.

(Below: A 1966 patent for Remo's practice drum kit, comprised of multiple tuneable pads on an adjustable metal frame. Today, you can find these for amazingly little money at yard sales and on craigslist.)

Remo tuneable pads are now considered a good choice for a student on a tight budget, the idea being that when money was available the goal would be to "upgrade" to something "better" -- or, in 2019, something that came closer to the feel of a high-tension marching snare with a Kevlar head. Remo pad heads are tuneable, but not past a certain point; and that point doesn't come close to the feel of a higher-tension head.

For those who can't afford a high-tension, "modern" practice pad (the best ones start at close to $100 each), there are numerous Youtube videos showing how to get an approximation of the modern "fake-snare" sound by modifying the Remo pad -- by filling it to the brim with unpopped popcorn or even ball bearings, and even swapping in longer bolts to allow for tighter tuning. But remember, that plastic rim can only handle so much tension -- so if you decide to experiment this way, expect that the rim will show its limits before you reach the desired higher tension.

For those of us who continue to play on Mylar heads, the original, unmodified Remo pad is still a fine choice, which is why I keep one in my stable today. Happy playing!