A Percussionist's Notebook

It's not just for pencils anymore We all have at least one of these, and depending upon the musician they can hold pencils, reeds, picks, etc. For a percussionist it can be used to hold a triangle beater, no more clanking sounds when picking it up and replacing it on the stand shelf. Or worse yet, from the beater dropping on the floor when turning the page. Cut the shelf into 6" lengths and glue felt or a rubber sheet to the inside. Triangle beater holder It can also hold drum sticks. Cut 2 sections about 2 1/2" long and add the felt/rubber. Drum stick holder I used it for the battery holder and the stand light mount.

My wife performs at a restaurant once a month. She has been doing this since 1974. Recently she asked me if I could adapt 1 of our traditional stand lights that needs to be plugged into an outlet to a battery operated one.  I had actually done this last year when I needed a stand light with no access to an outlet. I had taken the AC parts out of the light and just stuck in 2 LED units that I got from Harbor Freight. These are units that they give out for free when you purchase other products. They are rated at 144 lumens per light, and since I used two that gave me 288 Lumens. Plenty for full stand coverage. The problem is the switch. One click and it's a flashlight (at the end), another click turns it off. A third click turns on the broad beam, and finally a 4th click turns it off. When the light is turned off from the broad beam (for reading the music), the next click turns on the flashlight and shines to the side. I covered the flashlight part with elect...

Last night we read an article that the momma bear had been put down by the Wildlife Service. The story went on to say that a bear was seen near an elementary school acting strangely.  It was said to be having trouble breathing  After they tranquilized the bear they determined that it was sick (?) and decided to euthanize it. They tranquilized the cubs but no information beyond that. This family had become celebrities in the neighborhood for the past month or so.  I would hear comments like "Yeah, they were at my house last night or I saw them walking down the middle of the street yesterday afternoon". I think we all new it was destined not to end well. To my knowledge she never showed any signs of aggression but it was only a matter of time before some confrontation would take place. Mothers protect their children, human or nonhuman. I only hope that the cubs will be either relocated (they are old enough) or otherwise placed in a safe environment. Meanwhile I consider ...

Mad Wax I've tried many ways to help with tambourine thumb/finger rolls.  Different brands of tambourine wax, waxes for different applications, sandpaper, etc. I've also ruined a number of tambourines with these experiments including one particular messy incident using cross country ski wax. By far the best commercial wax that I've found is made by Black Swamp. It doesn't build up in layers, doesn't produce globs, and is effective on both skin and synthetic heads. The only problem with this wax as with all waxes is they tend to get lost.  At nearly $10 a pop this drained my YS budget along with wing nuts, wing bolts, cymbal stand felts/sleeves, etc. I thought that if I could develop a recipe for my own wax and make it in bulk it would be less expensive. I chose to use bees wax as the basic ingredient. Then added glycerin, lanolin, white paper glue, lip balms, and fingertip moistener individually and in different combinations. All of these had drawbacks that ca...

No, I'm not swearing about my stick bag. Although trying to use a stick bag to hold mallets on a marimba would be cause for using a few choice words. I'm talking about a stick bag that literally flips when used to hold marimba mallets when mounted on a marimba. First I need to clear up my definition of a 'mallet bag' as opposed to a 'stick bag'. A 'Mallet bag'  has pockets between 14"&15" deep and fairly narrow, about 4" wide. Both the depth and the width is important to keep the mallets from leaning over and flipping the bag. Even with these dimensions it is still important to have some tie or hook system along the top of the bag to support it vertically. A 'stick bag' has shorter and wider pockets, 9"-10" and 4"-6" respectively.  Sometimes a stick bag has vertical supports. Where they are mounted is the actual difference between the 2. The stick bag is usually placed on the floor tom of a drum set, alte...

We came home from a weekend at Steamboat Springs yesterday. It seems the bears had a picnic under the pine tree in our front yard. My neighbor snapped this pic of the diners before they came to our house (restaurant?) . There were hamburger wrappers, napkins, and paper cups with straws all around. I didn't know bears used straws. They even left their own 'calling cards' in the lawn and driveway.  We have had a momma bear and 2 cubs in the neighborhood for about 3 weeks now.  Yes they are wild and yes they (she) is potentially dangerous, but not nearly as frightening as this visitor we had about 15 years ago. That's our house on the other side of the fence. At the time, our other neighbor had some ceramic deer statues in his yard and the lion decided to investigate.

I used a black bottle brush and bent the lower part to form a hook. Above the hook is a small portion of the brush which imitates a peacock hurl on a tied nymph. The body of the nymph is ivory colored yarn and the black legs and brown wings are the polyester bristles from paint brushes. At the top next to the eye of the hook is 'eyelash' yarn I found at a hobby store. Side view and front view The fish is 15" long by 10" wide. The fly is 5" long. It was a fun project, but I'm glad it's finished. I've decided to give it to him for his birthday in October.

I'm not going to explain how to wrap marimba or vibe mallets, there are a number of videos on YouTube for that. They range from just OK to excellent. These are just my ideas, concepts and opinions that I've developed over the years of wrapping and teaching my students to wrap (No, not RAP!). Yarn Brown Sheep®, I Love This Yarn®, Patons® Kroy Socks  Acrylic #3 weight (commonly called Sport weight): This is the first yarn that I have my students use. It's inexpensive, durable and easy to handle.  Wool or wool blend #1 (also called Baby or Fingering yarn): It's more expensive, doesn't last as long as acrylic but produces a better sound and shape for my purposes.   Cotton: I don't like cotton nor do I recommend it to my students. It produces a harsh ictus on the bars. Mallet head  The hardness of the finished mallet is mainly determined by the hardness of the core (soft/medium/hard rubber, nylon/poly/etc.).  Mole skin or latex (surgical) t...

For the Spring Concert of 2019 the percussion section had one piece that required quite a few accessory instruments. We had accessory tables and one accessory holder but this piece required multiple players using multiple instruments. Adding more tables would add more space that we knew we would not have at the concert venue. The only solution was more accessory holders. I purchased a 'Gibralter' mounting clamp and built the remainder of the holder around it.  3/4" square tube as the base of the mount.  Drilled 2 holes to accept the mounting clamp.  Drilled 2 holes for the mounting(vertical) posts.  1/4" bolts (2) with lock washers and nuts for the mounting posts. That was it. Pretty simple and effective. But we needed a second one. Not able to buy another 'Gibralter' mounting clamp I borrowed the idea from the 'Reitiesher II' horizontal triangle holder clamping system. Since I had some 8mm all-thread left over from another project, ...

Since our mother passed away in 2008, my brother and I have Skyped nearly every Sunday. If you read my 'Welcome post' he was my first drum teacher and a very influential person in my musical life. For whatever reason we started to talk about connections to historical people last Sunday. That  made me think about famous musicians of course. So..... 1965- my wife(girlfriend at the time) and I had a class with musician and musicologist Fredrick Dorian. One day as we entered his apartment we found Rudolf Serkin sitting on a chair in conversation with Dr. Dorian. Serkin was in town to play Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the Pittsburgh Symphony. After introductions were made Mr. Serkin stood up and shook hands with all of us students in the class. My memory of him was a very soft spoken, humble man and very easy to talk to. That made me think of connections: Rudolf Serkin (1) Serkin met Schnabel at a concert in Berlin 1921. Artur Schnabel (2) Theodor Leschetizky (Schnabel...

Fish trivet While I was restoring the set of Deagan Bells I was also making a gift for my friend who gave them to me. We first met in high school, he was a senior and I was a junior. Different schools but we roomed together with a host family at a state orchestra festival. He also dated my wife when they were in Jr. high. We share a lot of interests other than music (he's a Bass player) and one of them is fly fishing. When my wife saw a picture of a fish trivet in a catalog, she suggested this as a Christmas present for him. We decided that I should try to make one instead of purchasing it. I made a pattern from paper, cut it out and traced it on a piece of 1"x 8" poplar board. Jig saw and scroll saw were used to cut the wood, a drill press for the holes. The pieces were sanded and hand rubbed with 3 coats of food grade walnut oil. The vertebrae were small wooden wheels from a hobby store. A length of #10 x 20TPI all thread was used to connect everything t...

The Felt Strips I didn't find any felt that I thought appropriate for the replacement so I tried other materials. I needed strips that were 1/2" wide by 3/8" thick.   Weather stripping- Too soft, it dampened the resonance.  Plastic tubing- Too hard, it produced a buzz.  Closed cell foam (Backpacker's insulation pad)- Perfect! Goldilocks would be proud. Since I was playing with silicon I decided to try adding a bead of silicon to the top of the foam to hear the results. This produced a ring that lasted for 2 minutes. That was great!.....for some applications but not for bells. It also brought out the higher partials and over powered the fundamental pitch. I went back to just the closed cell foam, but at least I know how to make a metal bell ring for a very long time. I cut the foam to the proper length. width, and height. Placed them over the wooden support rails and put holes in the foam to match.  Now I could install the bars. I p...

Escutcheon Pins, Washers and Isolators Most of the pins were bent but easily straightened. Just tapping them on a bench vise did the job. I replaced the one wood screw with a sheet metal screw for the lost pin. For the washers I used silicon caulking compound. Earlier this year I tried making sheets of silicon by applying caulk onto a plastic sheet protector. I placed another sheet on top and rolled it out to the desired thickness. After it cured I took a hole punch for the outside diameter of the size that I needed. The smallest punch was used for the center hole for the pin. In the past I used catheter material for the isolators but when I went to a medical supply store to find the size that I needed I was asked for my doctor's prescription. A prescription?.....Are they afraid that I'm going to insert a piece of plastic into parts of my body just for the...….never mind. OK, so nix the catheter tubes. Since I was working with silicon I tried a di...

Deagan Round Top Bells #1120 A friend of mine was cleaning out his Music room recently and found an old set of bells that he purchased in Pittsburgh when he taught music in their school district. He asked me if I were interested in having them and when he opened the case I said YES!! Being just shy of 100yrs old they were in decent condition. The case was badly scratched but structurally sound, the bars were rusted,   the escutcheon pins were bent (one was replaced with a wood screw), the rail felts were compacted and turning to powder, the rubber washers and pin isolators were crumbled into small bits at least the ones that were left. Refurbishing this was going to be an adventure! The Bars The first priority was the bars. I didn't want to use a grinder, buffer, or harsh chemicals that would affect the intonation. I decided to use distilled vinegar and salt. As an experiment I chose the most rusted bar, the High 'F'. I soaked it for 28hrs and liked the resul...

We have finally grown more zucchini this year so we started looking for recipes other than our traditional zucchini bread, batter fried or sauteed.  Since the larger ones look like eggplant when sliced, we thought about replacing the eggplant with zucchini to make zucchini parmesan. It worked! Zucchini isn't bitter like eggplant can be and it doesn't need to have excess moisture removed. It's also not a Nightshade plant (I've read that some people have issues with Nightshades). We just followed an eggplant parmesan recipe and used the zucchini instead. We also had a lot of choke cherries from our small 8' tree (bush?) About 10 years ago I read about making 'shrubs'. Before soft drinks were commercially available, people would make a shrub from cherries, berries and other fruit. It's basically a concentrated syrup that can be added to water, sparkling water, gin, vodka or whatever. We got enough choke cherries to make 2 quarts.

Wing nuts for cymbal stands are not very expensive, unless 10-15 are lost during the course of a year. This is what happened during the 2017 season of the YS. Maybe because there was an increase of touring which meant a lot of packing and unpacking, or just coincidental.  But the result was the same: time spent on budgeting and then ordering parts. Another problem was with tightening the wing nuts. Some students felt that it should be threaded on the post until it contacted the sleeve and then add another 4 or 5 turns for good measure. This required more budgeting and ordering to replace the damaged sleeves. Sometimes when setting up the cymbal, the wing nut would take flight and be forever lost on the floor. For some it was easier to go to the cabinet to get a new one rather than look for the original. Then there was the problem of choosing which threading was needed. Is it 6mm, 8mm, or the older 1/4" x 20 tpi (we had all three)? I wanted to find a system that would attach ont...

Non-percussionists playing on percussion instruments before and after rehearsals, during breaks and any other time there is no active rehearsal happening. This occurs all too often in many schools and organizations. This is a big problem for at least 3 reasons: 1. It shows a lack of respect for the instrument and to the owner. 2. It reinforces the idea that the percussion instruments are toys and requires very little technique and musicianship. 3. There is an increased chance of damage to the instrument. Ownership: Brass, wind and string instruments are normally owned or rented by the student (or parent) while most percussion instruments are owned by the school or organization, particularly the large instruments such as timpani/mallets/bass drum etc. Stating at the beginning of the year or season  that non-percussionists are never to play the instruments is important. This should be followed by monitoring on a daily basis and reminders when the rule is broken. When coachi...

Many things that I have made go through an evolutionary process. Sometimes they are subtle changes but more often the final design has very little to do with the original concept. The Nickster was one of those projects that had a common thread from the beginning. The 1st appearance 'circa 2008' shows a strong resemblance to the later versions. I had the right idea but I didn't aggressively follow through with it until 2014 (see The Nickster post 7/22/19). I used a bicycle rear mount support, heat shrink tubing, rubber grommets and nylon cord. 2014 the Nickster 1.0: I wanted to use a semicircle of aluminum to fit in the space between the thumb and index/middle finger. I had hoped this would make the design intuitive to someone who has experience only with the 'glue clamp' designs. It wasn't intuitive to many students and it was  only playable for right handed players. 2015 the Nickster 2.0: I continued to use the semicircle but I made a version for l...

My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary earlier this summer. We spent 4 days at Chimayo in northern New Mexico, one of our favorite places. We were in 1 of only 7 rooms in a hacienda that had no TV, internet, or cell phone coverage. In the evenings we walked through the court yard, read and talked with each other. Talk about pulling the plug on technology, this was the perfect gift that we could have given ourselves. Our 1st outing took us to the El Santuario de Chimayo, a small church about a mile from the hacienda, famous as a pilgrimage destination known for it's 'healing soil'. This beautiful contemplative place set the tone for the rest of our stay. The following day we went to the Mesa Prieta Project area (prior reservations required). Not as well known as the Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque but it is estimated to have nearly 100,000 petroglyphs from paleo times through the Spanish era (and some modern graffiti). Mounted rider from ...