EUREKA, AHA, and THE MARSHMALLOW MOMENT!

In the mid 70's I was an elementary music teacher when one Friday afternoon some members of the faculty decided to celebrate the end of a particularly hectic week. During the discussion the kindergarten teacher walked into the faculty lounge and was invited to join us. She had a side business as a baker and declined by saying "Thank you, but I have to go home and make marshmallows."
I thought "Wait, you don't make marshmallows. Marshmallows come in a plastic bag or in a jar as marshmallow cream". In the following weeks her statement would come to mind and I kept thinking about it. Finally I thought- "Well.....someone has to make them". Then my thoughts began to snowball, "Someone must have made the threads on a bolt for the first time." Likewise someone came up with the idea of units of length measurement.
All of these concepts I learned in school but since they already existed I just took them for granted.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT. YOU CAN MAKE IT!

That thought, that concept was liberating. You don't have to accept what is the norm or what is just offered. Things can be adapted, new things can be made. You might read this and think "DAH", but this was a turning point for me considering I have remembered that one statement for over 40 years.
I didn't jump out of my bathtub and run naked through the streets. This was however, what gave me the freedom (in my mind) to redesign or make different percussion instruments and accessories.

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The Amadinda

The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators. There was no reason for this project other than to see if I could make a simple mallet instrument. The box was made from plywood (which also acted as the resonators) and the bars were made from maple. Since this was to be a true xylophone, the bars were all of equal width. Tuning was done by cutting the bars to different lengths and removing material from the bottom. Using a router I created a sort of 'stepped pyramid' instead of the traditional arc cut found on marimba or xylophone bars. Cutting the underside is not only for tuning but it focuses the pitch and creates the characteristic overtones of the instrument. Since I wanted to play this with other 'Western' instruments, I chose to use a pentatonic scale of 2 2/5 octaves (C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#). Two people sit on either side of the instrument and strike the ends of ...

La Caverna del oro

One of our first backpacking trips in Colorado was in the Sangre de Christo Mountains. One mountain in particular drew our attention. Marble Mountain was the location of a famous story of a Spanish cave of gold. There are many places on the web that tell this story better than I could, suffice it to say that we wanted to locate it and see the iconic 'Maltese Cross' located at it's entrance. In 1974 after I got out of the Army we invited some friends to join us on this trip. We parked our car at the trailhead in the Wet Mountain Valley and backpacked up Marble Mountain to 12,000 feet. In one of the culverts we found the entrance to the cave. Maltese Cross at the Caverna del oro It turned out to be a real thing. The large red cross was still visible after 400 yrs. According to legend the Spanish put it there in the 1600's. I did have the courage to crawl into it but only a few feet. After about 10 feet there is a vertical shaft that drops about 750 feet! The Cross is v...

Quack, Moo and Paradiddle

Rudiments: "The basic principles or skills of a particular subject." Onomatopoeia: "A word that is phonetically associated with the word it describes." Scales are for a violinist as drum rudiments are for the drummer. To master anything one must learn the basic rudiments. Once learned they can be assembled to create something more than the individual parts. Drum Rudiments are a collection of sticking patterns and bounces that were developed to provide the beginning drummer the skills to play his/her instrument. But why the funny names? Most of the Rudiment names are onomatopoeiae. They imitate the sound of the rudiment/sticking. They were developed in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the use of onomatopoeia was to help the student memorize them. Since many people were illiterate at the time, this technique was easier than using notation. The teacher would say the name of the rudiment and then play it. The student would repeat the name and play it. ...

A Percussionist's Notebook

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