A Percussionist's Notebook

 I have made silicon pads from caulking for about 3 years for various applications. Sound dampening for the Nickster, bumpers, washers and tubing for the Deagan glockenspiel, stick pads, etc. I've used clear, white, and black, putting in water mixed with dish detergent, mixed it with corn starch, or simply put it between two pieces of paper and pressed until it cured. Clear seems to be the best for my needs. It' sets up firm, isolates sound, and provides a great rebound for practice pads.  White is softer, very pliable, and provides less rebound.  Black is extremely soft and pliable, and provides very little rebound. But it isolates the best. Mixing with detergent causes air bubbles in the final product. Corn starch creates a mess. Just pressing works the best.  My normal procedure is to place a sheet of paper on a plywood board, squirt the caulking onto the paper, cover it with a second sheet of paper and put another plywood board on top and press. Remove the top...

  OK so it's not really Damascus and I've been watching too much Forged in Fire.  What I've been trying to do is make the Nickster black or otherwise dark so it's not so shiny. Paint easily chips off, anodizing or powder coating are expensive.  I started with matte black acrylic paint and wiped it off in a swirling motion just enough to give it an interesting pattern. After it dried I applied a layer of 2 part epoxy to protect it.    I've given up on the total sound/vibration isolation (for now), and only used a small amount of vinyl foam where it contacts the music stand. I should probably practice my swirling technique to make look less blotchy.

 About 4 years ago the Colorado Springs Children's Choir asked the Youth Symphony Percussion Section to play cricket and frog parts for one of their songs. I had some cricket and frog carvings that friend's had given me so I started experimenting with them. The first problem that I found was that these instruments didn't provide a loud enough dynamic to blend with the choir. The second problem was the mallets (sticks) that came with the instruments didn't create a consistent sound when they were played. The solution for the dynamics was to use woodblocks instead of the carvings. I had multiple sizes creating different pitches. Using woodblocks, however, required different mallets since they weren't 'scraped' but 'struck'.  This new mallet had to provide 3 or 4 strokes in an extremely fast succession. I glued different sized wooden balls (from Hobby Lobby) to various lengths of very thin gauge piano wire (from Ace Hardware). After the glue dried I det...

  ( This also explains a student's mind shift when hoketing [see Amadinda]) One of the more common rhythms for snare drum in a concert band are 'After beats', the Bass drum plays the 'Down beats (1,2,3,4,etc.) and the Snare drum plays the 'ands' of the beats. Normally the instruction process starts with the teacher having the student counting all  of the eighth notes (1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &), but playing only on the &'s. This is a good introduction but it shouldn't stop here. As the student improves with their stick control, their ability requires a different way of thinking. The first thing is to find the Tempo that the student is comfortable playing. I choose a Tempo slightly slower than this.   1. I have the student play all  of the eighth notes along with a metronome.  2.  They continue to play all  of the eighths but the downbeats are played on the rim of the drum.    3.  Now they play the downbeats either in the air or...

  Body puffs are great to use but are wasteful considering that they tell you to replace them every month. Last summer I took one apart to see if I could use it for something else. Carefully cutting the inside string that holds it together, I found that it was a tube about 14 ft. long. Because of it's 'X' design and made of plastic, the diameter will expand to about 1 ft.  The first thing that came to mind was to make vegetable/fruit bags. I sprayed the entire tube with Lysol to kill any bacteria and mold and cut a length 2 ft. long. Because the plastic is slippery a simple knot will not stay in place so I tied an overhand knot on 1 end and turned the bag inside out. I then tied another overhand knot above the 'captured' knot. This made the bottom of the bag secure. So far I've have found that each bag can hold 5 apples/oranges, or 2 sweet potatoes. After filling the bags, a simple overhand knot keeps them from opening in the basket. Because of the double knot o...

 It seems that a side effect of the isolation from the Covid pandemic is a plethora of weird dreams (nightmares). The plot of my latest one was arriving at a concert with 8 mallets. None of which matched!

 People who grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania know about Shorty's, or more properly Shorty's Lunch. First opened in the 1930's, Shorty's was and still is the only place to eat lunch in Washington, PA. Like so many Washingtonians, I grew up eating Shorty's hamburgers and hotdogs. Just to clarify, it's the hotdogs that are most famous but when I was about 8 or 9 I ate too many of his hotdogs and got sick. This had nothing to do with their quality but rather to the size of my eyes compared to the size of my stomach.  "Four with everything". That's all you would have to say and you would get 4 hotdogs with mustard (yellow), onion and sauce. Their sauce of course was a family secret consisting of ground hotdog, chili and  those special other things .  Like so many expatriates, I would go to Shorty's whenever I returned home to visit family and friends. But living 1,400 miles from Shorty's limits my visits. So I have been trying to make my own...