A Percussionist's Notebook

In the Spring of 2013 I came across a petroglyph while hiking in one of our city parks. It consisted of 2 horizontal lines with a semi circle above and lines extending from this semi circle. It looked old, old enough that lichen had grown in some of the grooves. I have seen many Native American Petroglyphs but nothing like this before. I don't even know if it's Native American. It doesn't leave much to the imagination that one is looking at a drawing of the Sun on the horizon. I took a series of pictures and downloaded them at home and studied them for weeks. Since the glyph is on a boulder facing south it couldn't line up with a Sunrise or Sunset. I realized that when I was taking the pictures, my back was against the high point of the rock outcropping. This outcropping rose 10 or 15 feet above the level of the petroglyph. Was it possible that the Sun would cast a shadow from the high point of the rock onto the glyph? It wasn't until late Fall of 2013 th...

Starting in 1971 I spent 3 years in the military as a percussionist. This particular band spent much of its time touring the US and Canada. My room mate on these tours was another percussionist and the two of us would discuss all things percussion but especially percussion education. After concerts they would bus us back to our rooms. It was not uncommon for us to talk until 3 or 4AM talking. Apparently I must have loaned him one of my books and then forgot about it. Years later and I mean somewhere in the 80's, I was looking for this book and couldn't find it so I purchased another one for my library. Fast forward to 2013, Sandy was retiring from his teaching career at a college and decided to relocate to the state of Washington. On his way there he and his wife stopped in for a visit and to bring a gift. My book is back! After 40 years my book was returned. Sandy had signed and framed it for me. I have it hanging in my studio. But then...... I have had a pair of ma...

A broken tambourine shell usually means that a new tambourine purchase is necessary. This can be exciting: I like getting new instruments, or sad: Any instrument that is damaged is a terrible thing. All tambourine shells can break, from my famous $14 variety to top of the line brands like Grover and Black Swamp. It's easy to replace a tambourine head but broken shells/missing pins and jingles usually means an early grave for the instrument. My early attempts at these repairs were stopgap measures until a new one was found. Wood or 'super' glue used on the shell turned out to be poor choices. It wasn't until last year that I really focused on shell repair. It happened during a Canyon Winds rehearsal when one of our tambourines exploded, pins and jingles were flying everywhere. Yep, it was the Resident Gorilla playing it. The shell had cracked between three sets of jingles near the head of the tambourine. We eventually replaced this with a Black Swamp tambourine but I s...

Canyon Winds was given a sizable donation last year and fortunately the Percussion Section received a large percentage of it. Doug (our director) wants to have the band own their own percussion equipment rather than rely on each of the percussionists to bring in personal equipment. We had been using a windchime (really a Mark chime tree) belonging to one of the players so this was one item on our want list. We chose a TreeWorks brand of windchime that cost us $150. Usually the mount for a windchime is an afterthought and it is mounted on an unused cymbal stand by removing the wing nut and sleeve, placing the windchime on the threaded part and then tightening the wing nut back on. This ends up having the windchime to pivot up and down when it's played making it difficult to play and dampen, plus visually it looks haphazard and sloppy. Not only does this offend my sensibilities, but it goes against my philosophy: "Why buy a commercially made product for $25 when you can mak...

Two interests dating back to my elementary school days are Astronomy and Archaeology. Combining these two had me build an Armillary. It's easier to show a picture rather than describe it. This ancient astronomical device was developed in ancient Greece and China. This one I made from embroidery hoops and when oriented properly tells the time of day. The smaller hoop is designed to track the sun on it's journey from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. It was only after I had glued everything together that I realized that I put the 'ecliptic' at 23 ° from the North/South Poles rather than from the Equator. I have an idea how to build another one (correctly this time) that should be a little more user friendly. After making this, I realized that these hoops could be used for some of my 'percussion repair'. If it works,I'll post it in the future. In the meantime, I have some private students who would probably like to make their own armillary...

One of the great joys of teaching is when we get visits from former students. I say 'we' because many times when I'm working with one student in the studio the next student would be sitting in the living room waiting for their lesson. During those times my wife would visit with some of them talking about some common interests like painting, climbing 14ers, science projects, and of course music. The majority of my students did not go into music as a profession, they followed different paths- Engineers, Upholsteres, School Teachers and Principals, Doctors, Sommeliers. Some became professional Percussionists far exceeding my abilities. Each and every one of them has given us a wealth of fond memories. Thank You to all of you.

The Pikes Peak region has a number of culturally modified trees. These are trees that were intentionally bent when they were young saplings by different groups of Native Americans. To Pikes Peak→? An Open Space Park on the south side of Colorado Springs has one of these. There are signs on the trail pointing to the 'Holy Tree'. This one is said to point to Pikes Peak itself. The day that I took this picture I didn't have my compass so I can't confirm that statement. There are a number of local people who track down these trees and catalog them for preservation. I understand that there are quite a number of these trees located up the pass near Cripple Creek and also some near the Air Force Academy. I found one on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park and also two others in a County Park closer to my home. I have done very little reading on this subject but I do find it fascinating. The first tree is in a park and well known, however, since the second tree I ...

Canyon Winds is programing 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' for the Spring concert. Of the many percussion instruments that's called for in the score, two of the instruments that we don't have are Pulli Sticks and Jingle Stick. The Pulli Sticks (more commonly  known as Puili  Sticks) are made of slotted bamboo tubes. Considering that this is a very prominent sound throughout the piece, I was afraid that the traditional Puili Stick would last only for a few rehearsals before it became kindling for a camp fire (especially if it were played by our resident gorilla).  I decided that a more appropriate and durable stick would be a Rute. They are similar in that they are both bundled, but the Rute is usually made from small wooden dowel rods. I decided to make 2 different Rutes: 1 with fiberglass rods (see my Triangle Beaters post) and the other with 1/4" Wooden dowel rods. Both have 7 pieces: 1 in the center with 6 around) 16"L. I used 'hea...