Odyssey  -  Pearlbamboo Takes on the Drumkit

A vintage Pearl drum kit - One snare drum, a bass drum, two tom-toms  - plus cymbals:-  8" Sabian Hi-Hat Splash,10" UFIP splash,13" Sabian HHX Manhattan Jazz Hi-Hats,20" Sabian Artisan Ride, 20" Zildjian K Constantinople Ride, 21" Sabian Signature Fierce Ride, 22" Sabian Raw Ride.  You can see the foot pedals for the bass drum and for the hi-hat.  Ride cymbals on the right, the crash above the hi-hat on the left. Thread about this drumkit is here.

And the beat goes on.  

In its present form, the basic drumkit consists of a snare drum on a stand and a bass drum that rests on the floor and is played with a pedal, usually with the right foot.  There are two or three tom-toms, some raised and attached to the bass drum, the largest one resting on stand on the floor.  These have a full, resonant open sound, unlike the snare drum with its rattling metal snares.

Then there are cymbals.  For basic stuff, three will do.  One needs a hi-hat, two smaller cymbals on a metal stand, placed usually to the drummer's left and played with the left foot on a pedal and/or with a stick, sometimes with both.  A crash cymbal does exactly that - it makes a loud and sharp crashing sound, as opposed to the rather dry sound of the hi-hats, of a short duration.  The ride cymbal rides the music, frequently keeps the rhythm.  It produces a shimmering, even purring sound that lasts, "sustain" is the drummer's word, unlike the crash cymbal's fast decay.

This website has gold - mp3 clips of all the various cymbals he carries - hi-hats, rides, crashes, splashes, chinas, all played alone and with a drumkit. .

If you listen - knowing the different sounds, the crash and the shimmering rhythmic ride sound, the somewhat dry tic of the hi-hat - you can begin to distinguish which is which.when you're listening to music. That's cool.  

The drummer's chair?  Yes, it's called the throne.

For more detailed information on drumkit componants, you can follow the links here.

Layout?  The wiki article has a lousy picture of layout.  I've not yet found one I like that really shows things from the drummer's perspective AND labels the componants, but I'm not done looking.

I can't get the drum kit sounds in the main wiki article to load. 

But there is a neat home video here, in the first post in the thread by fourstringdrums (scroll down a little), that I found while cruising drum forums.  

This drummer reverses the layout of his instruments to compensate for problems with his right leg, using his stronger left leg to play the bass drum, but the videos are so nifty, never mind.   He not only provides a diagram, but goes through each item in the drum kit to show its sound.  Right-handed drummers would normally have the hi-hat on the left, toms on the right with the ride cymbols.

Some drummers add things - a second bass drum, a double bass drum pedal, more cymbals, sometimes lots more, more toms, roto toms tuned to a pitch, or embellishments like cowbells.   

If this piques your curiosity, there is a forum with a section for posting pictures of one's kit here.  Many of the drummers have photographed their kits from above, the most helpful view for me, but don't label the parts, only list them.  If you don't know a crash from a ride visually, that makes it hard, but I still found the threads fascinating.  

The drumkit didn't always look like this, nor did it boogie fully formed out of the mists of antiquity.  The next post will be on the history and development of the drumkit and the changes in styles that accompanied and frequently drove the changes, with as many links as I can find to players from the different eras.

Spang a lang, spang a lang, (go ahead, google it) and so long for now. 

pearlbamboo

Here is some gravy. Tony Royster at 12. The tom-toms are the ones with the reddish brown drumheads, the snare the one just in front of him with the white drumhead. His hi-hat is just on his left, played either with the pedal, the sticks or both. Keep an eye when you can on his legs and listen for the sort of soft boom boom boom of the bass drum - he gets kind of fast on that - while his left leg plays the hats and his arms are in some other part of the beat or even a different rhythm. Limb independence, that's what they call it.

Leaving
Fermenting
Sweet and lonely traces

Folding and scolding
In upon themselves
Like haiku,

I find you

pearlbamboo

copyright     e.p. hodges

a protected post follows.

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         On the Nature of Obsession and the Erotic: The New Guitar  

Dave LOVES guitars, truly loves them.  And most of all, he loves the tone.  It transports him when it is just right.  He's just acquired two new guitars, both top of the line Taylors, and I find that I fade quickly into the background as his energies are directed elsewhere. 

The only communication I've had since they arrived two days ago was an IM this morning in which he tells of his new love.

Here's the IM, with my "k's" and "ah's" and "?'s" all left out. 

D: with the house empty, i pulled her alone out of the case, deciding it wasn't fair to compare a mahogany/cedar to a cocobolo/engelmann, [he found himself liking the new cocobolo/englemann spruce one less than he thought he might and the one from the previous day more, the universe momentarily disordered] and as soon as i gave her a hard strum, she woke up!

Unbuttoning her coat, I pulled her close.  My hands roaming her body, I gave her a hard strum.  She awakened to me, the beginnings of the music we would make together escaping her throat in small, sweet moans. 

Journeys

I walk through fields,
Thorn bush edges,
Burned out grass, 
Stubborn flowers
In two pale colors,
Dry sticker weeds 
Piercing my feet.

I see falling rain
Fattening the earth,
Grass a green ocean
Holding me up
With its color,
Just above
Longing.

pearlbamboo

copyright   e.p. hodges

                   Odyssey  -  Or Pearlbamboo Takes on the Drums

                How I Learn To Hear Something Other Than Melodies

                             

This quest will lead me through some 100+ websites, most of them dealing with the drumkit, that collection of bass and snare drums, tom-toms and cymbals played by drummers since the 40's.  

I started with two questions.   Having practiced vocal or violin parts since early childhood, knowing what constitutes "practice," I asked bird, "How do you practice...."  since I wasn't really figuring it out myself.   "Well, I play rudiments...," he replied.  Leaving me to query, "Rudiments?"  He answered, "Yeah, flams and paradiddles and ratamques....,"  to which  I responded, "Erm, well, yeah....." secretly looking up "drum rudiments" on google while he explained a paradiddle on IM.  There it was - a musical world totally unknown to me.  I'm an explorer -  and off I went.

I was also tired of hearing only the melody line when I listened to music of any kind.  As it turned out, forcing myself to follow the drums underneath the melody line opened up my hearing in the most remarkable way.  I don't just know of this new sound world, I can hear it, trace it's development.  I love it.  Pearlbamboo has had more than one fantasy of owning a drum knit recently....

Questions opened out of questions as I followed this yellow brick road -

I started off with Steely Dan's album, Aja, long lost though loved, and recently replaced by D.  Each track except two had different drummers and some reviews waxed eloquent about what the different drummers were doing.  That started out as gobbledegook to me - I could read about it but couldn't hear it.  One reviewer loved Bernard Purdie's work with Steely Dan best of all, wrote all sparkly about his deep shuffle grove.  

And so I had to ask myself, What the hell is a shuffle groove?  and then had to break that down more to What is a shuffle, and What is a groove....

And I'm off to google....

You can hear the famous Bernard Purdie shuffle groove on Steely Dan's Babylon Sisters here.

Just scroll down below the video clips to Babylon Sisters, and click.  Then, if you are up for some fun, scroll up to look at the video clips, especially the first two, The Real Purdie Shuffle, parts 1 and 2.

Purdie originated the half time shuffle he plays here.  His right hand plays t he shuffle rhythm (more on that later) on the hi-hats or ride cymbal.  He hits the backbeats, 2 and 4, on the snare, while his busy right foot keeps the bass drum going with the rhythm or melody line of the bass player.   He's got ghost notes (ever heard of a ghost note?) and diddles helping the rhythm percolate along. 

And now you've heard a shuffle. I did too. I hadn't the faintest idea what a shuffle is, let alone a ghost note. Now, three weeks and lots and lots of websites later, I do.  A "groove," playing "in the pocket," a flam and a paradiddle, not to mention a paradiddle groove are no longer mysteries to me.

I'm gonna tell you how I found out, complete with sound clips, if you want to come along for the flam.....

pearlbamboo

copyright e. p. hodges

             ODYSSEY - FROM TONEWOODS TO THE DRUMKIT

                                Saltwater and Stradivarius

Talking about string instruments, D mentioned something about how some luthiers now believe that Stradivari violins owe their exquisite sound to the fact that the wood was soaked in brine for a long time before it was cured and used to make his violins and cellos.  

Tracking that down I came across the work of a biochemist from Texas A&M University, Dr. Joseph Nagyvary, who believes a Strad's unique sound is a result of the chemicals used on the woods Stradivarius chose for his instruments, including soaking the wood in brine until it was saturated, in combination with his innate craftsmanship

"One of the key factors in the vibrant tonal quality of the instruments made by Stradivari and others is that the wood they used was soaked in brine. Unlike naturally seasoned wood the soaked material used by Stradivari had very open pores – a fact that would be critical in the application of chemical finishes allowing aqueous solutions to penetrate much deeper into the material. In addition, the soaked the wood guaranteed mellowness."

There is more - with no woodworm damage evident, Nagyvary concluded that there must have been an insecticide in use.  He narrowed it down to borax, a natural polymer cross-linker.  Its application would make the wood tighter and harder and the sound more brilliant.  The brittle dried out gum from fruit gum trees worked as an antifungicide.  Mixed with crystaline powders, it created "a very shiny outer surface: extremely brilliant, very hard and very brittle."

A fuller explanation of Nagyvary's work is here. A discussion of the implications of these findings for the art of violin making is found here.

All of this is new to me, discovered since I stopped playing some 15 years ago. 

I start Googling and following links.  

I'm hooked. 

pearlbamboo

copyright    e.p. hodges 

                      ODYSSEY - FROM TONEWOODS TO THE DRUMKIT

And "What a long strange trip it's been...."

I'm a classically trained violinist, banging away on the piano since I was tall enough to get on the piano bench, studying violin since I was five.  

Playing  the violin influenced the way I listen to music.  I concentrate, focus on, hear the melody line, the tune, to the exclusion of almost everything else, which I hear, but just barely, as I keep bobbing along with the tune.  

Starting with looking at www.dreamguitars.com with Dave and hearing the sound clips of the different instruments (go to "preowned instruments" and click on the thumbnails to get to the page of details; mp3's are linked to from there), I began to develop a fascination with sound, and, ultimately, with teaching myself new ways to hear.  Pre-wobbly, I would have never been able to hear so many different instruments with different sounds and resonances and begin to relate sound the best I could to the woods used as well as to other factors like the kind of. bracing underneath a guitar top.  (knew about that, didn't ya....)  This website was like a box of chocolates.

We talked a bit about Brazilian rosewood, a tonewood protected  from harvest by international law since 1992, and its effects on sound.  It's used in making guitar backs and sides and the world's remaining stock is either stashed in luthiers' storerooms or in the hands of dealers.  It's the queen of tonewoods and instruments made with it are now expensive, many of them investment pieces. 

My ear isn't up to making really fine distinctions about the use of different tonewoods - spruce, maple, mahagony, koa, maple, etc - yet, but at least I know they're there.  (3/30 - I'll have to amend that - caught a big difference in sound this evening...)  My eyes, on the other hand, allow me to see Brazilian rosewood's beauty even if I can't hear what it does to sound very well yet.  (picture on the right is a Brazilian rosewood guitar back.)     

"Brazilian rosewood is known for its high sound velocity and broad range of overtones, also characterized by strength and complexity in the bottom end and an overall darkness of tone in the rest of the range. Strong mids and highs also contribute a richness of tone to the upper registers. Rosewood guitars also have a pronounced reverberant-like tone quality, caused by audible delays in the onset of certain harmonics. While both species exhibit complexity, darkness and a reverberant tone, Brazilian rosewood has tremendous clarity in the bottom end and sparkle in the top." 

Read it and weep.  The only replacement is Indian rosewood, and it's just not the same.         

A discussion of the acoustic qualities of all the tonewoods can be found here.      

pearlbamboo

copyright e.p.hodges

Here's another tale of the Country Formerly Known as America

Writers Jailed in 2002 for Political Satire

After three years at Guantanamo, Afghan writers found to be no threat to United States

BY JAMES RUPERT
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

October 31, 2005

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Badr Zaman Badr and his brother Abdurrahim Muslim Dost relish writing a good joke that jabs a corrupt politician or distills the sufferings of fellow Afghans. Badr admires the political satires in “The Canterbury Tales” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” and Dost wrote some wicked lampoons in the 1990s, accusing Afghan mullahs of growing rich while preaching and organizing jihad. So in 2002, when the U.S. military shackled the writers and flew them to Guantanamo among prisoners whom Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared “the worst of the worst” violent terrorists, the brothers found life imitating farce.

For months, grim interrogators grilled them over a satirical article Dost had written in 1998, when the Clinton administration offered a $5-million reward for Osama bin Laden. Dost responded that Afghans put up 5 million Afghanis — equivalent to $113 — for the arrest of President Bill Clinton.

“It was a lampoon … of the poor Afghan economy” under the Taliban, Badr recalled. The article carefully instructed Afghans how to identify Clinton if they stumbled upon him. “It said he was clean-shaven, had light-colored eyes and he had been seen involved in a scandal with Monica Lewinsky,” Badr said.

The interrogators, some flown down from Washington, didn’t get the joke, he said. “Again and again, they were asking questions about this article. We had to explain that this was a satire.” He paused. “It was really pathetic.”

It took the brothers three years to convince the Americans that they posed no threat to Clinton or the United States, and to get released — a struggle that underscores the enormous odds weighing against innocent foreign Muslims caught in America’s military prisons.

In recent months, scores of Afghans interviewed by Newsday — including a dozen former U.S. prisoners, plus human rights officials and senior Afghan security officials — said the United States is detaining enough innocent Afghans in its war against the Taliban and al-Qaida that it is seriously undermining popular support for its presence in Afghanistan.

Read the full story here.

I'm in a strange place - a sort of limbo, in the middle of a suspension bridge but unable to walk, forward or backward - and at the same time, on the edge of recovering enough stability to begin to push myself beyond what I've done in the past 6 years.  

I'm just going to wait it out, doesn't feel like something that can be forced.  I'm also feeling that The Great Slow Time Machine is one of, if not the last bird poem (almost all the poems I've written since August are bird poems).

continued in a protected post, below.

pearlbamboo