A Percussionist's Notebook

Skyping with my brother the subject of The Twilight Zone came up. He had been watching episodes from the original series and told me it was on the SCY-FI channel. That's all it took, I programmed our DVR to record each episode as it was broadcast. I was 12 years old when this series first aired in 1959. I remember waiting every week for the next episode and then going to bed and having delicious nightmares. It was one of the programs that I call 'The Challenge Series'. It was one of a group of programs that included 'Inner Sanctum', 'The Adventures of Ellery Queen', among many others including the mysteries we listened to on the radio. I call them the 'Challenge Series' because it wasn't enough to just watch or listen to them. About half way through each program our mother would ask the same question......'What is going to happen?' Most of the time we all had different answers and many times we were all wrong. Being right or wrong wasn...

Okay, we didn't plant broccoli but zucchini would screw up the alliteration. I had to remove the cages because the plants quickly outgrew them. Besides, they were ugly. Instead we had to rely on my recipe......Bunny Ban. Water, red pepper flacks, garlic, Tobasco Sauce, and dish washing liquid. Set in the sun for 4 days, filter into a spray bottle. So far it's working and we are already harvesting zucchini.  I hope bears don't like peppers and garlic.😬 

We have never had many bunnies near us, the fox, coyotes, hawks, and owls have dined on them over the years. The first week of June I did see a small bunny running through the back yard and was happy to see they were making a come back, and then our garden was planted. At first we would just see him scamper away when we went to water the garden. Then we noticed a leaf was missing from a pumpkin plant that just sprouted, a squash blossom was gone, and then two entire pumpkin plants went missing. We had to face the harsh reality that we were witnessing a remake of 'Night of the Lepus'*. I started to imagine that the situation was escalating to the point that they would attack our neighbor's dog, or we would find the partially eaten carcasses of deer and bear behind our house.  It was time to take action. We added hardware cloth fencing around the small plants, I made a concoction of cayenne pepper/garlic/dish soap per instruction from the internet. The promise of a bountiful ...

What I didn't say in my post about practice pads was my concern about one particular student. She has been playing less than a year and doing quite well even during the Skype lessons because of the Covid-19 isolation. Her problem is making the transition from a concert (buzz) roll to an open (rudimental) roll.   I start my students on rolls with the concert roll because it's easier to achieve positive results quickly.  My philosophy is: " If you don't teach you student how to play a roll within the first 2 months of lessons, then they will just learn it on the streets."  However, playing the open roll is a necessity to not only play different styles but also to gain more stick control. A practice pad gives more 'bounce' to the rebound of a stroke than an actual snare drum, which means the player must 'control' that added rebound. By now she has learned to react to the rebound from the drum but needs to develop more control that only a stronger rebo...

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. ...