I didn't plan on being here but here I am

In the wake of the shutdown, I lost all of my singer-songwriter gigs through at least July, and likely farther out than that. Since trying to hustle for those coffeehouse and synagogue gigs on the other side of the shutdown feels tasteless and wrong to me, I am taking a break from that space to focus on making some money in there present, in whatever limited way I can.

That has meant taking in bicycles for repairs, which has actually been nice.

And, a little to my surprise, it has meant taking on a few drum students periodically.
I've been working with a Honk! drummer from Austin one-on-one, for 30-minute lessons focusing on technique and rudiments.
And today I confirmed an online workshop for a Honk! band drum line based in Seattle, this will also focus on technique through warmups, a couple of DIY grooves the drum line can build however they like, and an approach to ensemble playing that focuses on groove and ensemble unity.

 So here I am, teaching marching drumming online, which honestly I never thought I'd be invited to do at this point in my life. In the current atmosphere I am grateful for the work, and for the opportunity to be of use musically.

I still have openings for a couple more beginner adult students. Hit me up on Facebook if you're interested.

the monstercorps thing

A couple of years ago, the rudimental show drummer SDJ Malik posted a video on how to make a shell-less drum from the top assembly of a free-floating marching snare drum.

To be clear, he wasn't calling this a practice pad -- likely because it's simply too loud for that -- he was calling it a personal snare drum. His video shows how to construct one of these without snares. For what it is, it's effective -- and quite loud, even without a shell.
I recently acquired the top assembly of a marching snare as part of a swap, and wanted to give it a try.

I liked the feel, but found the lack of snares meant a lack of dynamic possibilities.
I wondered how one might attach snares to such a thing. Adding snares might diffuse some of the overtones and allow for playing at slightly softer volumes.

And then I remembered Remo's Rhythm Lid kit -- a kit that lets you convert a five-gallon plastic bucket into a functional, fun-to-play drum.
The snare unit is sold separately, so I bought one. I removed the top rim and head from my setup, installed the snare unit by simply laying it over the edge of the bottom rim (which would have been the edge of the plastic bucket as in the video); reinstalled the head and top rim, tuned it up and voila! I had a strange but funky thing, not quite a practice pad and not quite a drum, but something in between.
Bending the metal snare holder slightly allowed me to adjust the sound of the snares to make them respond more crisply and with less buzz. (Remo encourages this in their instructions for use with the plastic bucket.)

Below: The installed snare unit from the underside.






























After I installed and adjusted the snare unit, I set it on a stand and played. It made a huge difference, both in the overall sound quality and in my ability to play with more dynamic nuance. Adding snares meant I no longer had to overplay to get optimal sound.

While this currently has a dedicated Kevlar head installed, swapping in a standard coated head might allow me to experiment with brushes, rutes and other sounds. I'm not ready to make that change yet -- I'm having too much fun with this as it is -- but at some point down the road I''ll consider it.
Meanwhile I'm having a lot of fun with what I've come to call my MonsterCorps Unit.

I may even experiment with a way to mount this on a carrier. Stay tuned.

does vintage mean "no longer made"? Or just "old"?

Vic Firth came out with a line of practice pads some 15 years ago called the Heavy Hitter series. They were designed primarily for marching drummers, to be durable and to approximate the feel of a marching snare drum.
The current line of Heavy Hitter pads includes the Stockpad and the Slimpad, both of which I own; the different thicknesses of rubber give the two pads a different sound and feel.
I like switching back and forth depending on my mood, my hands and what I want from the pad

 The Stockpad comes with a 3/16" thick gum rubber playing surface, and is meant to approximate the feel of a drum with a Mylar head.

It's not bad, and I do like to take it with me when I want to chop out at a park or something.
It fits easily in my bag and is portable.

(Second-generation Heavy Hitters had an all-white logo; third/current generation versions come with a white and red logo. I have one from each generation.)




The Slimpad is basically the same design, only with a thinner 1/8" gum rubber playing surface designed to approximate the feel of a drum with a Kevlar head. Sometimes, if my hands are feeling warmed up enough, I actually prefer chopping on this pad. 

 
The earliest version of these pads looked like this, with the rubber covering the entire wooden platform and lettering applied to the rubber.

Other than the visual difference, some players swear that the gum rubber compound on this first generation of pads was different, and better, than what is currently available.

One fellow has gone as far as to offer up his first generation Stockpad in trade for the same vintage in the Slimpad version. He's had no luck so far. I've offered hima s much as $50 for his Stockpad but he is not interested. I'm not willing to pay $100 for a modern-era rubber pad, so I've let it go.

But it got me thinking: How long does something have to be unavailable before we can call it "vintage"?
I have pads in my collection that are older than I am, some dating from the 1940s (when my parents were kids). I have newer pads that are no longer made but which some people call "vintage" simply because they're out of production. Depending on whom you ask -- a antiques/collectibles dealer or a drumming ebthusiast -- both may be right.

I never had a chance to try the first generation of the Stockpad. I'd certainly like to try it, but not at the price that fellow is asking

I've got enough to keep me busy, even in this time of self-isolation. Happy drumming.,\

drumming and grief

I've spent the last two weeks in California, where my father-in-law was dying and finally passed away. We nursed him and loved him to his end, helped to bury him, and helped my mother-in-law begin to sift through the mountain of responsibilities that stretched out before her, including paperwork and going through her husband's clothes and much more.

During breaks in the family time together, and the tasks I heped to carry out, I took a lot of short little breaks to chop out on a practice pad I'd brought with me, primarily for meditative purposes rather than to actually practice any music in a meaningful way.

Setting the little pad in a post of the porch rail, I'd play eighths, sixteenths and so on; switch to paradiddle ladders and shifts, and occasionally lapse into an old cadence from my high school or college days. Mostly it was the physical act of moving the sticks up and down on the rubber pad, rather than the sounds I made, that soothed me and helped me calm my insides.

Being around someone who is dying is emotionally draining. Burial, mourning and greeting friends and family after they've died is really hard and demanding and takes a lot out of you.
So when I needed to chop out a little, I had my pad and sticks and I was so glad I'd brought them along. (Turn the volume up for this one.)

(Note to self: Next time, bring a bigger pad that won't move around with every accented note.)

Now that I'm home again Im looking forward to rejoining my community band. They start rehearsals again next week so I have some time to prepare. They've also asked me to facilitate a drum sectional, for the purpose of readying some street beats to play between songs when we march. Since most of the drummers are new to this kind of drumming I'll need to start with some really simple things, but they all have good ears and hopefully will catch on quickly.

Working with new drummers is really good for my humility right now.

Stay tuned. I'm working on an acquisition of a special vintage pad if I can swing it.
Up next, some vintage sticks and a little history.

when drumming is therapy: drummitation (drum meditation)

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.

wilcoxon rudimental challenge 2019

A tip o' the hat to Kevin Lehman for setting up the Wilcoxon Rudimental Challenge on Facebook.
Rudimental drummers from around the world are posting videos of themselves playing one of the solos from the seminal collection "All-American Drummer: 150 Rudimental Solos" by Charley Wilcoxon.

This book is filled with intermediate to advanced rudimental solos that assume a knowledge of at least the first thirteen traditional drum rudiments (based on the 26 original rudiments as designated by the founders of NARD back in the 1930s -- NOT the 40 rudiments designated much later by Percussive Arts Society).

I wasn't challenged to join the group by another drummer, so I worked up a solo of my choice, joined the group and tossed my hat in the ring. It took several days to work up the solo to a reasonable temp, and another hour to play it through several times with the repeat without screwing up, before I felt ready to make a video of myself. Then it took another ten takes or so to get a clean take from start to finish. Even then, it was hairy going, and I could've done the end of the repeat better; but it was fun to challenge myself like this.

I'll totally do it again very soon.

(Here's my attempt for posterity, played in the new drum which still needs some gradual fine-tuning and tightening over the next week or so. NOTE: I chose to play the rolls timed and wide open, rather than to rush the drags and risk blowing the timing and tempo. It's an individual choice, and up to each drummer what to do with the rolls.)

Enjoy! And if you think you'd like to give this a try, contact Kevin Lehman at the Facebook group to learn more. The group has grown rapidly so that there are now a few repeats of solos but that's probably not a huge deal if most of the solos in the book are spoken for. Check with Kevin.

If you don't own this book, it's available at multiple book stores, including Powell's Books in Portland, and also from Reverb online.

Here's Solo No. 1 if you're so inclined to dive into the collection. I think it's worth owning a copy of the whole collection. Happy drumming!

 

play outside

During this week, my partner and I are both serving congregations as cantorial soloists.
But we're serving different communities and have to practice different music and/or settings.
In our very small house, that sometimes means we take turns practicing and the other goes somewhere else for an hour ot two to give each other some space and time alone in the house.

It was my turn the other day, so I took sticks and a pad over to the park and chopped out a little.

Since hanging out on the Marching Percussion Group on Facebook, I've learned quite a lot and have gotten exercises, advice and encouragement from some very experienced drummers, including a few rockstars who marched in drum corps in the 1960s and early 70s. Since my drumming in town is limited to to the community band I play with now and then, where the musical challenges are more ensemble based than rudimentally based, My rudimental chops are developing slowly after my eight-year hiatus in the late 90s-early 2000s; and I am slowly making up for some of the lost time.

My flams STILL suck, mostly because of my arthritic left hand; and I can play more easily only after soaking my hands in hot water in the mornings before I play. But my rolls and diddle exercises are smoother now, and I enjoy playing more than I did when I started back up again.

If time and logistics permitted, I would love to find a rudimentally-based drumline to chop out with, even if just for fun once a month.