A Percussionist's Notebook

A week ago while trimming in my backyard (a chore that I like even less than mowing) I had to stop a number of times to untangle the cords in the automatic feed. This is a procedure that I have learned to do quickly since it's an ongoing issue with this model. I can do it with my eyes closed (which led to my latest disaster). As I turned on the trimmer this time I heard this horrendous rattling sound and saw all of the line spin out of the trimmer.   Actually it was kind of cool looking. There was no discernable end showing and there were tangles that were technically impossible to create. Except they did. After trying to untangle this impossibly formed DNA Helix I gave up and just cut the cord in pieces to remove it. After a trip to Ace Hardware to pick up the proper weight cord I returned and wound it back on. It was now that I realized that the cord retainer cap was missing. Evidently I did not pop in the cap securely the last time I fixed it. So...... I returned to the bac...

 I just realized that this sounds like a 'James Bond' type spy thriller. Actually it involves my attempts to produce a non-reflective finish for so many of my aluminum projects. Powder coating and anodizing are the typical processes to produce this finish but they are expensive or require car battery chargers and caustic chemicals for the DIYers.  I've tried a flat black paint using etching preps etc. but they all resulted in the paint chipping off quickly when tossed around and hitting other things in an accessory case. Since I use a 2 part epoxy to connect the parts of the Nickster together with perfect results, I thought about using this as a bass coat for the paint (see my Nickster Commemorative post). This result had promise but the finish became glossy even though I used the matte black paint in the mixture.  I came up with this idea from an accident. After the epoxy/paint mixture experiment I left some of the mixture out and some of the paint had dripped on the mix...

 AND YET ANOTHER REASON TO HATE MOWING THE GRASS!!!   After mowing this last time, I kept smelling pine. There is a pine tree close to where I keep the lawn mower and occasionally I brush up against it and get sap on my hands or shoes but not this time.  No, this time that pine tree had a more sinister plan. It dropped a glob of the stuff on the back of my head (one of the few places that I have what's left of my hair). I only found it about 5 hours after it happened, so I Googled how to get rid of it. Olive oil, a hot wash cloth with olive oil wrapped on my head for 10 minutes did it. I'm now free of pine sap but smell like a tossed salad. Not only does the sap smell but it's sticky. I hate sticky (even more than mowing). I wore a beard for 40+ years and didn't eat pancakes the entire time because I didn't want the syrup sticking on my beard.  OK, so no more sticky pine smell and as for the salad? My Grandmother, Grandfather, Mother, Aunts, Uncles and cousins w...

As in 'Little Miss....' Our kitchen window is a great place to grow cactus. One in particular was from a trip to south eastern Colorado in 1974. We also put in herbs, orchids, and other things in there which creates a hot bed of little flying things.    About 2 months ago we started to notice that we had fewer and fewer of those flying things. But we did see some little dots on the shelf at the bottom of the window. That's when we noticed Muffet in the upper left hand corner of the window. Muffet is a cobweb spider (I looked it up on Google), one of the most common house spiders in the US. Normally Patti does not tolerate spiders in the house but we began to think there may be a correlation between Muffet's appearance and the lack of flying things. Sure enough, I watched her crawling towards a small dot stuck in her web. After about 5 minutes of dining she dropped the bug on the shelf, exactly where we find them.  This symbiotic relationship has given me a lot of entert...

 I timed myself mowing the lawn this morning. I hate mowing the lawn! Even though this sub-23 minutes is considerably shorter than mowing the family lawn when I was a boy. Our yard back then was larger, the front and back was equal to about 3 football fields and took about 24 hours to finish (there might be a slight exaggeration  here). It rains a lot in Pennsylvania which normally means we had to mow very often. It doesn't rain very much in Colorado and 'green' grass is not native to the area. Buffalo grass and yucca yes but not that stuff that makes it look like a New England countryside. Also, there are only 1 or 2 roads to get anywhere in Colorado unlike PA where they invented the "toll road" and multiple main, secondary and tertiary roads. When our uncles, aunts and cousins would come visiting the conversation always started with " What route did you take to get here?" That led to a half hour discussion about any and all variations of routes. After ...

 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...

  The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators. There was no reason for this project other than to see if I could make a simple mallet instrument. The box was made from plywood (which also acted as the resonators) and the bars were made from maple.  Since this was to be a true xylophone, the bars were all of equal width. Tuning was done by cutting the bars to different lengths and removing material from the bottom. Using a router I created a sort of 'stepped pyramid' instead of the traditional arc cut found on marimba or xylophone bars.  Cutting the underside is not only for tuning but it focuses the pitch and creates the characteristic overtones of the instrument. Since I wanted to play this with other 'Western' instruments, I chose to use a pentatonic scale of 2 2/5 octaves (C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#). Two people sit on either side of the instrument and strike the ends of ...

 During one Spring Break Patti and I spent a week on the Hopi mesas. We ate traditional Hopi food, visited private homes where the women displayed their pots and weaving and learned some of the traditional stories from some of the men. My favorite (and unexpected) part however, was when we stopped at a gas station below the mesa on our way home. As I was paying for our gas the man taking the payment had a recording of a recent dance ceremony that took place on top of one of the mesas. He couldn't stand still but was moving along with the rhythms of the recording. I was captivated, I started asking questions about the music and found out that he had led that particular ceremony. He spent the next 30 minutes talking about the importance of water for his people and the need to implore for spring rains for the coming crops. The important instrument for this ceremony is a wooden rasp placed on top of a gourd. Painted with a frog on one side and the symbol for rain on the other, the soun...

Plug the vacuum into only one outlet per level of your house. If the cord doesn't allow the vacuum to reach all of the level then it probably doesn't need to be vacuumed. The next time you vacuum try a different outlet, but remember only one outlet per level.  If there is something on the floor that the vacuum misses, keep going over it but NEVER pick it up with your fingers. If it can't be vacuumed it probably belongs there. Everybody has a job to do. Mine is to push the vacuum. The vacuum's job is to pick things up.                                                                                                                                      ...

 I recently watched a video at History Colorado that featured lithophones found in the Great Sand Dunes National Monument.  Archeologist Marilyn A. Martorano displayed a collection of these cigar shaped stones. Lithophones from Great Sand Dunes NM  For the demonstration they were suspended on top of a rope ala marimba bars and struck with hard rubber mallets. They could also be suspended vertically from a string or hand at their vibrating node (about 28% of the length) producing a ringing sound.  I have heard of 'Kiva Stones' that have been found in ancient Kivas that were presumably used for ceremonial purposes. In The Cave of The Winds here in Colorado Springs the guides tap on some of the stalactites to show visitors the sounds that some of them make. Although there doesn't seem to be any evidence that people ever used them for this purpose. On a hike near Bandelier NM I came across a large flat rock that resonated when I stepped on it. I spent an hour playing on ...

 In my continuing quest for sound isolation I tried another variation with The Nickster. I glued leather to the inside and outside of the holder. My logic here was since the vibration is canceled when I placed my fingers on it while it's mounted on the music stand the vibration actually stops. I spent 1 day experimenting with the proper glue to adhere the leather to the aluminum and another 2 days gluing it.  EURICA! And just like the spelling above, it didn't work. After 3 days I had a Nickster clad in leather that allowed the same amount of vibration to travel through the music stand. Yes it didn't work, but on the bright side I can call it the 2021 Anniversary Edition!

 One of our first backpacking trips in Colorado was in the Sangre de Christo Mountains. One mountain in particular drew our attention. Marble Mountain was the location of a famous story of a Spanish cave of gold. There are many places on the web that tell this story better than I could, suffice it to say that we wanted to locate it and see the iconic 'Maltese Cross' located at it's entrance.  In 1974 after I got out of the Army we invited some friends to join us on this trip. We parked our car at the trailhead in the Wet Mountain Valley and backpacked up Marble Mountain to 12,000 feet. In one of the culverts we found the entrance to the cave. Maltese Cross at the Caverna del oro It turned out to be a real thing. The large red cross was still visible after 400 yrs. According to legend the Spanish put it there in the 1600's. I did have the courage to crawl into it but only a few feet. After about 10 feet there is a vertical shaft that drops about 750 feet!  The Cross is v...

I wrote about rattles in an earlier post. There are many examples in museum collections of rattles made from various material, so their existence is evident. Foot Drums however, are a subject of some controversy. Some archaeologists propose that the rectangular pits in the 'great kivas' were covered with wooden platforms and the people would dance(?) on them. I used the (?) because 'dance' implies an art form or a secular celebration. I'm using it as merely the rhythmic movement of the feet. Also there are arguments that their use was for other purposes such storage bins, germinating beds for seedlings and who knows what else. A possible foot drum in Chetro Ketl    In the Bandelier NM backcountry is the 'Painted Cave', a natural amphitheater formed by volcanic tuff. This material is soft enough that one could dig into it with finger nails although the people who lived here most likely used stone tools for the task. The entire area is littered with small cave...

 No sound effects collection is complete without a 'Pop Gun' sound. Most commercial pop guns are small, giving a sharp high pitched sound. But they are expensive, the professional ones are about $50 as opposed to the 'toy' pop guns that give  a 'plop' for $10. That's OK for most situations but I wanted to get a bigger sound. After all, why take a pop gun to a bazooka fight?  I built mine from left over scraps. I used a PVC pipe 1 1/8" dia. x 15" long. The inside is a 1" dowel with a small dowel inserted to limit the travel and protect the hand when playing. The top of the slider has a piece of leather forming a loose fitting seal on the inside of the PVC pipe, and a cork for the end. This gives a much bigger and lower pitched sound than one would expect for the weasel/monkey song, but less than the 1812 Overture would need. It would be nice to make one with a 4" PVC pipe but I'm afraid it might violate some nuclear treaty.