When I completed my Moeller homage pad last month, a friend warned me not to spend too much time chopping on it. "You'll get 'Pad Hands' and it will ruin your technique," he cautioned.
I've heard a lot about Pad Hands, which happens if you spend too much time chopping on the same pad and your hands get so used to that pad they can't transition to other playing surfaces.
I think that this may be a myth.
I chop on different pads every day, and mix them up to keep things interesting and fresh. I seldom get to practice on a drum these days because of where I live (and with whom). But even if I chopped on the same pad every day -- as I did when I was young -- I'm not convinced that it would be so terrible. Drummers' hands can and do adapt.
When all I had was my little Remo tunable pad, and I was able to play real drums at school, there was no difficulty in adjusting to the difference in the size and feel of a real drum head. None. The purpose of learning good technique is not only to play all the rudiments, but also to get to know your hands. Playing in all kinds of weather, in varying conditions, on days when you feel great and days when you feel subpar -- all of this informs how you get to know your body and your hands, and you learn to make adjustments depending on the variables at hand.
Pad Hands could just as well be Drum Hands, if you keep practicing but don't pay attention to the signals your hands and your body send you. If you practice smart, you won't get Pad Hands -- or Pad Brain.
Happy chopping.
(video: hanging out with the Moeller pad, just for fun.)
At the end of the day, a practice pad is a tool that allows the drummer to practice on a quieter surface, so as not to disturb the neighbors.
If this is the primary consideration, everything else fades in importance.
The pad’s construction, age, size and scarcity (real or perceived) matter far less in this context.
The value of a practice pad, then, is not in its design or construction, but in its use.
The pad that is pristine is a pad that hasn’t been properly valued. It hasn’t been used.
So today, I’m celebrating pads that have been valued through use.
A well-used pad is a pad whose owner has dedicated their time and effort to improving their drumming art.
A well-used pad holds drumming history on an individual, even intimate level. It contains the residue of every stroke played on it, and past a certain point, those strokes begin to have an effect on the appearance and feel of the pad.
I rejoice when I see a well-worn practice pad. It tells me its owner is devoted to excelling at drumming, and not distracted by externals, by ephemera. There’s sticks, and a practice surface, and the head, heart and hands. Period.
That feels like a beautiful thing to meditate on as I drum today.
May your drum meditations be as rewarding and precious.
I decided to take the vision further, and turned an old shop case for Rema patches and glue into a presentation case for my custom Rema Tip Top practice pad.
To create a padded, protective liner for the pad, I used layers of plastic padded envelopesstacked and glued together, cut out a hole in the center to fit the pad, and then assembled it, using the leftovers to create stabilizers that I glued inside the lid. In a nod to my tool box, I'll add more cycling stickers to the inside of the lid until it's covered.
I've been cleaning out the dark corners of my practice pad collection, selling off doubles and making some space in my studio. Along the way, I've been trying out different pads and deepening my knowledge of pad design in the process.
Tonight I did a little comparison. Using an excerpt from one of the NARD solos ("Benevolent Bill"), I played the first section on each of four different pads in my collection (disclaimer: all keepers, so don't ask if I'm selling them).
In order of trial and approximate age, here are my videos.
1. 1948-50 Slingerland Radio King pad, 2B sticks. The pad itself is actually no big deal, because it's the same design dozens of companies were selling in the back of their respective drum catalogs. Slingerland's Radio King pad was perhaps a little bit bigger than a lot of what else was out there at the time, but really the only thing that makes it special is the iconic "Radio King" badge. Still, it's fun to play on something so historic and older than I am. The black rubber surface is still in good shape, and hasn't hardened yet. But it's also not quite as bouncy as gum rubber would be, and I have to pull the strokes out of the pad. This would also be the case with the bigger, deeper drums of this era (marching snare drums measured 15" or 16" in diameter back then), with Mylar heads tuned lower. Drummers of this era had to do some of the work involved in double bounce rolls and paradiddle rudiments, which is why so many worked out on pillows as part of their training.
2. 1972 Patterson design Pad. Another wood box, this one horizontal, with a more pure gum rubber playing surface that's lively and offers a bit more rebound. Still using the 2B sticks out of consideration for the design and the pad's age, I can get a very nice bounce. This is more in line with the marching drums of my youth, which usually measured 14" in diameter and had more lugs, so they could be tuned tighter and higher than the older 15" drums. Combined with a Remo "Pinstripe" head, these drums produced a fat but crisp sound that was tremendous to hear when eight or ten drummers played in perfect unison.
3. Vater Chop Builder pad, black (hard) side, with marching sticks. Switching to marching sticks for this heavier, denser pad made sense; the 2B sticks don't really work as well with the modern marching pads. I chose to utilize the harder black side of this pad to see if there was a real difference between it and the final pad in the comparison. There definitely is a difference. Several companies produce two-sided pads with a soft and hard side, and in most cases the hard side on these pads is SO hard that you might as well be playing on a Formica countertop. The Vater version pulls back a little from that, with a thick "hard" side that still has a little rebound in it and makes for a more pleasant playing experience.
4. Vic Firth Heavy Hitter Slimpad. One of the most popular marching pads on the market since its introduction in the early 2000's. This predates the Vater pad by a few years but I saved it for last because it comes closest to the feel and rebound of a modern Kevlar marching head. It's 1/8' thick gum rubber on a wood base. Nothing fancy, but they dialed in the feel so it gives modern marching drummers exactly what they need in a practice situation. The gum rubber is lively and offers rebound, but the thin playing surface means there's a lot of hardness coming from the wood underneath. As opposed to "pulling" the strokes out of the drum, as I'd do on a Mylar head, all of the bounce comes from the tightness and hardness of the Kevlar surface. If I tried to "pull" the strokes from as Kevlar head I might end up pulling a wrist muscle and actually hurting myself.
The heavier marching sticks are really the best way to go on this pad, as the heft of the bigger stick balances against the hardness of the pad.
Practice pads from the early days up through the 1970's and very early 80's were not quite as purpose-driven, not as specialized as they are today. They didn't have to be because concert, jazz and marching drums all utilized Mylar heads, which can only be tightened so far before either the head breaks, or the hardware pulls out from the side of the drum.
With the advent of stronger materials, drum heads could be made from carbon-fiber and Kevlar, and later on, hybrids of the two materials. These heads, capable of being cranked high and tight, became the standard for marching bands and drum corps -- and changed the way marching drummers approached technique. New drum pads specifically designed to meet the demands of marching drummers came onto the market. Some of the earliest models are no longer in production and are highly sought after by drummers of that generation, hoping to replace the pad from their younger marching days that got worn out or lost.
But practice pads for Mylar drummers have also evolved. Very few drummers today would willingly choowe to practice on that Slingerland Radio King, when other, more responsive pads now exist on the market.
That said, how much have technical advances in drum and pad design affected drumming technique? Or vice versa? Or does it have that much of an effect outside of modern marching ensembles? These are questions with complex answers, and I'm just trying out practice pads.
Feel free to respond with your questions and insights here in the comments.
(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:
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.
We are entering the second night of curfews here in Portland. The police have closed off access to much of downtown Portland and are telling people to get home by 8pm.
Being immuno-compromised, I can't join the throng of protestors anyway; but I still want to do SOMEthing. So in support of those protesting and as a voice against police brutality and police violence against black people, I'm heading to my local park at 7 tonight to play at full volume; Friends with drums can join me -- spaced and masked, of course -- and we'll lay down some beats for half an hour. (Because the curfew applies anywhere in city limits, and I don't want anyone to stay out past 8pm who isn't comfortable doing so.)
I will do this every night until the curfews end. Based on how the protests are exploding here and around the globe, I'll be playing at my local park every night until the police close that, too.
Video: Last night's curfew drum jam, in my yard.
A timid start. With time, I hope I'll get braver.
This week, plans were upturned when we got the news that my father-in-law had entered into home hospice care. His cancer treatments have been unsuccessful in stemming the growth of the disease and he is preparing for the end of his life, which we're told could come in weeks or even less time.
We leave for California on Monday to spend the remaining time with family.
As you can imagine, this is a stressful time as we rush to make travel arrangements, figure out pet care, and cancel holiday plans.
And when things get intense and our nerves get frazzled, as has happened repeatedly in the last few days, Sweetie advises me to go into the other room and drum.
Yes, really.
Drumming is something I've often done throughout my life to relieve stress. Today has been especially difficult as we juggle various details of our need to rush to be with family. So more than once, I've retreated to the back room in our little house and chopped out.
In the morning it's been as simple as playing slow and steady eighth notes to a metronome, gradually increasing speed and continuing until my hands get tense, then backing off of that a little and hanging out at the fastest comfortable tempo for several minutes. This is usually enough to calm me down and clear my head.
If after that I feel a desire to chop out on random stuff I can do that too, like in the videos below.
This "drummitation," as I like to call it, has helped repeatedly in my quest for calm during tense times. I recommend it highly.
Numerous studies have shown that repeated drumming can calm the fight-or-flight response in the brain, can improve blood flow and lower blood pressure, and can help to relieve stress in much the same way that gentle exercise does. I must have known all that instinctively before I'd ever read about it, when I was a kid; my childhood was filled with a great deal of stress and drumming was something I could always do to calm down. About eighteen months ago I began to turn it into a morning meditative practice, with a metronome and a rubber pad (to avoid disturbing Sweetie, who worked in the dining room and asked me not to meditate on an actual drum while she was home). It has become a regular part of my meditative practice and a cherished part of how I wake up and come to "full density" in the morning.
Wherever your drumming takes you this season, I hope it's enjoyable and fulfilling. Happy Holidays.
For several weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, my left hand was giving me more and more trouble. I developed a locking action in my middle finger that made it difficult -- and increasingly painful -- to uncurl my hand from a fist. My thumb was also sore in the joint connecting it to my hand. I powered through guitar playing all the way through a few days after Yom Kippur, but last Monday morning I hit a wall and could not move my left hand without pain.
That evening, after calling my doctor, I was squeezed into the schedule at my local urgent care center to get a cortisone shot for what had been diagnosed as "trigger finger" in my middle finger. The shot itself was incredibly painful -- levels of sharp and dull pain alternating in waves across my hand that made me yowl in reaction -- not once, but twice.
After the shot, my hard hurt quite a lot for two days, during which I alternated icing and resting at room temperature. I also purchased some compression gloves, recommended by my sister; she told me they make a difference in living with arthritis. I found them to be surprisingly constricting at first, but with subsequent wearings they loosened and softened up a little and I found them to be helpful if I wore them for periods of time.
Today, six days after the shot, I tentatively tried some slow double strokes on a rubber pad to see how it felt. As long as I did not push, and focused on keeping things as slow and relaxed as possible, I could play without pain. I was thrilled.
I recorded myself so I could look at my hands.
While transitioning from one tempo to a slightly faster one, things got a little rough; but overall I was able to stay relaxed and grounded. Encouraged, I shared my video with friends on the Marching Percussion 101 Facebook group, and their response was very positive.
What did I learn from this experience? A few things.
First, injuries happen. Sometimes they're caused by an impact, other times they're the result of wear and tear and/or overuse. I have osteoarthritis, so I know that I walk a fuzzy line between staying active enough and using my hands too much. Still, I play multiple instruments professionally and I practice almost daily, so overuse is a real risk for me. So is living in a climate where winters are cold and very damp. Still, I make the most of what I have and try to pace myself as much as I can.
I also try to listen to my body, so that when the first signs of "something's not right" appear, I can take time, pay attention and try to tell the difference between a mere strain or bad hand position and something more intense like overuse. When something's truly not right, I can stop and seek help.
After treatment, I listen to my doctor and follow her instructions. In this case, that meant rest. Rest meant a total cessation of activities, including making the bed or washing pots and pans along with playing any of my instruments. And while it was challenging, I did it. And it made a difference.
I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much better, and hope not to repeat the experience of a cortisone shot anytime soon.
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.
When we first moved into our house the back room was used to hold Sweetie's piano, a Steinway baby grand from her grandparents. Several years later, between jobs and hard up for money, she decided that she wasn't playing it enough to keep, so she sold it. The room became mostly a dumping ground for extra stuff.
Last year, tired of sharing the front room "office" with Sweetie (who works from home), I announced that I'd like to turn the back room into my music studio for teaching and composing. Sweetie was relieved to get her office back, and I got some much-needed quiet space for myself.
Today the studio serves as both a teaching space and a creative space. It also allows me to display my vintage practice pads and sticks in a pleasing way that gets everything up off the floor.
I recently came into a collection of vintage sticks that required some re-pairing and cleaning. Once done, I donated the oddballs to a friend and created storage space for the remaining paired sticks.
I'm pleased with how it's shaping up.
The stick displays are available on Etsy, and I like them because they allow the entire stick to be seen easily. The only drawback is that oversized sticks (think 4S or bigger) won't fit in the holes. I'm looking for a very small, adjustable height student desk, like the kind you'd find in a school. I'd also like to find a way to store the guitars in their cases, to get them up off the floor -- if they fit in a closet, I might stow a couple of them in there.
Coming soon -- more research on some recent arrivals. Happy drumming!
I wish I had more photographic evidence of my time spent devoted to drumming.
But all I have are these photos. Hopefully, they tell most of the story.
1. 1973: Why I chose drumming.
(Above: Karen and David Carpenter, 1969. Check that traditional grip.)
I'd already been playing beats on anything I could find. When I was seven, my best friend owned two Hoppity Hops (remember those?) and when we'd watch The Partridge Family at her house, I'd turn them into my drum kit while she grabbed a giant Magic Marker and made it a microphone. The year I turned nine we moved to California. My Dad bought me a cheap set of bongos at the souvenir booth at Frontier Village, a third-tier theme park in San Jose. I played along with records and the radio until the heads broke. Then my Mom patched them up with duct tape and I played them some more.
In the summer of 1973, we moved from Walnut Creek to Concord, California. In fifth grade I was old enough to take a music class at the new school. My parents, both trained singers, hoped I'd sign up for choir. Being terrified of singing solo in front of people, I chose instrumental music.
The teacher, a fine cellist in the local community orchestra, invited me to consider taking up the cello. I loved the sound, but it wouldn't fit in my bicycle basket and we only had one car. So I asked for something more portable. I was given the option of violin (nope), clarinet (definitely not) and drums, which at the time required me to own only a practice pad and sticks.
I was warned I'd be the only girl in the drum section, but that didn't bother me since I was already the only girl interested in lots of "boy" things (like skateboarding and BMX).
I suddenly remembered that Karen Carpenter played drums and she was awesome.
That last reason pretty much decided it for me.
2. Gresham High School, Homecoming parade, fall 1977.
I moved with my family to Gresham, Oregon in 1975. After living in or very close to much larger cities, I thought Portland (and by extension, Gresham to the east) was a hick town with provincial, almost tribal loyalties that made little room for new kids like me. Still, once we landed in Oregon we weren't moving again, so I made the best of it.
In my freshman year of high school, I joined the marching band and played a traditional single tenor drum. (I'm marching in front of the guy with the light blue saxophone strap, my face partly obscured by the saxophonist marching in front of me.) If it rained, we marched. If it blew hard from the east, we marched. A parent would bring hot baked potatoes to the drumline at every home football game so we could stuff them inside our sleeves to keep our hands warm. After we played at halftime, we'd eat them, still warm, while the infamous East Wind would come screaming out of the Columbia Gorge and almost rip my face off.
I loved those old-school uniforms; the white wool overlay could be removed to reveal a tuxedo jacket underneath which was worn for concert band. (Women wore blue vests and skirts and white blouses, all of which had to be sewn from an approved pattern. I sold my vest and skirt back to the school when I graduated.) And those spats! So cool.
Sadly, these uniforms were replaced the following year by ugly, "modern" zip-up jackets, black pants and new shakos that were glittery and over the top.
Today, my alma mater's band program has NO real uniforms. Concert attire is black pants or skirt and a white dress shirt; and the marching band plays in sweatshirts and jeans.
..::sigh::..
(Vintage content: We played Ludwig drums that dated from the 1960s. Today my tenor drum would be a collector's item, selling on eBay for upwards of $100 in good condition. In my senior year, I could choose to play snare drum, or the brand-new marching Roto-Toms that we ordered to approximate "corps-style" drum lines. I chose the Roto-Toms and had a blast. I recently acquired NOS tenor mallets with wooden heads, exactly like the ones I used in that final year, still in the packaging. I may actually play with them at some point.)
Later that summer, I marched for three months with the Spartans Drum & Bugle Corps of Vancouver, WA. Two months of rehearsals in the spring, followed by First Tour, a three-week barnstorming tour through the Pacific Northwest. Drum Corps was really hard on me physically, for reasons which would only become clear in adulthood; but I still loved it and was looking forward to going on the national Second Tour, which would culminate in a performance at the DCI World Championships.
It all ended when my mother met the bus at the corps hall on the last day of first tour, bundled me into our car, and on the way home told me I wouldn't be marching with the corps anymore. My father had lost his job -- a nightclub he'd been playing piano bar in for almost a year suddenly closed on him without warning. The next night they re-opened with a DJ; it was the height of the disco era and lots of clubs found it cheaper to hire a DJ than to pay a live band. When he complained to his union local, they told him he was on his own. My dad tore up his union card at that meeting and was immediately blacklisted.
I had to find work -- mowing lawns, babysitting, delivering the paper, or whatever else a fifteen-year-old could do for money. I spent some of my free time scavenging garbage bins and back alleys for pop and beer bottles; thanks to Oregon's landmark Bottle Bill, I could take the empties back for change, and that was my allowance each week. With the money from my part-time "regular" jobs, I helped my parents pay the utility bills all summer. (My sister was old enough to work as a waitress, and she was outgoing and really pretty so she got a lot of tips.)
We ate a lot of tuna casserole and my Dad didn't find steady work again for several months. I never marched in corps again, a regret that lingers today.
(Below: rumor has it I'm somewhere in this photo, though I barely remember the parade. We marched a LOT of parades during First Tour. I'll assume this was late in that tour, after I was switched from timps to bells, which would put me in front of the timps and out of photo range.)
3. Western Oregon State College, 1983.
I'm playing with our college stage band at the Oregon Collegiate Jazz
Festival, somewhere in Salem if memory serves. We weren't half bad. Our
kit drummer was a great player (though like most twenty-year-old guys
he was a little full of himself).
Our brass section was to die for. I
played Latin percussion and occasionally vibes. That is my old HS
concert blouse, the only dressy white shirt I owned at the time, with
black slacks and a vest I scored at Goodwill.
(Vintage content: Those congas are vintage Gon-Bops from the 60s. They were a thing of beauty and a joy to play. I really hope they're still being played somewhere.)
In the late 1980s I played with a band called Pure Imagination, a vocal quartet backed by a combo. We did charts made famous by the Four Freshman, the Modernaires, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and the Swingle Singers -- all the vocal jazz groups whose music I'd been weaned on in school. At the time I was also making money playing in pit orchestras for musicals and operettas (please don't ask me how I feel about Gilbert & Sullivan. Thank you.), and had a beautiful Ludwig four-piece Ringo Starr model kit with white marine pearl finish. I was so stoked to buy this kit that I held a "christening" party for it in my tiny apartment, and invited the cast and crew of the show I was playing in to celebrate with me. To my great surprise, a lot of them did.
Sadly, there are no pictures of me with that kit. In 1997, my right hand was seriously injured in a bicycle-car collision. After two surgeries and a year of PT, I was told that my playing would likely never be the same. So I sold most of my percussion instruments, including that kit.
This was the beginning of a ten-year break from playing drums and percussion, and the beginning of my career as a singer-songwriter.
4. Northwest Folklife Festival, Seattle, 2010, with Jack Falk.
Along with rudimental drumming, I'd learned to accompany singers -- my parents first, and then school jazz choirs -- on brushes. I loved playing brushes for singers because it taught me how to phrase and breathe with them. I maintain that singing, and working with singers, made me a better drummer.
In the early 2000's, I got married, bought a house, and longed to play drums again. So I started with just a snare drum and brushes, and practiced rudiments on a little Remo practice pad like the one from my childhood. Eventually, friends got wind of my return to drumming and invited me to sit in with them now and then. Jack Falk, a good friend of ours, had retired from his European touring to return to school and finish a Masters degree, and invited me to play out with him now and then.
Here, I'm playing for the amazing klezmer artist Jack Falk at Northwest Folklife, one of the largest and oldest folk festivals in the USA. I went up to Seattle in a Prius packed with luggage and other instruments -- I was also playing a solo set on the songwriter's stage -- so I could only bring a snare and hi-hat. Jack assured me that would be enough, and it was. In fact, he was so thrilled with how it came out that he asked me to stay onstage and play for a set by UW's student klezmer band, the Disciples of Goldenshteyn. It was a gloriously fat, messy set filled with laughing trombones and crying clarinets, and I had a helluva good time.
4. Kit drumming, 2010-12.
When I began to play again I assembled a drum kit from spare parts, obtained mostly at thrift shops, online and yard sales. The kit included a sweet vintage Royce snare drum that, for having only six lugs, sounded amazing. I converted a floor tom into a really small kick drum and rebuilt it with wooden hoops and bass drum heads. The idea was to use it to accompany soloists and small ensembles, so I never bothered to get a rack tom for it. By this time, though, didn't really have anywhere to play it, and because I was still working full-time as a bike mechanic I didn't have time to pursue it. I eventually sold the kit to a friend for twice what it had cost me to cobble it together.
5. Shalshelet Jewish Music Festival, 2013, Miami.
In all the time I'd stopped drumming with sticks, I was still making sounds on anything I could get my hands on, including doumbek, tar (African frame drum), maracas, and tambourines.
In 2013, one of my compositions was accepted for inclusion at a Jewish music festival taking place in Miami. At the same time, I was also forging ahead with a full-time Jewish music career, having left the bike shop for good in 2012. I played a fundraiser show to cover my airfare, and went down to Miami, where it was immediately clear that I was a Jewish singer-songwriter who could also drum. I made myself available to other festival artists and wound up spending a fair amount of time onstage at the gala concert.
I continued to tour as a Jewish artist and educator-in-residence, and added percussion to my educational kit, accompanying multiple artists and even ending up on a couple of their recordings.
Today, I am as often found behind a drum as I am singing out front at Jewish festivals and music conferences.
6. Tziona Achishena, Portland concert 2018.
Jack Falk called me last August. "The Sephardic shul [synagogue] is hosting an Israeli artist, she's awesome and needs a drummer. However, because it's an orthodox shul, no men are allowed at the concert [The orthodox have a rule about men not hearing womens' voices in public spaces]. You're the only woman drummer I know who could learn her tunes quickly enough. The concert's in two days and she says she'll pay a hundred and fifty bucks. Want the gig?"
I brought my percussive love to an audience of mostly orthodox Jewish women from around the Portland area, accompanying a talented and gracious artist named Tziona Achishena. It was a whirlwind evening, I hung on for dear life to the charts, Tziona was a brilliant singer and composer, the whole roomful of women and girls got up and danced through the aisles, and everyone had a joyous time. (Video, below: I'm accompanying Tziona on a five-gallon water bottle with an amazing sound.)
7. Today. Still at it.
I'm playing drums every morning, chopping out on a practice pad as part of my meditative practice and a way to help manage the depression I was diagnosed with five years ago.
Along the way, I've re-discovered the joy of rudimental drumming for its own sake, joined a community band and am slowly working my way to true drum happiness.
I make and sell little travel cajons from recycled wooden cigar boxes and repurposed snare hardware.
I've joined a couple of online forums dedicated to rudimental drumming and vintage drums, and I feel like I've reconnected with a piece of my childhood that was especially happy and today is a source of comfort and joy.
The Unpresidented Brass Band took part today in a rally and concert at the ICE Detention Center.
We played in support of effortd to hold ICE accountable for the abuses against families separated and detained by them in centers across the country.
It was a beautiful afternoon and we had respectable numbers show up to play.
We wound up playing for a little over an hour, because the band scheduled to play after us was late in setting up. A good time was had by all. By the time we were done, I was done and ready to go home. I spent, an auto-immune terms, a lot of spoons. But I'm glad I was there.
I'm already looking forward to the next performance.
And my
morning drum meditation now includes some woodshedding on really
old-school stuff, like Three Camps and some solos from my old NARD book.
I'm slow as molasses, but enjoying the relearning process thoroughly.
Below: Woodshedding on Three Camps, single-stroke and with diddle variation. (I forgot to take the repeats on the variation. Sorry.)
Cappella Percussion, in addition to manufacturing sticks under other companies' brands, also made practice pads for other companies. Beato -- which once upon a time, had its name on practice pads, drumsticks (I vaguely remember owning a pair of maple Beato sticks in high school) and accessories -- contracted with Cappella to make a practice pad for them. Cappella made a few different models of pad and imprinted them with the Beato brand.
This pad, sold under the model name "Stealth", is a recent acquisition for me from an online auction. Like the other Cappella pad (mentioned last week), it's made from a slightly lighter weight wood platform than most wood-block pads.
It came still wrapped in its bag.
I decided to remove it but will save the packaging.
Inside were papers with the old Cappella web site (www.cappellapercussion.com), no longer a valid web address.
The pad is slightly heavier than the Rite-Touch, though not as heavy as more modern rubber-on-wood pads like RealFeel.
It also uses a closed-cell rubber foam, rather than a more solid gum
rubber pad. The foam on the Stealth pad is denser than the material on
either side of the Rite-Touch, but it still encourages the player to do
some of the work on balancing rebounds and rolls. Once I got used to
it, I actually enjoyed playing on it even more than on the Rite-Touch.
There's enough "there" there to let the sticks bounce a little more, but
not obnoxiously so.
The angle of the wedge is not extreme, but it's just enough to provide a good slant for traditional grip playing.
The size makes for great portability.
Sadly, the pad itself is prone to slipping on a tabletop, because the tiny rubber "feet" are not grippy enough to keep the pad in place, especially when playing louder than mezzo-forte.
Even placing this pad on top of another larger rubber pad doesn't help very much (as you'll see in the video below). All things considered, this is not a terrible pad and would be quiet enough to use in a hotel room or backstage to warm up on.
I've decided to create a new blog devoted to my first musical love. Before I ever picked up a guitar, before I ever sang in public, I played drums. I began with a friend's Hoppity Hop (remember those bouncy-ride toys from the 1970s?), and soon progressed to a set of toy bongos my Dad bought for me at Frontier Village theme park in San Jose. I was eight, and my bongos became my friend. I played them all the time. In fifth grade, I joined the school band and learned to play snare drum, bass drum, and eventually all the instruments of concert percussion. In high school, I became my wind ensemble's principal tympanist (mostly because I have perfect pitch and because my section leader had little interest in playing anything other than snare drum. Classic.)
Along the way, I also got into pageantry arts education (marching band, drum and bugle corps, etc.); opened a private percussion studio; and made a nice side-career teaching high school drum lines and marching bands; and played for a few bands in clubs in and around Portland.
Twenty years ago, the percussion came to a halt when I was riding my bike and won the "door prize" (a euphenism for getting hit by an opening truck door). The damage to my hands was severe and the residual effects (early-onset arthritis, joint stiffness and pain in changing humidity) have been lifelong. I had to give up timpani and mallets, the two sets of instruments required a certain kind of muscular dexterity I could no longer attain. After establishing myself as a guitar playing singer-songwriter, I returned to rudimental drumming mostly for fun. My chops aren't what they were when I was young, and probably never will be; but I've gotten enough juice back to enjoy myself and to create a daily meditative practice around rudimental drumming on a rubber practice pad.
I've also become an enthusiastic collector of vintage practice pads, and a researcher of historic developments and patents for pad designs. (The header photo shows a few of the pads in my collection.)
Today, I still pursue my career as a touring Jewish musician, traveling to synagogues, camps and JCC's as an artist/educator-in-residence. However, I've made a little more room in my daily musical life for rudimental drumming, hand drumming and creating percussion instruments from repurposed and found objects.
I'll use this blog to share research, photos of interesting practice pads, videos of drumming in action, and bits and pieces of my renewed drumming adventures. Stay tuned! (Below: a sample of my return to drumming, reading from my old NARD book. Cheers!)
