A Percussionist's Notebook

Recently there was a news article concerning a protest march in New Mexico in which some of the marchers tried to topple a statue of Juan de Onate. He was a Conquistador who in 1599 ordered a massacre of the Acoma Pueblo killing hundreds of the residents and sentencing the remaining men and women to 20 yrs. of servitude. As an added act of inhumanity he ordered that each man would have a foot cut off. This caused much anger and hatred to the Native American population and eventually to the Spanish Crown. As I watched the scene on TV, I was reminded of another act of anger towards this man that happened as much as 200-400 years ago. While in New Mexico last year, my wife and I toured the Mesa Prieta petroglyph site. One particular petroglyph was an outline of a man with a cross on his shoulder and his right leg mutilated. The tour guide referenced the story of Juan de Onate and took us to this image.  This seems to be a more historically correct tribute to this man than the statue...

I started to fish when I came to Colorado. The piccolo player (and supply clerk) had a reputation of being an outstanding fisherman so I decided to ask him to teach me. The old saying " Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will draw the ire of his wife." Fortunately my wife supported my new hobby. Willy was a quiet man and pretty much a loner in the band, I was a little intimidated at first asking for help and the first 2 or 3 times fishing with him were quite reserved. Once he realized that I was committed to the sport his attitude changed. That was 1971 and we have been friends to this day.   Willy was an expert bait and spinner fisherman but knew a lot about fly-fishing and so I started to accumulate all of my tackle based on his knowledge. Rods, reels, line, lures, and a hat. After he retired and returned to Florida I drifted away from bait and lure fishing and concentrated on my fly-fishing. Fly rods, flies, and all of the other fly-f...

The practice pad has long been a staple for the drummer. After a pair of sticks it usually was the next thing purchased. Or in the case for my brother and I, a DIY project by our father. It could be as simple as a square of linoleum nailed on a board to the double sided models that produce various amounts of rebound.  There are many reasons for using a practice pad. I'll start with the obvious: Practical: Compared to a real drum, they are cheap. They are fairly quiet, you can play them without annoying a sleeping parent or a neighbor in an adjoining apartment. They are portable, they can be taken on a family vacation where space is at a premium. Musical: Usually they provide more rebound than a drum head, which helps in developing single strokes but especially rolls. Articulation: The sound of each stroke is cleaner giving the player important feedback on the precision of their playing. Developing positional accuracy: Drawing a circle the size of a quarter on the pad provides a ...

CMT or Culturally Modified Trees. I posted some pics of these trees from various places in Colorado in January. However, according to the Ute Tribal Nation (composed of many smaller bands) the only culturally modified trees are certain pine trees that have been stripped of portions of their bark. Sometimes for food, medicine or spiritual purposes.  I found this information on the Colorado Archaeology website which included a number of letters from some of the Nation's Tribal elders. If you do a search for CMTs you will find quite a few articles and even some videos about them. Since I have no expertise on the subject other than walking and photographing things, I will honor the statements from these Elders. So, what did I find? These trees showed some obvious manipulation but according to the BLM, NFS, and many archaeologists they may have been caused by natural occurrences. Although the Utes were the dominant tribe in this area, there were also Cheyenne and Arapaho.  Until I ...

A colloquialism common in Pittsburgheese which means tidying up. And that's what we have been doing for about 3 months now. My wife decided to get into some of her 'keepsake' boxes recently. Among the newspaper clippings, pictures and souvenirs she found a letter that Mr. Rogers sent to me in 1990. If you're from Pittsburgh it's in your blood to watch the Steelers and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. One of his episodes in the early 70's featured a group of people who introduced an African Talking Drum or Dundun (also Donno among others). They discussed how by changing the inflection of the pitch of the drum and using various rhythms one could have a conversation with others. Years later in 1989 I spent a month in San Francisco teaching Band and Percussion at an elementary school summer camp. I found a Dundun in the back of a cabinet while taking inventory and decided to use it for their final performance of the camp. I remembered that the word for 'hello' was...

When I first started playing percussion one could always easily find snare drum sticks and maybe a small assortment of keyboard mallets. But in my small town finding anything other than a Ludwig timpani mallet was next to impossible and they were only available by special order. At the time Ludwig mallets were made with a hard felt center core covered by soft felt, sort of a quasi general mallet. I used these mallets during my high school years. It wasn't until I got to college that I had access to professional timpani mallets and fortunately my instructor Stanley Leonard had us use Street mallets. William Street was his instructor at Eastman at that time. These were a set of three pairs of mallets: General (wood core with German felt), Recorder or staccato (same as the General with a thinner covering of German felt), and Scherzo (cork core with the same thickness of German felt as the Recorder). All of them had rattan handles. I later added Roll model (soft) mallets. When I beg...

It can be very easy to get into a gloom and doom attitude while being isolated and then watching the daily news. But there are always acts of kindness out there, some small and others large. When coaching for the Youth Symphony I was always looking for new equipment for the Percussion Section. Once again going back to their performance of Carmina Burana in 2012 (see my 'castanet post'). We also needed an anvil for this performance but rather than using the small 8 inch steel plate that I had donated a few years before, I wanted to get a real anvil sound. I went to a local steel fabrication company to see what I could find. When I went into the office I was confronted by the secretary at the front desk. She was a no nonsense middle aged lady with a rather gruff attitude. In other words, she was the one who was really in charge. I explained that I wanted to get a section of steel 'I-beam' for the performance. She asked for some more information about what I needed and af...

As inconvenient as it is to teach by Skype or any other platform during the Covid-19 isolation, I'm finding small threads of silver lining. In this instance I'm speaking of pencil and paper work. Two of my advanced students are entering high school this fall semester and they have been given  audition music for their seating. For snare drum they are to play a portion of Etude #6 from the Anthony Cerone book 'Portraits in Rhythm'. This book has become standard literature for concert snare drum since it was first published in 1966. Complicated rhythms, phrasing, metric modulation, dynamics, these are just a few of the musical issues that Mr. Cerone has advanced for snare drum education. Understanding subdivision is one aspect for Etude #6. Written in 5/4 this piece contains everything from Half notes down to 32nd notes which can be intimidating to the young student. For their assignment I had them write out the rhythm counting eighth notes as the beats (making 10 beats...