A Percussionist's Notebook

Escutcheon Pins, Washers and Isolators Most of the pins were bent but easily straightened. Just tapping them on a bench vise did the job. I replaced the one wood screw with a sheet metal screw for the lost pin. For the washers I used silicon caulking compound. Earlier this year I tried making sheets of silicon by applying caulk onto a plastic sheet protector. I placed another sheet on top and rolled it out to the desired thickness. After it cured I took a hole punch for the outside diameter of the size that I needed. The smallest punch was used for the center hole for the pin. In the past I used catheter material for the isolators but when I went to a medical supply store to find the size that I needed I was asked for my doctor's prescription. A prescription?.....Are they afraid that I'm going to insert a piece of plastic into parts of my body just for the...….never mind. OK, so nix the catheter tubes. Since I was working with silicon I tried a di...

Deagan Round Top Bells #1120 A friend of mine was cleaning out his Music room recently and found an old set of bells that he purchased in Pittsburgh when he taught music in their school district. He asked me if I were interested in having them and when he opened the case I said YES!! Being just shy of 100yrs old they were in decent condition. The case was badly scratched but structurally sound, the bars were rusted,   the escutcheon pins were bent (one was replaced with a wood screw), the rail felts were compacted and turning to powder, the rubber washers and pin isolators were crumbled into small bits at least the ones that were left. Refurbishing this was going to be an adventure! The Bars The first priority was the bars. I didn't want to use a grinder, buffer, or harsh chemicals that would affect the intonation. I decided to use distilled vinegar and salt. As an experiment I chose the most rusted bar, the High 'F'. I soaked it for 28hrs and liked the resul...

We have finally grown more zucchini this year so we started looking for recipes other than our traditional zucchini bread, batter fried or sauteed.  Since the larger ones look like eggplant when sliced, we thought about replacing the eggplant with zucchini to make zucchini parmesan. It worked! Zucchini isn't bitter like eggplant can be and it doesn't need to have excess moisture removed. It's also not a Nightshade plant (I've read that some people have issues with Nightshades). We just followed an eggplant parmesan recipe and used the zucchini instead. We also had a lot of choke cherries from our small 8' tree (bush?) About 10 years ago I read about making 'shrubs'. Before soft drinks were commercially available, people would make a shrub from cherries, berries and other fruit. It's basically a concentrated syrup that can be added to water, sparkling water, gin, vodka or whatever. We got enough choke cherries to make 2 quarts.

Wing nuts for cymbal stands are not very expensive, unless 10-15 are lost during the course of a year. This is what happened during the 2017 season of the YS. Maybe because there was an increase of touring which meant a lot of packing and unpacking, or just coincidental.  But the result was the same: time spent on budgeting and then ordering parts. Another problem was with tightening the wing nuts. Some students felt that it should be threaded on the post until it contacted the sleeve and then add another 4 or 5 turns for good measure. This required more budgeting and ordering to replace the damaged sleeves. Sometimes when setting up the cymbal, the wing nut would take flight and be forever lost on the floor. For some it was easier to go to the cabinet to get a new one rather than look for the original. Then there was the problem of choosing which threading was needed. Is it 6mm, 8mm, or the older 1/4" x 20 tpi (we had all three)? I wanted to find a system that would attach ont...

Non-percussionists playing on percussion instruments before and after rehearsals, during breaks and any other time there is no active rehearsal happening. This occurs all too often in many schools and organizations. This is a big problem for at least 3 reasons: 1. It shows a lack of respect for the instrument and to the owner. 2. It reinforces the idea that the percussion instruments are toys and requires very little technique and musicianship. 3. There is an increased chance of damage to the instrument. Ownership: Brass, wind and string instruments are normally owned or rented by the student (or parent) while most percussion instruments are owned by the school or organization, particularly the large instruments such as timpani/mallets/bass drum etc. Stating at the beginning of the year or season  that non-percussionists are never to play the instruments is important. This should be followed by monitoring on a daily basis and reminders when the rule is broken. When coachi...

Many things that I have made go through an evolutionary process. Sometimes they are subtle changes but more often the final design has very little to do with the original concept. The Nickster was one of those projects that had a common thread from the beginning. The 1st appearance 'circa 2008' shows a strong resemblance to the later versions. I had the right idea but I didn't aggressively follow through with it until 2014 (see The Nickster post 7/22/19). I used a bicycle rear mount support, heat shrink tubing, rubber grommets and nylon cord. 2014 the Nickster 1.0: I wanted to use a semicircle of aluminum to fit in the space between the thumb and index/middle finger. I had hoped this would make the design intuitive to someone who has experience only with the 'glue clamp' designs. It wasn't intuitive to many students and it was  only playable for right handed players. 2015 the Nickster 2.0: I continued to use the semicircle but I made a version for l...

My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary earlier this summer. We spent 4 days at Chimayo in northern New Mexico, one of our favorite places. We were in 1 of only 7 rooms in a hacienda that had no TV, internet, or cell phone coverage. In the evenings we walked through the court yard, read and talked with each other. Talk about pulling the plug on technology, this was the perfect gift that we could have given ourselves. Our 1st outing took us to the El Santuario de Chimayo, a small church about a mile from the hacienda, famous as a pilgrimage destination known for it's 'healing soil'. This beautiful contemplative place set the tone for the rest of our stay. The following day we went to the Mesa Prieta Project area (prior reservations required). Not as well known as the Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque but it is estimated to have nearly 100,000 petroglyphs from paleo times through the Spanish era (and some modern graffiti). Mounted rider from ...

In 2016 the YS programed a piece that had a fast intricate triangle part. Using a traditional triangle holder on a music stand for this purpose would create unwanted resonance. I designed a holder that would lay on a trap table keeping the triangle in a horizontal position. Parts: 9" shelf supports (2).  1"x 8"  board.  1 bicycle rear carrier support.  Nuts, bolts, washers, sheet metal screws, poly tubing and zip ties. I did some creative bending on the shelf supports, bolted the  bicycle rear carrier support (the slotted silver strap in the photo) and used longer #10 bolts through the washers and poly tubes. The right side bolt had a wing nut in the rear to adjust for horizontal spacing. The zip ties were strung through the washers to provide support for the triangle. The Reitiesher worked well for the concert and the tour later in the year, but there were problems:  It was bulky and difficult to pack safely.  It was difficult to a...