Vintage Corner: Slingerland drum UPDATE

 Last summer I was gifted with an old Slingerland marching snare drum that was in need of a lot of love in order to make playable again.
Because of the gouging and scartches in the wood, I decided to make it a player instead of attempting a museum-quality restoration.

Wth my eye surgeries, the High Holy Days and other details delaying the process, my brother-in-love showed me his progress on repairing the big crack in the snare-side hoop. I took pictures last night at his place. The hoop will need a few more days to dry and set up, and then he'll drill tiny holes and make dowels using bits of bicycle spoke I gave him.

Here's the plan: after the wood has thoroughly dried, Ron will leave the clamp in place and set it very carefully in his drill press, where he will drill 2 to 3 holes lengthwise, top to bottom of the hoop edges. Then he'll cut down some "dowels" made of bits of bicycle spoke (stainless steel), insert them in the holes, and perhaps add some kind of epoxy as he inserts them. (Since they're not wood, they won't expand so some kind of glue will be needed to hold them in place.)
When they're dry, the edges of the spoke bits can be carefully filed flush with the top and bottom of the hoop; or he can choose to cut them a little short so the ends will be counter-sunk and then he can fill with wood putty.
Either way, the idea is that these tiny dowels, stronger than the wood, will help keep the hoop in place and prevent further cracking. The hoops are maple, a very dense and brittle hardwood.
The tuning of this drum will NOT be super high-tension, so the hoop should be able to withstand the forces of tuning and maintain its shape for a long time to come.

Here's a couple of pictures of where things stand at present.

This weekend, I'll begin cleaning up the chrome hardware rods and hooks.
I hope to have this ready to play again before the New Year

Vintage Corner: Homemade vs. commercially made pads -- Is there a timeline?

In my ongoing research and collecting efforts, I've come up with a startling hunch, and it may be right or wrong.
Basically, the oldest large-scale factory-made practice pads in my collection date from the 1940's or later. There's an overlap with some pads made commercially on a much small scale, like Lee Lockhart's Timpette , and the "Deco" pad made by Robert Woods, also dating from the 1940s.

Another pad, labeled simply "The Globe," likely dates from this era as well.

My oldest pad, which I acquired recently, appears to be homemade and according to the seller, dated from the late 1920's and owned by his grandfather.

Here's a pad that shows up on Pinterest pages periodically, French-made and dating to the early 1940's. It appears to be either homemade, or created by a small cottage business.

Finally, there's the Bower pad, which was designed in the early 1910's and may be the oldest known commercially-produced practice pad. This is a reproduction of the pad that someone made about fifteen years ago, and ad copy about the Bower pad, patented in 1920 and licensed to a manufacturing company in Los Angeles.

 

 

Being made of a wooden platform drilling with holes, and having wool felt stuffing and a leather surface laced to that, the result would have been a very primitive practice pad. Most drummers at this time or earlier either practiced in places where they would not disturbb anyone, or they made their own practice pads from whatever they had on hand.

I would love to find something from this early period of practice pad development and design, to add to my collection and try out for myself.

Calling all Vintage drum enthusiasts!
If you have practice pads in your collection dating from 1940 or earlier, please show them off with photos, videos and other documentation.
You can send it to me at

periwinklekog AT yahoo DOT com

 

And if you're on Facebook, consider joining the group Collecting Vintage Drums, where members share photos of their collections and share historical info as well.

Cheers and happy drumming!

Drum love, community and patience

(At left: my very last pair of marching sticks from HS, circa fall 1980. CB700, model 3S. These sticks are forty years old and still feel great.)

In 1997 I was knee-deep in the world of percussion education and performance.
I taught marching percussion and movement at three Portland-area high schools, ran a small studio where I gave private lessons to kids and played three nights a week in a jazz combo. I also played pit percussion for two of the three major theater companies in town during the summer season.
Then it all packed up and left town.
On the way home one evening, I rode my bike past a parked truck when the drivers' side door swung open quickly and without warning, right into me. I caught the end of the door with my right hand, which bounced in and out of the latch, and then I slammed hard sideways into the pavement. Two bicyclists right behind me swerved wildly to avoid missing the spot where I'd fallen. One stayed and offered help. The driver of the truck was mortified; she made me lie still, kept me calm, and gave the ambulance driver and police her information while they dressed my wounds and decided I could get away with calling a cab to go to the hospital (I couldn't afford the ambulance ride).

Two surgeries and a year of physical therapy later, my right hand was put back together as well as possible. I could grip a wrench well enough to stay employed at my bike shop day job, and I could, with time play a passable snare drum roll. However, French grip timpani and four-in-hand keyboard mallets were gone forever, as I had lost access to the muscles in my right pinky and just below that in my right hand. That meant no more concert percussion and no more pit orchestra work, which was the primary source of my musical income. I was forced to close down my little drum studio and shad to sell my marimba to pay my bills. With the assistance of a lawyer, I eventually accepted a settlement from the driver's insurance company that covered the replacement of my totaled bicycle, all of my medical expenses and a fair chunk left over for "pain and suffering" and the loss of my  concert percussion career.

I spent the next ten years getting involved in synagogue music and eventually rebuilt myself as a singer-songwriter. Between 1999 and 2019, I enjoyed a small but growing career as a songwriter, cantorial soloist and Jewish educator. I made wonderful friends in my new sphere and grew a great deal as a musician and a human being.

And I never stopped loving drums and percussion. After a long stretch of not touching any drums (and wincing whenever I passed a marimba in a music store), I found my way back to drumming with an old practice pad and some sticks I'd kept. After six months of careful, patient practice, I'd regained the ability to play most of the rudiments I'd learned as a kid, plus a few more I hadn't gotten around to learning when the timpani bug bit. I began acquiring practice pads, to test and try and figure out which ones worked best for me. I started researching the history of practice pad development in the twentieth century, and began collecting vintage pads and sticks.

I continued to pursue drumming as a hobby while I toured, occasionally buying vintage sticks while on tour and bringing a practice pad along so I could chill out between shows.

I was on the verge of a very big breakthrough in my little Jewish music scene when COVID came along and brought it all to a screeching, painful halt.

Since last March, my travels as a touring Jewish artist have stopped cold. I've had a couple of online engagements but nothing solid or long-term. With the shutdown of my songwriting gigs came a wave of deep depression and self-doubt that has lasted, frankly, for months on end.

But all the free time of unemployment gave me time and space to dive deep into drumming, and to find myself musically in other ways.  Today, thanks in large part to the miracle of the internet, I've become part of a wonderful online community of drummers, our friendships based on mutual respect and a shared love of drums and percussion. It has been, and continues to be, a wonderful journey.

My friends in the Jewish music world may be wondering why I can't seem top pick up my guitar right now, but many have been surprised at discovering this other music side of me (through videos I've shared online), and have remained encouraging. Be patient with yourself, they've said. You'll come back to it when the time is right. I hope they're right about that.

Meanwhile, I am deeply grateful for the friends I've made in Drumland, and I want to thank a few of them here for their encouragement, acceptance and welcome.
In no particular order:

Joseph Coleman
Mary Gromko Murray
Jose Medeles and all the gang at Revival Drum Shop

James Travers and everyone at Rhythm Traders
Kevin Donka
Rene van Haaren
Don Stewart
Kevin Lehman and his amazing Wilcoxon Rudimental Challenge
Scott Brown at Flam7Percussion
René Ormae-Jarmer
Don Worth
Brian Wilemon, Jennifer Honnoll Wilemon and Bay Ratz Marching Battery
Unpresidented Brass Band

I'm sure I will fail to mention at least half a dozen other names here but they're all part of a wonderful drum rediscovery and I am grateful for every single one of them.

And I would be a complete dork and total loser if I did not thank the one who has been my biggest supporter through all of this weird and crazy time -- my Sweetie, Liz, with whom I will soon celebrate 20 years of US-ness and who may not have had any idea of what she was getting into when we started out.
I wasn't really a drummer at that point and when it all came back to me, it all came in for the first time for her. Lesser beloveds might have run screaming from the room, but she simply asked me to play on rubber pads behind a closed door.

I don't know what my return to the singer-songwriter thing will look like when we all get through this COVID mess, or even how much of that I will do going forward. It's impossible for me to know right now.
But I DO know that I will never stop being a musician, no matter what I use to explore sound with. And today, while everything remains terribly uncertain, that is one good thing I can be certain of, and deeply grateful for.

Happy Drumming.

Below: Evidence of participation. Gresham HS Band, Fall 1977. I am directly in front of the guy in the middle column with the saxophone neck strap on. You can only see half my face but that's me carrying a single tenor drum and loving every single note of the experience. (I also adored that uniform, right down to the overlay and spats.)
Someday I'd love to find photos of my brief time marching in Spartans Drum Corps [Vancouver WA, spring and summer1978] -- if you've got anything showing ME carrying timpani or bells, please let me know. Super-extra bonus points if you can tell me where to score one of those funky, black short slant-top shakos. Thanks.

Review: Rock Jam practice pad

Until we can all go back to Neo-Feudalism and use only what we make ourselves, without having to import massive quantities of foreign-made goods, We'll simply have to accept that VATS of stuff we use are currently made overseas for a fraction of what it would cost to make them here.

Granted, a lot of practice pads made in China are awful, and not worth the monsy.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the Rock Jam pad -- with a platform made of compressed and laminated plastic fiber, and a silicon rubber playing surface that is lively and comfortable, it's actually a fine pad and I would gladly practice on one daily if it were my only option. The 10-inch size is perfect for most applications and easily fits in a backpack.
At a retail price that's half of what the comparable big-name brands go for, it's a heck of a bargain to boot.

Rock Jam pads can be found all over the place, on eBay and elsewhere. They're more than perfect for a beginning drum student, and perfecly acceptable for intermediate and advanced players on a budget as well.

PORTLAND OREGON DRUM GROUP: Spring 2021?

I LOVE playing drums. I love rudimental chopping, even on a practice pad.
AND I'm lonely for other drummers to chop with.
Soooo....

How many rudimental drummers do I know in the Portland, OR area?
And how many would be interested, when the days warm up again, in a monthly outdoor get-together with safe distancing, masks, practice pads and refreshments, to pound out some old-school stuff from Wilcoxon or NARD or whatever? You should know how to play some rudiments and read music. Just for fun. Wanna put something together for later on in March or April when it's warmer, obviously when it's safe to meet outside again.
Leave a note in the comments if you're interested.
#rudimentaldrumming
#portlanddrummers
#socialdrumming

 

Full Review: Vic Firth universal practice tips

In my quest to research and try an ever-growing variety of practice aids for drummers, I went ahead and bought two bags of Vic Firth universal practice tips for drum sticks.
Each bag contains two pairs of practice tips, and there are two sizes available: One size for concert and drum kit sticks, and another size for marching sticks.

Vic Firth designed the tips to fit easily and securely onto just about any drumstick tip. Vic Firth advertises them as being made of "rubber" but doesn't say whether that's a pure rubber (doubtful, from the colors and feel) or whether its a compound of rubber and some other material (like nylon, a compound typically found in bicycle tires). I was not able to locate any additional information on an exact compound so "rubber" it is, I guess.

I bought the marching tips first, about a month ago, and tried them out on a number of different playing surfaces, including various drum pads, drums, and table tops. The marching tips come in a bright red color that's easy to find at the bottom of a stick bag or backpack.

For purposes of this report, I went ahead and used them on my favorite marching stick, the Jeff Queen Solo model.

The tips do require a small amount of effort to squeeze into the sticks, which is good because that means a snug fit and a tip that won't easily fly off.

What I noticed right away:

a. The tip is noticeably larger than the actual end of the stick, which means it uses quite a lot of rubber material.

b. That extra rubber also adds noticeable weight to each stick, which changes the balance and response completely.

This may or may not be a good thing.

I tried the tips on various surfaces. Each time, I was a little disappointed by how dull the response and feel were.Here's a demo video of the marching tips when used on a rubber practice pad, and then on a wood surface similar to a table top. In every situation, the sticks felt quite front-heavy and klunky, and not at all fun to practice with. At best, they might be useful as a warmup tool for some applications, but really that's about it.

(Disclaimer: I didn't plan on wearing this shirt for the demo. It was on the top of the clean pile. I only realized it after I'd made the first video and decided it wasn't a big deal, since I play with Vic Firth sticks exclusively anyway. I was not asked to demo anything, nor was I paid for my review. I paid full pop just like anyone else.)

After several attempts to work with these tips, I gave up and put them aside. I was not excited about them. I will probably add them to my collection of practice tools and forget about them.

Last week, I ordered a set of the concert tips, which are smaller and come in a grey color similar to the grey rubber compound in use on Vic Firth practice pads. They arrived the other day, two pairs of them, and I slipped a set onto the ends of my Buddy Rich signature sticks (also by Vic Firth and regularly used behind my little drum kit).

They fit the same way, requiring a little bit of pressure and slight twist to secure them. But the feel was completely different. These smaller tips allowed the sticks to remain reasonably well-balanced and responsive enough to be truly useful when traveling, warming up or whenever a slightly softer sound and feel are needed in practice. Because the sticks remain well-balanced enough to play with, the smaller concert tips also double as a bonafide addition to my color palette, and it might be useful to keep a pair of them installed on a set of concert sticks strictly for that purpose.

It's also worth noting that this gray compound is very similar in feel and response to the grey tips permanently installed on Vic Firth's "Chop-Out series" of practice sticks, which come in both concert and marching sizes and feel equally useful in either size.

I'd be curious as to why they felt a different size and shape was required in their separate Marching practice tips, especially when the original "Chop-Out" stick is so much better than any marching stick with this cover added.

A dedicated pair of practice sticks doesn't take up that much room in a stick bag.

And here's a little demo of the Concert practice tips in action.

A bag of practice tips in either size (concert or marching) costs about six or seven dollars retail for two pairs of tips, so if you're curious about these it's not a huge investment to buy some and experiment with them.
I'd say that the red marching tips are a disappointment, and that the gray concert tips are excellent for multiple applications in both practice and performance. I'd like to know if Vic Firth has heard similar feedback from other drummers. If so, perhaps they'll choose to reissue the marching tips in the gray compound later on.

Happy chopping!