MODERN DRUMMER

FEATURES:

VOL. 4 NO. 2

NEIL PEARTAs one of rock's most popular drummers, Neil Peart of Rushseriously reflects on his art in this exclusive interview. With arefreshing, no-nonsense att i tude. Peart speaks of the experi-ences that led him to Rush and how a respect formed betweenthe band members that is rarely achieved. Peart also affirms hisbelief that music must not be compromised for financial gain,and has followed that path throughout his career. 12

PAUL MOTIANJazz modernist Paul Motian has had a varied career, from hisdays with the Bill Evans Trio to Arlo Guthrie. Motian assertsthat to fully appreciate the art of drumming, one must study thegreat masters of the past and learn from them. 16

FRED BEGUNAnother facet of drumming is explored in this interview withFred Begun, timpanist with the National Symphony Orchestraof Washington, D.C. Begun discusses his approach to classicalmusic and the influences of his mentor, Saul Goodman. 20

INSIDE REMO 24 RESULTS OF SLINGERLAND/LOUIE28BELLSON CONTEST

COLUMNS:

EDITOR'S OVERVIEWREADERS PLATFORMASK A PROIT'S QUESTIONABLEROCK PERSPECTIVESOdd Rockby David GaribaldiJAZZ DRUMMERS WORKSHOPDouble Time Coordinationby Ed SophELECTRONIC INSIGHTSSimple Percussion Modificationsby David ErnstSHOW AND STUDIOA New Approach Towards Improving Your Readingby Danny Pucillo 40

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8643 TEACHERS FORUM

Teaching Jazz Drummingby Charley Perry

THE CLUB SCENEThe Art of Entertainmentby Rick Van Horn

STRICTLY TECHNIQUEThe Technically Proficient Playerby Paul Meyer

CONCEPTSDrums and Drummers: An Impressionby Rich Baccaro

DRUM MARKET

INDUSTRY HAPPENINGS

JUST DRUMS 71

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The feature section of this issue represents a wide spectrum of modernpercussion with our three lead interview subjects: Rush's Neil Peart;jazz drummer Paul Motian and timpanist Fred Begun.

The Neil Peart interview was a story we pursued for many months.Coordinating a meeting place was not easy considering the extremelyhectic road schedule the band maintains. We finally tracked them downat a fairgrounds concert in Allentown, Pennsylvania where MD's CheechIero spoke to Peart at considerable length. A talented and opinionatedartist, Neil discussed numerous aspects of his music. Not impressed bymob fan adulation, Peart maintains a philosophy indicative of theseriousness with which he views his drumming; "If I go in front of 35,000people and play really well, then I feel satisfied . . . adulation meansnothing without self-respect."

Paul Motian has been on the New York jazz scene for quite some time.He's worked with Keith Jarrett, Stan Getz, Thelonius Monk, Lee Konitzand Charles Lloyd, and was a key member of the celebrated Bill Evanstrio with bassist Scott LaFaro. Motian talks about his involvement withcomposing and his affinity for the drumming masters of the past: "Allmusicians should check out the tradition of the instrument. . . their typeof playing is connected with the way people are playing today.

Orchestra in Washington, D.C. for nearly 30 years. This Juilliard trainedpercussionist discusses his background as a student of Saul Goodman,his aspirations as a writer, and the current state of percussion ensembleliterature.

If you've ever wondered what goes on inside a drumhead factory,MD's David Levine has the full story. His Inside Remo tour takes youevery step of the way through the firm's 54,000 square foot facility insouthern California. Company president and founder Remo Belli talksabout the early days of Remo, Inc., the plastic drumhead, and thechallenges which face the company in the future.

A Day In Las Vegas, reported by Laura Deni, is the completelowdown on the finals at the Slingerland/Louie Bellson National DrumContest. Thirteen young drummers under the age of 19 competed at theUniversity of Las Vegas for thousands of dollars in prize and scholarshipmoney and an opportunity to appear with Bellson on Johnny Carson'sTonight Show. It turned out to be quite a contest and an event we hopewill be repeated each year. Our hats are off to Lou Bellson and all thoseat Slingerland who were responsible for coordinating this incredibleproject.

We'd like to welcome David Ernst and Charlie Perry to the columnroster this year with Electronic Insights and Teachers Forumrespectively. Both gentlemen are experts in their fields and have a greatdeal to say.

Another new entry for 1980, making its debut with this issue, is TheClub Scene, a highly informative column containing some great advicefor drummers active in the competitive club date business. Author RickVan Horn has a wealth of experience in this area and we think you'll findhis column a real winner.

The results of MD's Second Annual Reader's Poll are now beingtabulated. You'll find the exciting results in our June/July issue, alongwith Part 1 of The Great Jazz Drummers: An Historical Perspective, anda revealing exclusive interview with the extraordinary Carl Palmer.

STAFF:

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Ronald Spagnardi

FEATURES EDITOR: Karen Larcombe

ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Mark HurleyPaul Uldrich

MANAGING EDITOR: Michael Cramer

ART DIRECTOR: Tom Mandrake

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Roger Elliston

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: Jean Mazza

ADMINISTRATION: Isabel LoriAnn Lambariello

DEALER SERVICEMANAGER: Carol Morales

CIRCULATION: Leo L. SpagnardiMarilyn MillerMaureen Politi

MD ADVISORY BOARD:

Henry Adler Mel LewisCarmine Appice Peter MagadiniHoracee Arnold Mitch MarkovichLouie Bellson Butch MilesRoy Burns Joe MorelloJim Chapin Charley PerryBilly Cobham Charlie PersipJoe Corsello Joe PollardLes DeMerle Arthur PressLen DiMuzio Paul PriceCharlie Donnelly Ed ShaughnessySonny Igoe Lenny WhiteDon Lamond

MODERN DRUMMER Magazine (ISSN 0194-45331) is published bi-monthly, February,April, June, August, October and Decemberby Modern Drummer Publications, Inc.. 1000Clifton Avenue, Clifton, N.J. 07013. Secondclass postage paid at Clifton, N.J. 07013 andat additional mailing offices. Copyrighted1980 by Modern Drummer Publications, Inc.All rights reserved. Reproduction without thepermission of the publisher is prohibited.SUBSCRIPTIONS: $9.95 per year. $19.00.two years. Single copies $1.75. MANU-SCRIPTS: Modern Drummer welcomes man-uscripts, however, cannot assume responsi-bility for them. Manuscripts must be accom-panied by a self-addressed stamped envelope.CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Allow at least sixweeks for a change. Please provide both oldand new address. MUSIC DEALERS: ModernDrummer is available for resale at bulk rates.Direct correspondence to Modern DrummerPublications, Inc.. 1000 Clifton Avenue. Clif-ton. N . J . 07013. (201) 778-1700 POST-MASTER: Send form 3579 to Modern Drum-mer, 1000 Clifton Avenue, Clifton. N . J .07013.

Fred Begun has been principal timpanist with the National Sympthony

I am writ ing in response to several pre-vious letters criticizing Carl Palmer.

Pleasing to mind and pulsating to soul.Palmer ' s a r t i s t ry d isp lays qua l i t i e sbeyond reproach. If anyone doubts hisability to show solid time with speed,balanced at fu l l t i l t , just listen to "TheEnemy God", ( l ive version). His re-spected standing is truly deserved andformidable.

THOMAS LAPOINTELAWRENCE, MA

I must congratulate you on an ex-cellent magazine. I much enjoy your in-terviews with drummers who have foundthe key to success, and your articles onthe current state of the art in drum equip-ment. But I was quite pleased to see ahuman interest type story "Flipped OverDrums" in your December-January is-sue. While working for RCA records atthe time Whitehorse was working ontheir album, I caught a few sessions andcan attest to the fact that Mr. Valentineis a fine and innovative drummer rightside up, as well as upside down. ThoughI never caught his act l ive , I heard nu-merous positive reports from the grape-vine. Keep up the off-the-wall ( in thiscase off-the-ceiling) type articles.

BOB SOLARPINOS ALTOS. NM

Modern Drummer Magazine is defi-ni tely a plus to both the drum and musicindustry. As the opportuni ty presents it-self, I can assure you that I plug yourmagazine in any way possible.

Perhaps the major thing that irks me isthe failure of the interviewers to obtainmore information on the equipment themusician uses. Some interviews seem tofocus more on the personal side of themusician, as opposed to the methods orequipment they use. This is fine with mebut I t h i n k the main purpose of MD is topresent drummers with information thatwil l be useful to develop the knowledgeof their trade.

JAMES E. VALLONEBUFFALO, NY

Just want to let you know that mydrum cases are weatherproofed! The ar-ticle was great. It was so easy going. Ilined them with red felt and they looksharp. Now I don't have to worry aboutdamaging my drums. Thanks again forthe instructions.

TONY SIGNORELLIPALM BEACH. FL

Michael Shore must be commendedfor his excellent interview wi th Barrie-more Barlow in the December/Januaryissue. I cannot th ink of a single point thatwas not covered regarding this superbdrummer. Barlow is so humble: his com-ments about his playing abi l i ty and tech-nique floored me. Again, thanks for anexcellent article.

BOBBY MCGLOWNMOBILE. AL

In regard to Charley Perry's article."Basic Brushes." I wish to question hiss t a t ements regarding t h e h i s t o ry ofbrushes. Mr. Perry states that, "brushesare a fairly recent addition to the drum-mer's arsenal . . . go back perhaps 40years and have been used almost exclu-sively in jazz and dance bands."

Actually, the brush (rute, switch, etc.)was known as far back as the time ofHaydn and Mozart, and was later re-ques ted by Mah l e r and Strauss . Theoriginal form of the brush was a bundleof twigs or a split rod. In Percussion In-struments and Their History, JamesBlade speaks of Mozart's Il Seraglio inwhich the Tamburo grande is playedw i t h both a s t ick and a "switch oftwigs," an effect which is "evident in theswish of the modern wire brushes."

HOWARD I. JOINESHATTIESBURG, Ml

Thank you for the tribute to the great-est man ever to play the drums. GeneKrupa. It is a true collector's item and Iwill keep my issue forever.

Gene and Cozy gave me drum lessonsat their school in Manhattan many yearsago. Although I was young at the time, Iwil l never forget the art of drumming theway the master taught it. He had pa-t ience and und e r s t a n d i n g and alwaystook the t ime to show the correct habitsof drumming. I 'm happy that I sharedsome of my greatest moments with thisman. Although I'm not famous like Bud-dy Rich or Louie Bellson, I play thedrums in the tradition of my friend andteacher—Gene Krupa.

ANTHONY GUARDINGBAYSHORE, NY

I 'm writ ing in reply to Jack Gilfoyfrom Indianapolis, Indiana, whose letterconcerning the Blue Bear School of Musicappeared in the December/January is-sue. He stated, "If the student is in-telligent enough, a master drummer willbe found who can provide somethingmore meaningful than a garage band en-vironment . Who needs to pay good mon-ey for that? "

I 'm a 17 year old progressive rock per-cussionist. I 'm one of the above men-tioned people who have played in garagebands. I have also played in c lubs ,theatres, gyms, etc. I listen to and appre-ciate classical music, but rock is my firstlove. I have had some classical trainingand it can be good, but it 's not the onlyway.

"Who needs to pay good money forthat? " In my area, club rock performersare in demand. Also, what about therockers who started in garage bands?They are now playing to sellout crowdsat $10 a ticket.

Mr Gilfoy: You do your thing and I'lldo mine. That's what keeps music alive!

FRANK SPICERVINELAND, NJ

TERRY SILVERLIGHTQ. Could you please give me some ad-vice on building endurance and speed formy left foot on the hi-hat?

Matthew PlumeriSt. Louis, MO

A. The first exercise I would recom-mend would be to play the hi-hat on thequarter notes (1, 2, 3, 4) of each bar, andalternate that with a bar of the hi-hat on 1and 3, while building the speed of thetempo. Eventually, substitute the 2 and 4with the snare drum.

For the second exercise, play the hi-hat on all four quarter notes of the bar,with any standard Latin, jazz, or rockand roll beat. Get used to the coordina-tion of playing the hi-hat on all the beatsagainst whatever you would normallyplay. Also, start slow with the hi-hat play-ing quarter notes and increase the tem-po until your leg starts to hurt. At thispoint, hold it there and keep going untilyou can't stand it any longer. Rest, andrepeat this procedure until you feel thepain once again, and keep it going aslong as possible. If you can do this about25 times a day, at the end of 2 weeksyou should definitely see an improve-ment.

Another exercise that is helpful to mewhen playing fast tempos on the hi-hat isto play with the toe of the foot, ratherthan the flat part of the foot or the heel-toe method. You'll probably find at slowto medium tempos the foot resting flat onthe hi-hat pedal will give you the controlnecessary, however very fast temposwill be played easier with the toe, be-cause all the weight of your leg will reston your toe, enabling you to create abouncing movement with your leg.

STEVE FERRONEQ. On Average White Band's latest al-bum Feel No Fret your playing was dy-namic. What were your thoughts whilerecording the title cut?

John MiltonLondon, England

A. When you put down a track, you'realways in a certain frame of mind. "FeelNo Fret" is a sort of West Indian influ-enced reggae groove. When we did thetrack, I was extremely angry. I was goingthrough some personal problems andyou could hear it in the drums. When youcome down to the mixing, you have to beable to bring out what was there in thebeginning. When you put down a track,you can hear it. You've got the track,then of course you add the vocals, andsweeten it. That's fine, but I don't thinkyou should lose what you had in the be-ginning. If you've got a good track, it's agood track!

at times to deal with the music business,so I would like to gain a little insight fromyou. If you care to elaborate on your rea-sons for leaving, or why you stoppedplaying, I would find this informative ingaining a perspective of the music busi-ness.

Gary DatesRed Bank, NJ

A. The incident you are referring to wasin 1974, and at that point I just needed abreak. So I left the group. I was tired ofdoing it. I just got married and needed tohave some answers in my life. It hadnothing to do with music, because thatpart was going very well, and I knew italways would. I just stopped and cooledout for a couple of months. I spent timewith my new wife and studied the Bible,because when the music was over I hadno answers in my life at all. So I went andfound some. That's basically what it was.At the time, I hadn't taken any time off inten years. When you work really hard atsomething for ten years you need abreak.

DAVID GARIBALDIQ. I am aware of the fact that at onepoint you left Tower of Power. I was alittle disturbed to hear this, as I regardedyou as having a bright future in the busi-ness. Now I realize how difficult it can be

Q. I am planning a cruise to the Caribbean next summer andwould like to bring back some percussion instruments dis-tinctive to that area. Can you give me some information on pos-sible places to look, and what to look for? I want to get awayfrom the usual tourist trinkets.

D.B.Athens, GA

A. Instruments of the Caribbean Islands are usually hand-made. Items which some people may consider trinkets turn outto be excellent percussion instruments. If you are in the marketfor steel drums, this is an ideal place to purchase them. Onceyou get there, get in touch with the working professionals. Theywill probably be able to guide you in the right direction.

Q. Could you give me some information on the death of thegreat drummer Chick Webb?

F.C.London, England

A. Chick Webb died of tuberculosis on May 16, 1939 in Balti-more, Maryland, at the age of 32.

Q. I'd like to know if there is a book listing all the drum com-panies and their addresses'? If so, where can I get one?

P.S.Las Vegas, NV

A. Since there have been numerous requests for this itemModern Drummer will soon he offering its Percussion IndustryDirectory; an up to date listing of percussion companies, drumshops, publishers of percussion music and literature, etc. Ad-dresses, phone numbers, and the products they make will alsohe included.

Q. How do you tune a 5 piece drum set in fourths?

C.N.Chicago, IL

A. Some drummers do not think in terms of tuning the snaredrum, or the bass drum to the scale being used. The pitch of thesnare and bass drums are simply made compatible to the rest ofthe tom tom voices. Other drummers utilize the snare and bassdrums in the scale. Whatever the school of thought, you mustremember the drum cannot be tuned to an absolute pitch, butcan only get into the range of that pitch. Assuming you areusing a standard 5 piece set, and are including all drums in thetuning process; tune your snare drum to middle C, left handmounted tom to C below middle C, right hand mounted tom toD below middle C, floor tom to A below D, and the bass drumto C.

Q. Where can I write to The Who's drummer Kenny Jones?

T.M.Antioch, IL

A. All correspondence for Kenny Jones may be addressed toThe Who's personal management: Trinifold, 112 Wardour,London, England, W1V 3LD.

Q. I am the section leader of my school orchestra's percussionsection and I have a problem. I play snare along with two othermembers and whenever we get to the 32 bar snare drum solo inthis one particular piece, we sound as though we are playingthree different parts after the first 8 measures. Any suggestions?

B.M.Billings, MT

A. Since you are in charge of the percussion section, call for asectional rehearsal. Discuss the part thoroughly. Find thetrouble areas, and discuss the type of strokes being used; stick-ing, the height of the strokes, and the dynamics. Practice thesolo individually and together at a slower tempo, graduallybuilding to the required speed. Most important, listen to eachother.

Q. How do the dimensions of the shell of a drum affect its tonalcharacter? Does depth and diameter alter pitch and sustain?

H.D.Oakland, NE

A. According to advisory board member Ed Shaughncssy,"Generally the deeper the dimension of the drum, the longerthe sustain. As for the diameter of the shell, the larger the head,the deeper the fundamental sound of the drum."

continued on page 10

It's Questionable: continued from page 8

Q. I have a white drum kit, only they're not white anymore.Any suggestions for the removal of yellowing that has occurredover the years?

J.N.GlenBurnie, MD

A. There's not much which can be done about the yellowing.Bleaching the shells can often crack the finish. Yellowing is of-ten caused by the nicotine from the smoke in night clubs.Drums displayed in store windows are often victims of the yel-lowing effects of sunlight. Preventive maintenance is the key!Keeping the finish waxed with a white cream car wax is helpful.

Q. Where can I obtain a book dealing with the study of Tabladrums?

M.H.San Jose, CA

A. Donald Robertson's Tabla, published by the Peer Inter-national Corporation, 1619 Broadway, N. Y., N. Y. 10019, is rec-ommended. It covers the history of the drum, developments,tuning, various strokes, etc.

by Cheech Iero

CI: Tell me a l i t t l e about your set up.It's a beautiful looking set. What kind offinish does it have?NP: It 's a mahogany finish. The Per-cussion Center in Fort Wayne. where Iget all my stuff, did the finish for me. Iwas trying to achieve a Rosewood. Athome, I have some Chinese Rosewoodfurniture, and I wanted to get that deepburgundy richness. They experimentedwith different kinds of inks, magic mark-er inks of red, blue, and black, trying toget the color. It was very diff icult .CL: What is the cost of your drum set?NP: I don't th ink about it . I 've neverfigured it out. I didn' t buy it all at once.I've just never thought about it.CI: Do you enjoy the hectic scheduleyou keep on the road?NP: To me, it 's just the musician's nat-ural environment. I won't say that it 's al-ways wonderful, but it 's not always aw-ful either. As with anything else, I th inkit 's a more extreme way of life. The re-wards are higher, but the negative sidesare that much more negative. I th ink thatrule of polarity follows almost everywalk of life. The greater the fulfi l lmentthat you're looking for, the greater theagony you'l l face.CI: During your sound check, you notonly use the opportunity to get the prop-er sound, but also as a chance to warmup and practice a bit.NP: Well, sound check is a nice time topractice and t ry new ideas, becausethere's no pressure. If you do it wrong itdoesn't matter. And I 'm a bit on the ad-venturous side live, too. I ' l l try some-thing out. I ' l l take a chance. Most of thetime I'm playing above my ability, so I 'mtaking a risk. I t h i nk everyday is really apractice. We play so much and playingwithin a framework of music every nightyou have enough familiarity to feel com-fortable to exper iment . If the song startsto grow a bit stale I find one nice l i t t l e f i l lwhich wil l refresh the whole song.CI: Refresh it for the rest of the groupas well.NP: Sure for all of us. We all put in al i t t le something, a l i t t l e spice. The au-dience would probably never notice, butit just has to be a l i t t le something thatsparks it for us. And for me the wholesong will lead up to that from then on andthe song will never be dul l .CI: How did you become involved withRush?NP: The usual chain of circumstancesand accidents. I came from a city that 'sabout 60 or 70 miles from Toronto. A fewmusicians from my area had migrated toToronto and were working with bandsaround there when they recommendedme as someone of suitable style. I guessthey tried a few drummers, but we justclicked on both sides. There was a strongmusical empathy right away wi th newideas they were working on and things I

had as musical ideas. Also, outside ofmusic we have a lot of things in common.CI: Where has this tour taken you?NP: Well, this isn't really much of atour. By our terms, most of our tours last10 months or so. This one is only 3 or 4weeks. This is just a warm up as far aswe're concerned. We've been off acouple of months. We took two weeks ofholidays and then spent six weeks re-hearsing and writing new material. Afterthat kind of break, we just wanted to getourselves out on stage. That's the onlyplace where you really get yourself intoshape. Rehearsals wi l l keep you playingwell and you'll remember all your ideasand learn your songs and stuff, but as faras the physical part of i t , the feeling ofbeing on top of your playing, you've gotto have the road for that .CI: This is a warm up for what?NP: The studio.CI: At what studio wil l you record?NP: We will be going to Les Studiowhich is in Montreal . We'll record thereand mix at Trident in London.CI: When the members of Rush arecomposing a piece of music, is the struc-ture determined by the feedback you re-ceive from one another?NP: Yes, to a large extent. It dependsreally on what we're coming at it with.Often times. Alex and Getty wi l l have amus ica l idea , maybe i n d i v i d u a l l y .They'll bring it into the studio and we'llbounce it off one another, see what welike about it , see if we find it exci t ing asan idea and then we get a verbal idea ofwhat the mood of it is. What the settingwould be. If I have a lyrical idea thatwe're trying to find music for, we discussthe type of mood we are trying to createmusical ly. What sort of compositionalski l ls I guess we' l l bring to bear on thatemotionally. The three of us try to estab-lish the same feeling for what the songshould be. Then you bring the technicalski l ls in to try to interpret that properly,and achieve what you thought it would.CI: Your role as a lyricist has drawnwide acclaim. How did you develop thatparticular talent?NP: Well , that 's really hard to put intofocus. I came into it by default, just be-cause the other two guys didn' t want towrite lyrics. I 've always liked words.I've always l iked reading so I had a go ati t . I l ike doing i t . When I 'm doing it , I tryto do the best I can. I t ' s pretty second-ary. I don't put that much importance onit. A lot of times you just th ink of a lyr-ical idea as a good musical vehicle. I ' l lth ink up an image, or I ' l l hear about acer ta in me t apho r t h a t ' s r ea l l y p i c tu r -esque. A good verbal image is a reallygood musical st imulus. If I come up witha really good picture lyr ica l ly , I can takeit to the other two guys and automatical-ly express to them a musical approach.

CI: The tune "Trees" from your Hemi-spheres album comes to my mind as youspeak.NP: Lyrically, that 's a piece of dogge-rel. I certainly wouldn't be proud of thewriting skil l of that. What I would beproud of in that is taking a pure idea andcreating an image for it. I was very proudof what I achieved in that sense. Al-though on the ski l l side of i t , it 's zero. Iwrote "Trees" in about five minutes. It'ssimple rhyming and phrasing, but it illus-trates a point so clearly. I wish I could dothat all of the t ime.CI: Did that pa r t i cu la r song's lyr icscover a deeper social message?NP: No, it was just a flash. I was work-ing on an entirely different thing when Isaw a cartoon picture of these trees car-rying on like fools. I thought. "What iftrees acted like people?" So, I saw it as acartoon really, and wrote it that way. Ithink that 's the image that it conjures upto a listener or a reader. A very simplestatement.CI: Do all of your lyrics follow thatway of thinking, or have you expressed amore philosophical view in other songsthat you have written?NP Usually, I just want to create a nicepicture, or it might have a musical justifi-cation that goes beyond the lyrics. I justtry to make the lyrics a good part of themusic. Many t imes there's somethingstrong that I 'm trying to say, I look for anice way to say it musically. The sim-p l i c i t y of the t e c hn i q u e in "Trees"doesn't really matter to me. It can be thesame way in music. We can write a reallysimple piece of music, and it will feelgreat. The technical side is just not rele-vant. Especially from a listening point ofview. When I 'm listening to other peopleI 'm not l is tening to how hard their musicis to play, I listen to how good the musicis to listen to.CI: When you listen to another drum-mer, what do you listen for?NP: I listen for what they have. There'sa lot of different kinds of drumming thatturn me on. I t could be a really simplething, and I don't th ink that my stylereally reflects my taste. There are a lot ofdrummers that I like who play nothingthe way I do. There's a band called ThePolice and their drummer plays with sim-plici ty, but with such gusto. It 's great.He just has a new approach.CI: Who are some of your favor i tedrummers?NP: I have a lot. Bil l Bruford is one ofmy favorite drummers. I admire him fora whole variety of reasons. I like thestuff he plays, and the way he plays it. Ilike the music he plays within all thebands he's been in. There were a lot ofdrummers that at different stages of myabi l i ty , I 've looked up to. Starting wayback with Keith Moon. He was one of

my favorite mentors. It's hard to decidewhat drummers taught you what things.Certainly Moon gave me a new idea ofthe freedom and that there was no needto be a fundamentalist. I really l iked hisapproach to putting crash cymbals in themiddle of a roll. Then I got into a moredisciplined style later on as I gained alittle more understanding on the techni-cal side. People like Carl Palmer, PhilCollins, Michael Giles the first drummerfrom King Crimson, and of course Bill,were all influences. There's a guy namedKevin Ellman who played with ToddRundgren's Utopia for a while. I don'tknow what happened to him. He was thefirst guy I heard lean into the concerttoms. Nicky Mason from Pink Floyd hasa different style. Very simplistic yet ultratasteful. Always the right thing in theright place. I heard concert toms fromMason first, then I heard Kevin Ellmanwho put all his arms into i t . You learn somany things here and there. There are alot of drummers we work with, TommyAldridge from the Pat Travers Band is avery good drummer. I should keep a listof all the drummers that I admire.CI: Do you follow any of the jazzdrummers?NP: I've found it easier to relate to theso called fusion actually. I like it if it hassome rock in it. Weather Report's HeavyWeather I think was one of the best jazzalbums in a long time. Usually, just tech-nical virtuosity leaves me completely un-moved, though academica l l y i t ' s in-spiring. But that band just moved me inevery way. They were exciting, and pro-ficient musicians. Their songs were real-ly nice to listen to. They were an impor-tant band, and had a great influence onmy thinking.CI: What drew you towards drums?

Photo by Karen Larcombe

NP: Just a chain of circumstances. I'dlike to make up a nice story about how itall happened. I just used to bang aroundthe house on things, and pick up chopsticks and play on my sister's play pen.For my thirteenth birthday my parentspaid for drum lessons. I had had pianolessons a few years before tha t andwasn't really that interested. But withthe drums, somehow I was interested.When it got to the point of being boredwith lessons, I wasn't bored with play-ing. It was something I wanted to doeveryday. So it was no sacrifice. Noagony at all. It was pure pleasure. I'dcome home everyday from school andplay along with the radio.CI: Who was your first drum teacher?NP: I took lessons for a short period oftime, about a year and a half. His namewas Paul , I can ' t r emember h i s lastname. He turned me in a lot of good di-rections, and gave me a lot of encourage-ment. I ' l l never forget him tell ing me thatout of all his students there were onlytwo that he thought would be drummers.I was one of them. That was the first en-couragement I had which was very im-portant to me. For somebody to say toyou, you can do i t . And then he got intoshowing me what was hard to do. Al-though I wasn't capable of playing thosethings at the time, he was showing medifficult rudimental things, and flashyth ings . Double hand cross-overs andsuch. So he gave me the challenge. Andeven after I stopped taking lessons thosethings stayed in my mind, and I workedon them. And finally I learned how to doa double hand cross-over. I rememberthinking how proud I would be if myteacher could see it.CI: Did you study percussion furtherwith other instructors?

NP: Well, it 's relative. I think of myselfstill as a student. All the time I've beenplaying I've listened to other drummers,and learned an awful lot. I 'm still learn-ing. We're all just beginners. I really likethat Lol Creme and Kevin Godly al-bum. The L thing on their album standsfor "learner's permit" in England. Andthat album is so far above what every-body else is doing, yet they're still learn-ing. I really admire them.CI: When you were coming up, did youset your sights on any particular goals?NP: My goals were really very modestat the time. I would get in a band and thebig dream was to play in a high school.U l t ima t e l y , every c i t y has the placethat's the "in" spot where all the hip lo-cal bands play. I used to dream aboutplaying those places. I never thought big-ger than that. For every set of goalsachieved, new ones come along to re-place them. After I would achieve onegoal it would mean nothing. There's ahall in Toronto called Massey Hall whichis a 4,000 seat hall . I used to think to playthere would be the ult imate. But thenyou get there and worry about otherthings. When we finally got to play therewe were about to make an album, andthought about that.CI: Your mind was a step ahead ofwhat you were doing at the present.NP: Yes. I think it's human nature, notto be satisfied with what you were origi-nally dreaming of. Whatever you weredreaming of, if you achieve it, it meansnothing anymore. You've got to havesomething to replace it.CI: Describe your feelings, walking onstage and looking at an audience of35,000 screaming fans.NP: Any real person, will not be movedby 35,000 people applauding him. If I goon in front of 35,000 people and playreally well, then I feel satisfied when Icome off the stage. I 'm happy becausethose 35,000 people were exci ted . Ifwe're in front of a huge crowd and I havea bad night, I s t i l l can't help being de-pressed. If I come off stage not havingplayed well, I don't feel good. I don't seewhy I should change that. Adulationmeans nothing without self respect.CI: You feel you must satisfy yourselffirst.NP: I never met a serious musicianwho wasn't his own worst critic. I canwalk off stage and people will havethought I played well, and it might haveeven sounded good on tape, but I stillknow I didn't play it the way it shouldbe. Nothing will change that.CI: Do you feel there are certain thingsthat contribute to a particularly good orbad night?NP: I don't think there is anything mys-tical about it at all. I just think it's a mat-ter of polarity. I go looking for a lot of

parallels. I find it in that, because certainnights it is so magical, and the wholeband feels so good about how theyplayed. The audience was so receptiveand there's feedback going back andforth, and good feelings generated by theshow. That has to be the ideal. That par-ticular show might happen 5 or 6 timesout of the whole 200 show tour. But thatis the ideal show. Every other show hasto be measured on those standards. Ouraverage is good. We never do a bad showany more. We have a level where we'realways good. Even if we're bad the showwill be good. Somerset Maugham I be-lieve said, "A mediocre person is alwaysat his best." And that's true. If you playreally great one night, you're not goingto be great every night. As far as my ex-periences go anyway, I've never knownany musician that was. I'm not. Somenights I'm good and some nights I'm notgood. Some nights I think I stink. I thinkit's just a matter of knowing that youhave an honest appraisal of what yourability should be, and know how wellyou've lived up to it. To me, there's nomystery about that at all. You know in-side.CI: What type sticks do you use?NP: I use light sticks generally. I'veused butt end for as long as I can remem-ber. It gives me all the impact I need.When I'm doing anything delicate, I playmatched grip with the bead end of thesticks.CI: So you use both matched and tradi-tional grips depending on the feeling ofthe music.NP: Yes, both. I go back to the conven-tional grip when I have to do anythingrudimentary because that's the way Ilearned it. It's not the best way. For any-body else learning I wouldn ' t advisethat. I've seen a lot of drummers whocould play a beautiful pressed roll withmatched grip.CI: Why do you tape the top shaft ofthe bass drum beater so heavily?NP: That's an interesting trick that oth-er drummers should know about. I breaka lot of beaters off at the head, becausethe whole weight of my leg goes into mypedals. And I always break them wherethe felt part of the beater meets the shaft.They break right at the shaft, and thenthe shaft goes through the head. If youput that roll of tape on there you'll neverbreak your drumhead. In fact I can stillget through half a song if I have to, untilthe beater can be changed. The worstthing that could happen in a show wouldbe for your bass drum to break. Any-thing else could be changed or fixed orre-rigged somehow. But, if you break abass drum head the show stops. We oncehad to stop in the middle of filming DonKirshner's "Rock Concert" because Ibroke a bass drum. So we stopped andfixed it. That's all you can do. It doesn't

Photo by Karen Larcombe

happen anymore, because of that ideaand because Larry keeps an eye on theheads and changes them.CI: Who mikes your drums?NP: Our sound man lan chooses themikes, and positions them.CI: You have your own monitor mixduring live performances, correct?NP: Yes, Larry mixes that. That's real-ly just my drums in a separate mix, be-cause we have front monitors.CI: Are the monitors on your left andright side just feeding you the drums?NP: Yes. All I hear is myself comingfrom those monitor. The front monitorsgive me all synthesizers and vocals, andwhen it comes to guitar, and bass they'reright beside me. There are only two oth-er guys, I'm fortunate in that respect, soI don't need them in my monitors. I havedirect instruments to my ears which tome is the best. I'd rather have that thanto fool around with the monitors. Andthe stuff the other guys need in theirmonitors I get indirectly, because it'spointing at them, so I also hear it. I knowa lot of drummers who prefer to have thewhole mix in their monitors, and in somecases need the whole mix in their mon-itors.CI: Have you ever worn earphoneswhile playing live?NP: No, not really, they fall off. I evenhad a lot of trouble in the studio keepingthem on. I went through all kinds ofweird arrangements, getting the cord outof my way. It's just not worth it, I like tohear the natural sound.CI: What are your thoughts on tuning?NP: Concert toms are pretty well self-explanatory. I just know the note I wantto achieve and tighten them up.CI: Do you use a pitch pipe, get thenote from the keyboard or just hum thenote you're after?NP: I 've been using the same sizedrums for several years, and I just knowwhat note that drum should produce.When you combine a certain type ofhead with a certain size drum I believethere is an optimum note, which will giveyou the most projection and the greatestamount of sustain. Wi th the concerttoms I just go for the note. I have a men-tal scale in my head. I know what thosenotes should be. By now it's instinctive.With the closed toms, I start with thebottom heads. I'll tune the bottom headsto the note that drum should produce,and then tune the top head to the bottom.CI: How often do you change theheads on your drums?NP: Concert tom heads sound goodwhen they're brand new, so they getchanged a bit differently. They lastthrough a month of serious road work.The Evans Mirror Heads are used on thetom toms and take a while to warm up. Ittakes a week to break them in. I don'tchange those much more than every six

weeks or so. They do start to lose theirsound after a while. You start to feelthey're just not putting out the note theyshould be. Then you say, "I hate to do itbut let's change the heads." I like BlackDots when they're brand new. I used touse those on my snare, and the ClearDots also sound good when they ' r ebrand new. But the Evans heads don't. Ittakes awhile. I've gone through agonieswith snare drums. I guess most drum-mers do. I had an awful time, becausethere was a snare sound in my mind thatI wanted to achieve. I went through allkinds of metal snares. And I st i l l wasn'tsatisfied. It wasn't the sound I was after.Then my drum roadie phoned me aboutthis wooden Slingerland snare. It wassecond hand. Sixty dollars. I tried it outand it was the one. Every other snareI 've tried chokes somewhere . E i t h e rvery quietly, or if you hit it too hard itchokes. This one never chokes. You canplay it very delicately, or you can poundit to death. It always produces a veryclean, very crisp sound. It has a lot ofpower, which I didn't expect from awooden snare drum. It's a really strongdrum. I tried other types of woodensnare drums. I tried the top of the lineSlingerland snare drum. This one was aSlingerland but very inexpensive. I'vetried other wooden snares, but this wasthe one, there's no other snare drum thatwill replace it for me.CI: What has been done to the inside ofyour drum shells?NP: Al l of the drums wi th the ex-ception of the snare have a thin layer offiberglass. It doesn't destroy the woodsound. It just seems to even out the over-tones a bit, so you don't get crazy ringscoming out of certain areas of the drums.You don't get too much sound absorp-tion from the wood. Each drum producesthe pure note it was made to produce asfar as I'm concerned. There's no inter-ference with that ei ther in the open tomsor the closed toms. The note is very pureand easy to achieve. I can tune thedrums and when I get them to the rightnote I know the sound wil l be proper.

PAUL MOTIAN:Drawing from Tradition

Story and photos by Scott Kevin Fish

In preparation for my interview with Paul Motian, I listenedto recordings he has made, and read as much material as I couldfind about him. Throughout these record reviews, concert re-views, critiques and analyses, the accolades were many. Onewriter said, "Paul Motian can turn a set of drums into an or-chestra without overshadowing his fellow players." Anothercritic wrote, "To him, percussion is music at every level and hecould never be accused of playing anything for superficial ef-fect."

Paul Motian's professional career began around 1956 in NewYork. Since then, Mr. Motian has played and/or recorded withsome of the greatest musicians in jazz including Bill Evans,Keith Jarrett, Oscar Pettiford, Art Farmer, Mose Allison, The-lonious Monk, Tony Scott, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Lennie Tris-tano. The Jazz Composers Orchestra, Charles Lloyd and DonCherry.

In 1972, Paul, as a leader, released his first album, Concep-tion Vessel on ECM records. Two other albums have been re-leased since. Tribute in 1975, and most recently Dance releasedin 1978.

I met Paul Motian at his apartment in Manhattan one after-noon. He answered the door dressed in army pants, Orientalshirt, and knitted cap. He is not a tall man, but Paul has a strik-ing presence, especially in his dark brown eyes that have anobservant quality.

The apartment was decorated with gongs, bells, maraccas,plants, a piano, and a black five-piece drum set. "Almost every-one in the building is a musician," Paul explained. The sound ofa tenor sax seeped into the hallway. "Once I was in the elevatorand a woman asked, 'Is that you playing the drums?' I said yesand told her if it was bothering her I'd try to keep it down. 'Ohno,' she said. 'I like it! It sounds very good.'

"I started playing when I was about 13, in Providence, RhodeIsland," he began, puffing on a cigarette. "I was born in Phila-delphia, but I grew up in Rhode Island. There was a guy whoplayed drums a few blocks away from my house. When hewould play you could hear it in the street. I was fascinated with

it. He played in a Gene Krupa bag. I use to go over there andlisten to him every once in awhile. I started fooling around athome with some wooden sticks, and finally he gave me a coupleof lessons.

"After that I studied reading and syncopation with EmilioRagosta and George Gear in Providence. George Gear use to befriendly with George L. Stone from Boston. I played with thehigh school band. I might have played a couple of dances andclubs with musicians from that band." Motian thought in re-sponse to a question I'd asked about how many gigs he playedin his hometown. There weren't any gigs to speak of, and Mo-tian could only explain it by saying, "It just didn't happen."

"Most of my career just sort of happened," he told me."People ask, 'You mean you always played the drums?' That'strue. I've always played the drums. I've never wanted to doanything else. It's always been there, as sort of a natural thing. Ijust never thought about it that much. It was just something thatI did.

"I heard a lot of music when I was a kid. My parents wereborn in Turkey. They were Armenian and they used to play a lotof Turkish music and some Armenian music. I remember mymother telling me that when I was around two years old, I wasalways dancing to this music. My parents would say, 'Gee.Maybe he's going to get into music some way.'

When the Korean War broke out, Paul enlisted in the Navy."All my friends were being drafted in the Army and comingback frostbitten. That's why I went into the Navy. Somebodytold me about the Navy School of Music so I thought I would doit that way. I was stationed in Brooklyn, living off the base.When I got out of the Navy, I moved into Manhattan. I studiedwith Billy Gladstone, and then I went to the Manhattan Schoolof Music for awhile and studied timpani with Alfred Friese andFred Albright.

"That's when I started playing around," Motian continued."The professional part of my career didn't start unti l I was 24 or25 years old, around 1955 or '56. I use to carry my drums allover the city, man. I use to take them everywhere." By the time

Paul Motian got on the New York scene, the musical mecca ofthe 52nd St. days had all but ended. Charlie Parker died in 1955and it was symbolically the end of an era.

"I'm sorry I missed that," Paul said. "One of my favoritedrummers was Sid Catlett. I never saw him play. The personthat I did see play a lot and who was a major influence on mewas Kenny Clarke. He was in New York at that t ime. MaxRoach was also an influence. I first heard his stuff when I was ateenager. I liked it a lot.

"I remember one t ime going to a place where TheloniousMonk was playing. The drummer hadn't shown up and the pro-moter knew I played the drums. He said, 'Hey man. Go getyour drums and you can play with Thelonious!' I ran as fast as Icould all the way home, got the drums and played that nightwith Thelonious. That was a thri l l for me. Later on, I workedwith him for a week in Boston.

"One time I was playing with Monk and I think the tempopicked up a l i t t le bi t . At the end of the set I went over to him andsaid I was sorry; that I might have rushed a l i t t l e bit on thatnumber. Monk said, 'Well, if I hit you in the side of the headyou won't rush!' Paul broke up laughing. "That's great ad-vice," he said. "I've never rushed after that."

Motian expressed sincere gratitude to the forces that be forthe opportunities that he's had in his musical career. Aside fromMonk, there was a period when Paul Motian played drums withthe Oscar Pettiford quintet and big band; and he has also beenfortunate to have worked with several other premier jazz bass-ists including Scott LaFaro, Charlie Haden and Gary Peacock.

Paul sat back in an easy chair. He'd run out of fi l ter cigarettesand sat smoking one of my non-filters through a cigarette hold-er. I asked him if he could recall any pertinent discussions hemay have had with some of those bass players that would inter-est other drummers.

"I'm trying to th ink back about Scott LaFaro and BillEvans," he said. "I know that we always made suggestions toeach other about different things. I know there were really mu-sical questions and discussions. I remember talking with Bil l

one t ime, thinking of different things. What if you had to play atune that could take five, ten or fifteen minutes, and you had toplay every quarter note in that tune differently? It's just a sug-gestion or an idea to make you aware of the music. If you'rethinking about things like that, think what could happen!

"Bill and I use to play gigs together and we lived in the samebuilding. After Bill had been with Miles Davis, he had his owntrio and was playing Midtown, I th ink at Basin St. His drummercouldn't make it one night so Bil l called me. Scott LaFaro wasplaying around the corner and he came by and sat in. It seemedlike that was it! Bill liked it a lot and we just kept it together forabout two years."

I questioned Paul about one writer's opinion that he and ScottLaFaro were responsible for the "freeing up" of Bill Evans.

"I th ink that might have been more mutual," he answered."Nobody was playing bass l ike Scott. Bass players played rootsof chords all the time and this was the first t ime the bass wasplaying with the pianist. I guess that freed Bil l . I played what Iheard and tried to fit in with them. I never thought of playingthat way," Motian emphasized. "I've never pre-thought some-thing. It seems like it's always been something that's happenedthrough my involvement in the music and the musicians. I thinkit was something that just happened.

"I believe that 'time' is always there. I don't mean a particu-lar pulse, but the time itself. It 's all there somehow like a hugesign that's up there and it says time. It 's there and you can playall around it. I guess playing with Bill Evans was a freeing up forme too.

"We had reached a really nice point just before Scott died. Iremember the gig at the Village Vanguard after we made thoserecordings (Milestone 47002) and we were all real happy. Itseemed that we had musically progressed to a really nice pointand now we could really get going. A few weeks later, Scott waskilled."

Motian stayed with Bil l Evans from 1964-65. "It got to apoint where it didn't seem like it was me anymore," he said. "Ididn't seem part of it . I wanted to go in other directions becausethere was a lot of music happening in New York at that time.

"I played with Carla and Paul Bley, Albert Ayler, and JohnGilmore. It 's better now in New York, but I think that 1965 wasone of the good periods in New York. That was around the timethe Jazz Composers Guild was organized. I was playing a lotbut I wasn't making any money. I used to work for two dollars anight. That was i t . That went on for a couple of years, but Imanaged.

"I took a couple of commercial gigs. I was working an Israeliclub playing floor shows. Then I worked for awhile on the Eastside with a trio. I guess that's how I survived. There are somany clubs now and so much happening. The loft scene and allthat. At those times there were things happening in lofts butthere was just no money in it. It wasn't publicized as much, Ith ink .

"Shortly after that, I got hooked up with Keith Jarrett. I methim at a gig he was playing with Tony Scott and he soundedgreat to me. He was about 19 or 20 then. Later on he called meand Charlie Haden and we did Keith's first trio album. That wasin 1967 and later on I played with Keith in Charles Lloyd'sband.

"We did a fantastic tour of Asia. That was a great experience.Then I went with Arlo Guthrie for awhile. Arlo's bass playerknew of me through my work with Bill Evans so he suggestedme. Arlo had a hit record with Alice's Restaurant and wasabout to start touring. I enjoyed that," Paul said. "It wasn't abig musical experience but it was fun. I can play country/west-ern music: keep time with brushes and have fun. I did a coupleof tours with Arlo and part of that would be the WoodstockFestival.

"Afterwards it was mostly Keith. A trio first and then DeweyRedman joined around 1972." We spoke about some of the mis-cellaneous records that Paul had played on and two that he was

most proud of were Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orches-tra, (both Motian and Andrew Cyrille are credited with playingpercussion instruments). When asked what he specificallyplayed on that LP, Motian said he played on all of the tracksexcept "Circus '68 "69" on which Andrew Cyrille is per-cussionist, and the monumental project Escalator Over the Hillby Carla Bley.

When Paul Motian started leading his own group, he ran intoa few problems. He found that he had to have a knowledge ofmusic "business" but more than that he became heavily in-volved with musical composition. "I've been studying pianoand composition," he told me. "I think that's really importantfor drummers. All drummers should play a lit t le bit of piano. Ifthey've got something against the piano, then study vibraphoneor xylophone or buy a wooden flute, man!

"My composition stuff is all recent. I never even dreamedthat I could do that kind of thing," Motian said with an air ofpride. "When I got offered to do my first record for ECM, I puttogether some music and found out that I could do it. Plus, I hadsome good musicians to help. That's what I 'm working on now.I would like to get that together. That's very important. I mean,it took me a year just to get a book together for my band!"

I was interested in knowing how Motian went from the initialcomposing of a piece to working it out with his band, to per-forming it. Paul explained, "I'll work it out myself first. When itseems satisfactory, then I ' l l write out parts and rehearse it.Maybe I ' l l get the saxophone to play the melody. If it doesn'tsound right, I may make a few changes. I ' l l do the same thingwith the bass, and then rehearse the trio. The song grows fromthere. (

"I would really l ike to get away from the normal format ofchart, solo, choruses and chart again. I don't really like that,"Motian said. "But, once I've written a tune and worked it withthe band I don't play it on the piano after that. Right now, Ihave maybe seven or eight things that I'm working on that I 'mnot satisfied with. I may scrap it all, I don't know."

Motian was kind enough to oblige my request that he play thepiano. The tune was reminiscent of his writing on the ByeablueKeith Jarrett album. "That's it," Paul said when he had fin-ished. "I'll give that to Keith and he'll play the shit out of it." Itold him that one of the qualities I admired most in his composi-tions was his use of space. Other than the melody line it is oftendifficult to separate what is spontaneous and what is arranged.

"Last year a woman in Canada wrote me and said she likedmy albums because she didn't hear any aggression in them. Idon't know if that 's good, though," Paul laughed. "I can re-member being angry and playing. Usually, the melody andsome harmonies are written. I like to keep it spontaneous sothat I can make changes. So that I can play a piece of music onetime and play it differently another time. The melody will be thesame, but the playing part can change."

Because of the time spent on composing and leading his band,Motian has no desire or time to teach. He has done clinics andformed definite ideas about how he would teach drums. "I al-ways had a thing about that," he said. "If I ever teach, I'm notgoing to teach on a practice pad. To me, that doesn't really havetoo much to do with the drumset. The drumset is your in-strument, not the practice pad!"

Motian recently toured Europe with his trio and told meabout a couple of weeks he spent teaching at a school in Den-mark. "I was there for two weeks with two, one hour classes aday. I took a private student everyday for a half hour lesson. Ihad to come up with something new each day and that was achallenge.

"The first day I had them tune the drums," Paul remem-bered. "There was a set of drums there that sounded terrible. Igot the idea to have each drummer tune them to whatever heheard. By the end of the two weeks that was the best soundingdrumset in that school," Paul beamed.

"Mostly, I talked about music and the musicality of thedrumset. What is the sound? People will listen to drummers andsometimes they don't listen to the right thing." Motian leanedforward in his chair. What is the sound of that drummer? Whatkind of sound is he getting? Each drummer has his own sound.

"All musicians should check out the tradition of their in-struments. There were so many really great drummers. I'd liketo bring that heart of drum playing back. People now don'tknow about Shadow Wilson, Denzil Best, Kenny Clarke, DaveTough, Chick Webb, J immy Crawford! And Baby Dodds! Somegreat drummers. Drummers today don't know about how orwhat they played," Paul said, shaking his head.

Motian explained that the styles of the really great drummerswould never be obsolete. "Their type of playing is connectedwith the way people are playing today. It really is. Whether it'sused or not is another story. But, I think there's a certain art toplaying the drums that is missing today."

When asked what he felt his function in a group was, Motianstated simply. "Adding to the music I love to play time," heelaborated. "It depends on what kind of music it is! I thinkthat's great. It 's a happy thing just to play time and having thatfeeling in your body, bringing it to other people."

"I don't know if that's contradictory to what I said earlierabout playing time. How can you listen to the Charlie ParkerQuartet with Max Roach and say that's not good or that's notfun? That's beautiful music!"

Would Motian agree that the best 'free' drummers were alsoexceptional timekeepers? "Well, that comes back to the tradi-tion of drums. I don't think a drummer or anyone else can juststart playing what's known as 'free'. Somebody said that theonly 'free' music is when you don't get paid. You can't just startplaying that way. It comes from a tradition and there's a lotinvolved there.

When asked whether he still practices, Motian replied, "I tryto play a l i t t le bit each day. Sometimes I make a mental noteand sometimes I ' l l even write down: 'Play at least ten minutes aday on the drum set.' I have to really feel like I want to do it. Idon't force myself. When I sit down and try to think aboutworking something out, I 'm never really happy. If I sit downand play the drums, like I 'm playing in front of people, I 'll getinto it more. Then I can play for awhile."

On the floor tom I noticed a piece of paper with triplet exer-cises written on it. Paul sat down at the kit, picked up the paperand started to play what was written. Then he stopped. "Thatsounded good this morning, but now it doesn't sound so good."He tossed the paper aside and went into a second solo to dem-onstrate the sound of his drums.

"This is an old Slingerland set," Paul explained. "I've had itfor years."

The snare was an old chrome Slingerland, the tom-toms were9X13 and 16X16. For a second mounted tom-tom, Motian hadan old wood 5X14 Ludwig snare with the strainer and snaresoff.

"I have another snare drum that I like a lot," Paul said. "It'sa deep wooden snare with ten lugs. I used that for a few yearsand then I switched to this metal one. I may go back to thewooden one."

"People ask me about my cymbals," Paul said as he tapped asizzle cymbal. "That's another thing that just sort of happened.Through the years you go through different cymbals until youget the sound that you l ike. I must have had my rivet cymbal for20 years. It's an old A. Zildjian."

The second ride on the left was an old K. Zildjian. "I've got aPaiste ripple cymbal on the bottom of the hi-hat, and a K. Zildji-an on top. I have a Paiste Chinese type cymbal that I use a lot.That's what I use pretty regularly now." Paul told me that thiswas the same set he'd used on his recordings and his pet drumseemed to be the 18" bass.

"I think it's deeper than most. This one gets a bigger soundthan a normal 18". I tune them unt i l it 's satisfactory to my ear.I ' l l tune them until it sounds good to me; until there's some kindof interval between the drums and it sounds pleasant to myears. But, I don't say I have to tune a fourth here and a thirdthere. I don't get into that. Sometimes I might as an ear trainingexercise, I'll play the drums and then go over to the piano to seewhat it actually is. But it's hard for me to find out because I likethe overtones in the drums. They hate me in recording studiosfor that. There's no mufflers on the drums. Everything is wideopen. It's loud and there's a lot of overtones. It's hard to tune tospecific notes because of that. Most of the time the studio engi-neer has me take off the head or put some damper on it, becauseit really raises havoc with their needles.

"I'm still not completely satisfied with recording," Motianadmitted. "ECM does a really fantastic job but I wonder if it'spossible to hear drums on a record the way I hear them whenI'm sitting behind them? In a hall with bad acoustics I can't playtoo loud or I ' l l wipe everybody else out."

Does he consider himself a loud drummer? "No," Motiansaid. "But I've had people tell me that I was too loud. Some-times it's interesting to hear other players in a bad hall. I learn alot. Once I went to a concert where the drummer was playingwell but you couldn't hear the piano. I kept thinking, 'I wish thedrummer would just stop for two measures.' He never did. Hejust played constantly and wiped out the piano. I don't wantpeople thinking that way about me."

Remo Ambassador heads are on all of Motian's drums excepton the snare which was calfskin. It isn't that he is so particularabout a specific head as he is, again, about the sound. "On thislast tour of Europe, Sonor Drums provided a set for me. I justtook my trap case and cymbals. The drums seemed good butwhat I didn't like about them was that they had clear plasticheads on them. That starts to mess with my sound. I changed acouple of heads and got a better sound.

"I don't l ike heads when they're real thick. I think plasticheads are made in three or four different thicknesses and eachcompany is a little different. I like the heads that are on mydrums now. It's surprising that the calfskin head seems to stayin tune. It's nice for brushes but the plastic heads are nice forbrushes, too. Those clear ones aren't very good though."

Besides his regular drum kit , Motian plays some of the mostinspiring percussion on various instruments. He is a master atusing mallets in addition to brushes and sticks on the drum kit.

"I've got a couple of boxes of percussion things I've collectedover the years that I take around with me," he said. "It's justlike colors to add to the music.

"I like the concept of Indian music," Paul said. "Where youhave an Indian playing an instrument like a violin or a sarot withthe tamboura and drum. I think there's a way of connecting thatwith what I 'm doing. You have a melody instrument, the tam-boura and a bass or a drum! You can do a lot in music with that.

"A lot of different music is coming together, which was inevi-table. I had an idea to play all kinds of music. I don't see whyyou have to be restricted. I'd like to play a piece by CharlesIves and then a standard. Then one of my compositions. Jazzfusion, music of the world like African, Indian, Asian, theMiddle Eastern, rock & roll, country and western, rhythm &blues, bring it all together!"

Despite critical acclaim for performing and recording, therole of bandleader has been an uphi l l climb for Motian. In spiteof the fact that he's still on the ascent, there is much more thana spark of optimism in his soul.

"Managers can't do anything with me because I don't com-mand $5,000 a performance and their commission isn't going tobe great. That's the reality of it," he said.

"My concerts have done very well. I've gotten very goodreviews. It bothers me that I'm not playing as much as I wouldlike to. I get calls for gigs with other people that I turn down. Sofar, it hasn't been too bad. We've done two European tours, afew concerts in New York, and a couple of workshops and col-lege concerts. Once I actually get to play," he smiled, "it's fan-tastic."

Photos by Robert Stilesby Harold Howland

Fred Begun is that rare sort of per-cussionist whose musicianship parallelsthat of a fine concert violinist. He pos-sesses the ability to translate into com-plete music the rough and primitive in-stincts of aggression which a less sensi-tive person may bring untempered tothat most easily abused of instruments,the drum. In the world of classical mu-sic, rich with tradition, where a player'scultivation of superb technique, tone.and historical understanding is by ne-cessity regarded as a given factor. Fredstands out as uniquely total masterof his instrument.

Born in Brooklyn on August 30. 1928.Fred moved with his family to Washing-ton. D.C. when he was eight years old.At age eleven he began his percussionstudies, to which he applied himself witheffort sufficient to gain his entrance tothe Juilliard School of Music in NewYork in 1946. For the next Jive years Fredstudied the timpani under the firm andartful hand of Saul Goodman, whose un-compromising musical approach he ab-sorbed completely. I he technical andaesthetic awareness which Fred gainedduring his studies under this Horowitz oftimpanists prepared him well for thesymphony orchestra and formed thebasis for his own personal and intenselymusical style.

One is impressed and enchanted im-mediately by Fred's big, clear sound andby his courtly demeanor onstage, wherehe makes graceful and musically ef-fective use of his body to enhance andpersonify every tonal and stylistic detailof his part. During the reading of a givencomposition one actually may imaginethat Fred is the pious and decorated bar-on of eighteenth-century Germany, orthe swashbuckling mounted general ofNapoleon's army. Fred once said, "Imime the music. When I play Don Juan,I identify with the lover."

The true romantic. Fred will alwaysoffer to a conductor or to a student atleast two ways in which to perform prac-tically any passage: an unbiased, "cor-rect" translation of the page, and a vi-tal, expansive interpretation which atonce pays deference to history and ex-plores the realm of inspiration.

HH: What motivated you to study mu-sic, and what was your early traininglike?FB: I started lessons when I was 11.The big attraction at that t ime was, ofcourse, jazz, and the drumset was theonly thing in the world. I hadn't hadmuch contact at all with symphonic mu-sic. In fact, I was totally unaware of it .

It all started because one day a kidbrought a pair of sticks and four or fivet in cans mounted on a board to school. Itwas pretty neat, and I asked him to makeme a set, which he did. I turned on theradio and played along, making quite aracket and driving my folks crazy. I fi-nally persuaded them to get me startedtaking lessons.

In those days the big thing the teacherlaid on the parents was, 'He doesn'thave to make a lot of noise, so get him alittle rubber practice pad.' As you know,that way the student learns how to playthe pad, not the drum. I finally got a realdrum set with a snare drum, a l i t t le Chi-nese tom-tom, a woodblock, and a bluel ight in the bass drum. It was one ofthose very early Baby Dodds-type out-fits. I didn' t have a hi-hat unti l later be-cause that didn't come with the set.

I started playing wi th l i t t le groups inschool. It was getting near the end ofhigh school, and even though I was doingwell on the legitimate studies, I readwell, and I did my rudiments, the thing Ireally wanted to do was play jazz. I hadto decide where I would attend college. Igot into a real subterfuge plan to con-vince my folks to let me try out torJuilliard. I wanted to go to Jui l l iard to benear 52nd Street. I made Juill iard, andstarted my studies with Saul Goodmanon timpani, which I had not played muchat all prior to that . I found it interesting,but the big thing was to try to get intosessions and sit in. Needless to say, Ididn't stop traffic on 52nd Street, muchto my dismay.

I was in about the tenth orchestra inschool, and it came time for us to playour first concert. The first thing I everplayed on timpani in a concert was theSchubert Unfinished. There was some-thing about the concert that I liked: the

public's response, a certain elegance tothe setting, something that appealed toan aesthetic that I hadn't really lookedat. From that point on, I started gettinginto the studies more ardently. Duringmy second year in school I decided that Iwas going to be the next great timpanistin the world. I 'm st i l l trying.HH: Was it the absence of improvisa-tion as a main feature that made classicalmusic easier to pursue than jazz?FB: Well , we do have to adhere to thewritten page when we play with an or-chestra, but there are areas of inter-pretation on timpani where you have achance to use a certain amount of artisticlicense. You're not necessarily changingnotes from what is written, but you havelatitude for a personal interpretation pro-vided it 's tasteful and doesn't get in theway. I was able to find out about thisfairly early on.HH: Does that freedom result simplyfrom the fact that, unlike the sectionstring player, the timpanist has his partall to himself?FB: Well , you are often part of a per-cussion section, even though your thingis usually individualized. In the classicliterature, you are alone, and wi th in theframework you can project the note acertain way. Tone, length, qual i ty , theenhancement of other sections of the or-chestra, those various details can makeyour interpretive role more interesting.HH: What criteria helped you to deter-mine when to alter slightly an older partwhich probably would have been writtendifferently had the composer had accessto more mechanically efficient timpani?FB: It depends on who's conductingand where you're playing, If it's a nerdof a conductor, all of the extra notes inthe world aren't going to help. If it 's abetter conductor, then I consult with himprior to a rehearsal as to what I have inmind, and if he has that in mind, fine.

I feel that there is validity in some ofthe notes that have filtered on throughthe ages, specifically through Toscanini.He added many interesting notes to theBeethoven symphonies.HH: Going back: Tell me somethingabout Goodman as a man, a player, ateacher, an inventor.

FRED BEGUN:Timpani Virtuoso

FB: Very interesting man. He is thesenior citizen of the timpani world, notonly in age, but also in terms of statureand of my own personal reverence. I feelthat he's one of the greatest natural per-formers in any area of music. Here's aman who can just walk up to the in-strument and play. It never seems to beany degree of trouble for him. He hasfantastic time, taste, tone-quality, and akind of joie de vivre that got to all of uswho had room for it. If you don't haveroom for joie de vivre, your playing is go-ing to be dead.HH: Did he have specific qualities,methods, or techniques as a teacher thatyou found particularly valuable?FB: The organization of techniquesthat he used in his lessons was somewhatscattered, and I'm not saying that he wasdisorganized. A lot of the things that Iwanted to get from him had to be ob-tained at the concert hall, however, notat the lesson. He would sometimes unin-tentionally do things differently in les-sons from the way he did them in per-

fo rmance . What I was i n t e r e s t e d inseeing was what he really did in theBrahms Fourth, why he made the endingof the Beethoven Ninth sound so great.This may not happen in a lesson setting,but it wil l in the fevered pitch of a per-formance.

When I started teaching I decided totry to show as faithfully as I could whatI do onstage. That's what it 's about. If aperson is taking the trouble to come andstudy with me, I feel that he should get ital l , choreography and everything.HH: You j o i n ed the N a t i o n a l Sym-phony Orche s t r a (NSO) r ight out ofschool. Tell me about that.FB: I graduated Jui l l ia rd in June 1951,and the opening in this orchestra cameabout. The summer before I was one ofthe t impani players in a performance ofthe Berlioz Requiem. Somebody spottedand remembered me, so I got called toaudition for Howard Mitche l l , who wasthen music director. He signed me to myfirst contract. I 've been here ever since.HH: With the NSO you've given theworld premiere performances of threet imp a n i concer t i . What can you sayabout these as compositions and aboutthe t impani as a solo instrument?FB: The timpani in a solo concerto set-ting can be very effective or very inef-fective. In the three works that I 'vedone, I 've seen i t go both ways and inbetween. The first and best of the three isthe piece that Robert Parris wrote for me(1958). He found a successful setting,and I feel that as far as interest is con-cerned, i t ' s a far better piece than eitherthe Jorge Sarmientos (1965) or the BlasAtehortua (1968).HH: It seems that so much percussion-centered music is written more wi th aneye towards liberating percussionistsfrom the back of the bus than towardscreating lasting works of art.FB: That's one of my objections to thepercussion ensemble l i terature in gener-al. Not that it 's all junk, but enough of itis to make it all seem l ike a circus t r ick .Here they are, the clowns are jumpingaround again. I don't find this very musi-cal, and I would say that most per-cussion ensemble music turns me off.HH: How did your book of e tudesevolve? How do you view it as composi-tion, and what are your aspirations as awriter?FB: The book came about sporadically,an exercise here, an exercise there, andin each piece I would try to th ink interms of a motive that I might develop.The pieces have some kind of form andlogic. It was not just technical histrion-ics, although some of it is quite diff icul t .It was my attempt to write music. I feelthat this is the approach that is missingfrom some of the material that we haveto work with. The technical vehicles thatwe practice are writ ten as exercises, not

as music, and consequently they areplayed that way. This is something thatwe can all th ink about in our daily prac-tice. Take, for example, those very firstcouple of exe r c i s e s in the Goodmanbook. You can make them sound like astring of notes, or you can make thosetwo pages sound highly musical. If youdo, you have a good start as to whatyou're going to do with the instrument.HH: Do you have o t h e r book splanned?FB: I have a couple of books goingaround in my head. It 's going to be veryhard to write a better beginning bookthan the Goodman. Therefore, I

wouldn't even th ink in those terms. Imight th ink of another set of approachesto complement that book, but I feel thatGoodman is the prime method, that i tsays it a l l . I can't envision my ever usinganother beginning book for my students.

As far as writing is concerned, I 'mmore involved now in the written wordthan in music.

I ' v e s t a r t ed a group of anecdotesabout the symphonic repertoire, my feel-ings about certain pieces. I 'm going to doabout fifty or seventy-five, and I've al-ready done work on Le Sucre du Prin-emps, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra,and the Tchaikovsky Fourth. These arethoughts about a specific performance ora specific work through the years. I didone called Farewell to the GoodmanDrums when we sold his instruments.

I also want to write a good biographyof Saul Goodman. That is something I

can't think about too much currently be-cause of the research t ime involved. Butthe idea appeals to me, both from thestandpoint of his being a chronicle ofplaying in the twent ie th century and howhe evolved.HH: Returning to your role and orien-ta t ion as a teacher : You must haveyounger s tuden t s who, as you oncewere, are more interested in jazz, rock,or other forms than in classical music.How do you relate to and direct their val-ues?FB: Well, I stay with the drumset. Ican't consider myself a Steve Gadd, butI don't t h ink my head's back in 1940. Asfar as reconciling the pursuit of the stu-dent is concerned, we as players andteachers are more and more in a mul t ip lecapacity: you're not going to t ra in just atimpanist, a mallet player, a snare drum-mer, a drum set player. The demands aremuch greater all the t ime. The contem-porary player, if he is to be successful,not just monetarily but also in his role asa percussionist, must do it all .HH: Are you currently as interested injazz as you were before Juil l iard?HH: I can't say that I devote so manyhours each week to listening to recordsor radio programs, but if there's some-thing that I've been reading about or thatpeople have been talking about, I ' l l makeit a point to hear or see it or both.HH: Who are a few of your favoritejazz or rock drummers?FB: Well. I th ink that Steve Gadd isprobably one of the biggest talents thatI've heard, a fantastic player. I like Bil lyCobham and Ginger Baker. Buddy al-ways fascinates me. One of the mostt a s t e fu l p layers of a l l t ime is She l l yManne. There's another guy I ' l l neverforget, Gene Krupa. When I was a youngfledgling. Gene represented the epitomeof what a big-time drummer should be.There was a great mystique about him, acertain class, a certain elegance—he hadstyle, there's no doubt about it .HH: What long-range plan would yousuggest to the aspiring orchestral playerfor lea rn ing the reper to i re and con-fronting auditions?FB: There are resources for learningaudition techniques. Some people fromthe New York Philharmonic have adver-tised themselves as Audition Associates,and Artie Press in Boston as well, tocounsel players on auditioning. Now aperson can become an audition specialistthe way an applicant to a corporationwould go someplace to learn to write agood resume. This is all well and good,but it is liable to become a perverse ele-ment of our field if the player does notlearn to conduct himself onstage once hegets a job. It 's conceivably computer-foolproof to learn the techniques, strate-gic parts, and solos needed to give an aceaudition, but the player must make sure

that he's equipped also to perform aHaydn symphony tastefully. It's gratify-ing to know that this audition counselingexists, but I hope that the people who arerendering the service do it all the way sothat the applicant has the wherewithal todo what his credentials announce.

Regarding the repertoire. I devote thefirst extended period of time to Beetho-ven, then Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Inthe meantime. I deal with certain otheridiomatic styles such as a lighter Mozart,the relationship between Haydn and theBeethoven sound, and so on. In thesedifferent textures it's not all the sameforte. It seems that the average studenttoday is exposed to contemporary musicmore quickly than to the classic stan-dards, so I sometimes find it difficult totransmit the classical style.

When I was in school we didn't havecommunity youth orchestras or othergreat outlets of learning the repertoire. Iused to have to go out and play in theseSunday morning orchestras on the EastSide, l ike the Czechoslovakian SocietyOrchestra of America, with eleven and ahalf people in i t , and we'd saw through aBrahms symphony . People would besinging parts. You learn how to play themusic that way, because there's an awfullot that doesn't happen. I got to Juil l iardand had no real orchestral experience.Today the kids are learning the reper-toire in their youth orchestras, and it'swonderful.HM: Many American percussion stu-dents today take up the serious study ofclassical music about the same time youdid, late high school and college. Do youthink, given the competition out therenow and in the future, that's too late?FB: It depends on how early the playerreally gets started. I've had students sev-en and eight years old, and unless there'ssometh ing t r emendous ly compe l l ingabout them, nothing really happens for acouple of years. You're babysitting mostof the time. If I were to choose an aver-age good starting age, I would say elev-en.

You can't be too patronizing with ayoung person, though. I feel that to getinto the "Mary Had a Lit t le Lamb" rou-tine rather than to go for substance is amistake. You have to start with goodprinciples.HH: You recently presented your firsttimpani c l in ic . How did it feel, and whatare your thoughts in th is area?FB: I found it very enjoyable. I wasable actually to feel the temperature ofthe group for which I performed. Youhave to do that immediately so that youknow where to shift gears. Are they pre-dominately players? Teachers? Non-per-cussion people? What I had plannedworked. I want, however, to put togeth-er four or five individual programs so

that within these I have a possible twen-ty or t h i r t y combinat ions of sh i f t inggears whenever it's needed.HH: At the clinic you demonstrated the"Danse Sacrale" from Le Sacre by play-ing along wi th a phonograph record.How do you think that worked out?FB: It's something that goes back tomy early repertoire studies with Saul.We'd play along with records, and we'dlearn to do this sort of dubbing prettywel l . That p iece , of course, is hardenough to do with a conductor. I knewthe record well enough to time it beyondthe beat, and it worked out fine. I feelthat it was a very effective ending to theshow.HH: When you play you don't use as t r i c t French or German grip as es-poused by various authors and teachers,but rather you hold the sticks differentlyfrom t ime to time. Does a good gripevolve subconsciously?FB: It 's a variable thing. I feel thatwithin certain boundaries there is no to-tal ly incorrect way. What I 'm doing islett ing the stick be an extension of merather than adhering to a hoisting andmanipulating action that is going to takeaway from what I want to come out. Iwant the stick to be a natural appendage.I would say that consequently, I haveperhaps a half dozen positions that allcan take place within thir ty-two bars, de-pending upon where the music is going.What are the combinations between dy-namic extremes, and what do I have todo to make my appendage transmit themusic? I try to control the stick ratherthan let it control me.

I th ink that by not dwelling on stickgrips the way a rudimental snare drumteacher might, I'm appealing to the in-telligence of the player. We know the dif-ferent categories of sound and we knowthat we must have a more legitimatelyneat and correct grip for a crisp, stac-cato articulation, the thumbs and fin-gers being just so, than for legato. Myidea of legato, as you know, is as l i t t l etension or pressure as possible to agitatethe tone. Less cartilage, more fat of thehand, more cushions of the fingers.Whatever you can do to transmit thesofter parts of the grip enhances thesound of legato.

When you're playing a very articulatepassage, especially softly, getting a bitfurther towards the center of the headwill help to dry out some of the extra res-onance.HH: You use plastic heads exclusively.How do you feel about plastic as com-pared with calfskin?FB: Let's put it this way: I 've had hap-py and less than happy experiences withplastic heads.

I feel that the industry is not making asgood a product as they could be making.

It 's probably true that the t impani andthe players in the top orchestras make upa very small percentage of their totalsales, but they have not come out withany kind of improvement to help the set-ting of the timpani head, and they havenot improved the materials. I feel thatsome of the plastic heads that I had yearsago are better than some of the ones thatI 'm getting today. In recent times, I'vehad to reject more heads than I've ac-cepted.HH: Do you detect variances in thick-ness wi th in a head or from one head toanother?FB: Gene ra l ly the ma te r i a l w i t h i n ahead is pretty even, but they do vary.When it 's too thick it sounds too thuddy,and when it 's too thin it lacks body.

It 's Russian Roulette when you put ona plastic head. There seems to be morethan a fifty percent chance that it's notgoing to sound good. It shouldn't be thattroublesome.HH: What made you switch to plasticin the first place?FB: A v a i l a b i l i t y , for one t h i n g . I t ' shard to get really good skin heads. Alsowe now are playing in much more mod-ern concert halls with sophisticated light-ing systems which tend to dry out theskin heads. In the winter t ime, you reallyneed to have a good irrigation system ofsponges in the bottom of the drum. Con-versely, in the summert ime, especially ifyou're playing outdoors, you may aswe l l hang the sk in heads up on thec l o t h e s l i n e , t h e y ' l l be so soggy. Thedrawbacks of skin heads are the cl imaticextremes, which I find more inconven-ient than a plastic head that doesn't qui tesuit me.HH: Would you say that under opti-mum environmental conditions the calfheads sound better?FB: There is a specific warmth that thecalf has that the plastic doesn't.HH: Do you th ink that the industryshould make a head that would possessthe warmth and feel of calf as well as thepracticality of plastic?FB: I th ink it can be done.HH: Do you have specific suggestionsfor improving plastic heads?FB: Wha t ' s needed is a head tha twould vibrate when you first put i t on,that would go on much more evenly sotha t you wou l dn ' t have to i ron outwrinkles and make distortions in theamount of torque that you use on eachrod; a head that would go on the way askin head goes on when i t ' s wet, adher-ing to the shape of the drum. On a Ringerdrum you have eight rods to be con-cerned with, and a manufacturer shouldbe able to make a head that you put onand torque the same amount at each rod.getting a beautiful sound instead of the

by David Levine

The modern manufacturing plant thatRemo, Inc. occupies in North Holly-wood, California, is made up of fourbuildings, totall ing over 54,000 squarefeet. One building has been set aside toproduce practice pads, practice sets, andRoto-toms. Wi th in the other three struc-tures, l(Y7r of the world's drum heads aremade. Many of the heads wil l be used asoriginal equipment on Rogers, Slinger-land. Pear l , Tama, Gre t s ch , Sonor ,Yamaha, Orange, Milestone. CB-700,and most other new drums (except Lud-wig and Premier). The remainder of theheads wi l l find their way to music storesthroughout the world to be sold as re-placement heads for banjos, bass drums,bongos, snare drums, timpani, and tom-toms.

For some heads, unique processes are used. Fiberskyn headsare made by laminating a synthetic material to the Mylar. Pin-stripe heads have an adhesive applied between 2 layers of My-lar. On CS heads the center dot is firmly adhered to the plasticby a press (2A).

After each roll of Mylar has been tested for consistency ofsound and durabili ty it is cut, first in rectangular sheets, then,into circles (1 A). Around the edge of the circles small holes arepunched. These holes will help anchor the plastic film in thehoop. Then, by use of heat and pressure, the collar is formed(1B).

Left to right, Lloyd McCausland (salesmanager), Remo, and Pro-Mark presi-dent Herb Broclistein in front of theRemo plant in North Hollywood, Cali-fornia.

The Pro-Mark Corporation was ac-quired as a subsidiary of Remo in 1975.Based in Houston, Texas, Pro-Mark hasbuilt its reputation on the Pro-Mark andGood Times oak d rum st icks . Thesesticks are made exclusively for Pro-Markand imported from Japan. Additionally,Hands Hickory sticks, soon to be madein the United States, are available.

When Remo introduced the Weath-erking drum head in 1957, it was ac-claimed and accepted by the percussionworld. Since then, SoundMaster, CS, Fi-berskyn, and Pinstripe heads, along withtunable practice pads, practice sets, andRoto-toms have been successfully devel-oped and marketed. Lloyd McCausland,Remo's na t i ona l sales manager , con-ducted our tour through the plant, givingus an inside look at the manufacturingprocess.

Photos by Phillip Neiman

1A

2A

INSIDE REMO

1B

To make the hoops, an aluminum strip is bent into a channeland forms a coil (3A). This coil is then cut into individual hoops(3B), which are subsequently welded together (3C).

Following assembly, coated heads are sprayed with a brushsurface (5A), and black pinstripes are painted on Pinstripeheads (5B). These, and other completed heads, are then put intostock (5C).

At th is point the hoop and the head are united. A measuredamount of epoxy is injected into the hoop (foreground 4A). Theepoxy flows through the small holes in the plastic and securelybonds the film to the hoop. This bond is strengthened by "curs-ing" the head during its 20 minute trip through the oven (back-ground 4A).

As orders are prepared for shipping, each head is stampedwith the Remo emblem, head type, and weight (6A). Final ly,the drum heads are packed for shipping (6B).

5C

6A

6B

By Dave Levine

This interview took place in conjunction with Modern Drum-mer's tour of the Remo plant. Present were both Remo Belli,president and founder, and Lloyd McCausland, sales man-ager.

DL: Please discuss the history of the plastic head; how andwhy it was developed, and how it was received.RB: In 1957, while working to create a display at Drum City,in Hollywood, which I owned with Roy Hart, we went to theC. D. LaMore Company and bought some plastic material. (Ihad first become acquainted with Mylar after a visit with BudSlingerland, of the Slingerland Drum Company). We simplytook this material and stapled it to a (wooden) hoop and put iton the drum. You could play on it immediately.

Within this same time frame Chick Evans, in Sante Fe, NewMexico, had a drumhead that he was using tacks to put on. TheDupont company, in those days, had also presented Mylar toLudwig. Bill Ludwig and I met in May of 1957 in Enid, Oklaho-ma. I realized then and there that the Ludwig company woulddevelop a plastic head, but they were not pursuing it with anygreat need.

By virtue of a combination of chemical knowledge, in the per-son of Sam Muchnick, and my knowledge of what a drum headhad to do. we were able to develop a system whereby we se-cured the Mylar into an aluminum channel by the use of anepoxy. We've never said that we made the first synthetic head;we've claimed to have developed the Weatherking drum head.We've laid claim to developing the first successful (plastic)drum head.

At the time the heads were received with caution. But, bothRoy Hart and myself were more or less in the game. We hadproven ourselves through the different (performing) work wehad done. Also, I was personally acquainted with every manu-facturer of drums and with all the other drum shops in theUnited States, because of ours being in Hollywood. The credi-bility gap was not that wide. If I sent a head to somebody theywould normally take a chance and try it. When touring musi-cians would come into our shop we would ask them to try adrum head. It really doesn't take too long to introduce some-thing. There was a lot of believability, and it carried its ownmomentum.

That first head (for the display) was in March of 1957. InApril, I met with Sam Muchnick, and June 1, 1957, we openedup Remo, Inc. That's how fast it happened. Our sales curve forthe first six months was straight up a vertical line.

We had the good fortune to enter the industry at a time whendrum sales were just beginning to take off. There was a largemarket for drumheads and calf was becoming scarce. Ac-tually, people in the industry doubt very much whether it couldhave occurred had it not been for a plastic head. Not necessari-ly in terms of our head, but whoever would have developed it.I 'm not talking of a brand name, but the existence of a unit thatallowed itself to be produced in such volume that it could ac-commodate the expansion that took place. Had they had to de-pend on animal skins, at that t ime, it (large drum sales) wouldnot have occurred and the music industry that we know todaywould not have developed. I wouldn't know how to calculatethe millions of dollars that are involved internationally as a re-sult.DL: In the music industry there are more and more companiesthat are being run by non-musicians. Has your background as aplayer had a positive influence on your success?RB: I feel very seriously that it did help a lot. It had a greatdeal to do with our success because we have had empathy withthe performers that we serve. I have never attempted to run thebusiness from the business point of view. That's done by myassociate, Sid Gerwin, because that's where his mind is. We

complement one another. I agree to whatever he says relative toa solid business decision. But, he does not interfere with mewhen I say, "That sound just doesn't make it."

We run our own store, and within our organization we don'thave a mechanic trying to make a sound judgement. We have apercussionist, a guy who identifies with it. Just like we don't letthe percussionist try to tell the machinist how to engineer theproduct.

It's important. That's where the music business started. His-torically, the music business began with musicians who in turnmade instruments. Of course, you had musicians that madegreat instruments and were terrible businessmen. As a resultthey were not successful. There are relationships that do haveto occur.DL: What makes Remo heads different from others on themarket?RB: The basic difference is that we buy a polyester film calledMylar, made by the Dupont Company. We buy this film underan exclusive customer specification number. We discovered along time ago, when working with timpani heads, that one headwas not sounding like another head. If we had six rolls of Mylarwe literally could have three or four different sounding heads.Two would sound alike and the other four would all be totallydifferent.

At this point, we began to realize that there were differenceswithin Mylar. Lloyd and I even took a trip to Ohio to watchthem make Mylar. We began to realize that unt i l we were ableto have more control over the basic ingredient we were nevergoing to have something that was consistent. There was a lotof technology that went into the making of Mylar that we hadto work out with Dupont.

We also realized that there were certain Mylars that weremore adaptive to making drum heads than other Mylars. It waslike picking a good calf-skin head. You didn't just go out andbuy a calf-skin head; you went out and bought a calf-skin headthat had particular qualities to it .

There is a big difference between Mylar, Alumilar (made inJapan), and Mellanex (made in England). They all sound dif-ferent. That's why we continue to stick with Dupont Mylar, par-ticularly since Dupont was able to work with us. That's themain difference.LM: Two things that Remo heads have always stood for aresound and feel. Two of the main ingredients that make themsound and feel different are raw materials and method of manu-facture. We're the only people in the world that continue tomake a drumhead the way we do. There are other methods,other ways that we could use, but we find that ours is mostsuccessful.DL: There seems to be a trend towards specialized, ratherthan general purpose, drumheads. How did it start, where is itgoing, and in what way is Remo involved?LM: Rather than this specialization creating a need, it's serv-ing a need. What can you do to a violin or trumpet, to changethe tonal colors, that hasn't already been done? With per-cussion the surface has merely been scratched. The changescome about by developing new materials and changing the filmand the skin.

Percussion is the last family of established instruments to beexplored. The number of percussion instruments being used inan ensemble has grown to be a large percentage of the totalnumber. The innovations that we've brought to drumheads goright along with that trend of developing the last family ofacoustic instruments to be explored.RB: If we were to have introduced the Pinstripe head in 1957,we would have never gotten off the ground. It was not the typeof sound people were interested in. No way would they havepurchased it. It 's just that sounds continue to change, especiallyin the percussion business.

I think this trend is just one of the situations that occur. Youcan compare that with any evolution. There are some basic in-

struments in the field of music that haven't changed. I don't seethat they will be allowed to change. Up to now, the basic drumhasn't changed much.

The percussion business is one of the segments of the musicbusiness that is under constant change. It's one of the areas thatthey will allow to change, and it demands change. The basicdrum sound is what people want to alter. It's the chosen soundfor alteration. I'm not talking in terms of timpani, where there'sa pitch involved with the quality of sound. People go out of theirway to change the sound of a tom-tom, a bass drum, a snaredrum; to get another sound. It will continue to change withinthe narrow field of percussion.LM: We listen. A lot of input comes from the marketplace.We happen to be geographically and strategically located in LosAngeles, where a wealth of creative talent is located. We takeadvantage of that.RB: What we have tried to do, here, is to accommodate all thedifferent environments that the artists seem to be putting them-selves into. Not only by their own choice, but by the choice ofso many different factors that enter into the world of music. Itgoes back to the necessity of being flexible enough and inter-ested enough to accommodate a certain degree of change with-out trying to dictate what it should be. To try to make some-thing that fits into the conditions that are developing. The trendsin music are being dictated by so many factors.

Speaking for myself, I don't see an end in sight. Between thedifferent "flavors" that we make, and the different ones offeredby other manufacturers, I would say that right now you havethe choice of a dozen (different) heads. I don't see that chang-ing.DL: What new innovations will Remo be introducing in thenear future?RB: The most significant development that we've got going onhere, is the development that is now under way towards theintroduction of Fiberskyn 2. Fiberskyn 2 is a refinement of theconcept that we developed in producing the original Fiberskyn.With the early heads, we realized that the amount of coating weput on a drum head dramatically affected the sound. So we'veknown for quite some time that anything you add to a polyesterfilm is going to alter its sound.

We have always tended to make a drum head whose soundvalues are, in a musical sense, complementary to all the othersounds that are going on orchestrally. Interestingly enough, themarket has always accepted the sound of a drum head that has adegree of warmth to it.LM: We never really move too far off center, do we? If leather(calf-skin) was the mainstream here we are, 22 years later, stillhanging on to the mainstream. Still using that as the focal point.Isn't it interesting that we still go for that leather-skin kind ofsound?RB: Several years ago. I began laminating fiberglass to polyes-ter film to get some of the rounder sounds that some people feltthey would like to have from their instruments. We developedthe Fiberskyn drumhead knowing that its mass market was nottoo large. We wanted to accommodate all segments of the mar-ket. We're not just interested in the guys that play rock. We tryto furnish the smaller markets, knowing that this is important tothe musician. But, after we introduced it, we were surprised bythe number of people in the different segments of the musicbusiness that went for Fiberskyn.

Unfortunately for us, we had some technical problems wherethe marriage between the fiberglass and the polyester, and theadhesive that we used to bond them, was not at all times com-patible. It had nothing to do with sound. Now we have devel-oped another marriage of materials in producing the Fiberskyn 2that is, in my opinion, the most significant thing that we havedone since the introduction of the original Weatherking heads.

Fiberskyn 2 has the quality of sound, durability, and valuesthat are going to be very interesting to the general market.DL: What about the Roto-tom foot pedal?

A Day In Las Vegas:An MD Special Report on the

Louie Bellson National Drum Contest Finals.Story and photos by Laura Deni

In 1941, one of the most outstandingcareers in drumming began when LouieBellson won the Slingerland/Gene KrupaNational Drum Contest. The contest wasdiscontinued because of World War I I .Th i r t y - e igh t years la te r Be l l son , evermindful of who afforded him his firstbreak, asked Slingerland to revive theevent, transforming it into the Slinger-land/Louie Bellson National Drum Con-test.

The Slingerland/Bellson NationalDrum Contest culminated in Las Vegas,Nevada when 13 of the brightest, andmost t a l en t ed teenagers competed inhopes of receiving $20,000 in collegescholarships, and an appearance on theJohnny Carson Tonight Show.

THE SETTINGFor a year, amateur drummers across

the nation competed in local and regionaldrum contests. Over 1,000 aspirantscompeted and the 13 semi-finalists wereflown by Slingerland to Las Vegas alongwi th both parents and an ins t ruc to r .They were provided rooms at the Am-bassador Inn and given $40 per personper day for food.

Catalyst for the day long event wasBellson, whose vi ta l i ty and devotion toyoung talent sparked enthusiasm fromthe s tudents and genu ine admi ra t i onfrom the viewing audience. He was aidedby his sweatshirt clad wife, Pearl Bailey,who cheered equally for all the con-testants.

Bellson emphasized repeatedly thatthis was to be an educational, learningevent. In a town noted for its 24 hourgli t ter , the semi-finalists competed in theteacher education wing located at theUniversity of Nevada.

THE JUDGINGThe semi-finalists were judged on their

musical presentation as well as quality ofperformance. The total possible score of100 reflected the utilization of all ele-ments to bring maximum effectivenessand control to the musical presentation.

"The judges are people that I've re-spected for many years," stressed Bell-son about the seven judges. "The manwho knows more about cymbals thananybody, except maybe Zildjian, is Di-

Muzio," continued Bellson about judgeLeonard DiMuzio, merchandising man-ager for the Avedis Zildjian Company.One of the most respected drum expertsin the industry, DiMuzio attended boththe New England Conservatory and theBerklee College of Music.

"Erskine is a young man who haseverything to offer," added Bellsonabout judge Peter E r sk ine , who hasplayed for Maynard Ferguson and StanKenton and is currently with WeatherReport . His numerous recordings in-clude the latest albums of Michel Colum-bier and Joni Mitchell .

"Papa is a gigant ic drummer , "stressed Bellson about judge Tony Papa,executive vice president in charge of mo-tion pictures and TV for the AssociatedBooking Corporation. In addition to hav-ing had his own jazz band, he also playedin the late Artie Shaw Band.

"It's important to have differentjudges; percussion players as well asdrummers," elaborated Bellson. "Forthe past 35 years Foster has done every-thing."

Dr. William P. Foster is Chairman ofthe Music Department and Director ofBands at Florida A & M University. Dr.Foster has appeared as an educator, con-ductor, clinician, lecturer and consultantin over th i r ty states and thirty-five col-leges and universities.

"I've done clinics for Fowler in theDenver area," said Bellson about judgeDr. William Fowler, Professor of Musicat the University of Colorado at Denver.Besides leading university bands andcombos, he is an arranger and composerof ballets, symphonies and jazz and popmusic.

"He's forgotten more drums thanwe'll ever know. He's a master per-cussionist," said Bellson about judgeGeorge Gaber. Currently the Professorof Music at Indiana Univeristy, Gaber'sprofessional background as a timpanistand percussionist i nc ludes the BalletRusse Orchestra in Pittsburgh, and theNBC, ABC, and CBS Symphony Or-chestras.

"When you have to introduce some-one and all you need to do is say hisname, the credibility is there. We'veplayed together with Tommy Dorsey and

on the Tonight Show. And what DocSeverinsen can do with a symphony or-chestra, that's heavy, man. He's a dedi-cated artist," Bellson said.

For the semi-finals the judges wereseated along the first three center aislevertical rows, allowing them the opti-mum in viewing and hearing.

THE CONTESTEach semi-finalist was required to

sight read from music originally writtenby Bellson. Each contestant had 30 sec-onds to look at the sight reading and thengive the judges his tempo before begin-ning.

The s ight reading i nvo l v ed p lay ingeight bars. The judges considered stylechange, r h y t hm i c accuracy, mete rchange, tempo control, volume controland professionalism, for a total of 10 pos-sible points. The sight reading require-ment caused the major point differencesbetween the contestants.

Sight reading was immed i a t e l y fol-lowed by quartet drumming, involvingthe playing of three required selections,totaling three minutes, for a total of 30possible points.

Following quartet drumming was theBig Band drumming section. Each con-testant selected one out of three, three-minute selections with the possibility ofpicking up another 30 points. The judgesconsidered: enhancement of music, in-terpretation, implement control, tempocontrol, musicianship and originality.

This was followed by the solo per-formance, which was to last betweenfour and five minutes, with a 59 secondleeway. An excess of six minutes consti-tuted disqualification. For another pos-sible 30 points, the judges ranked thesemi-finalists on variety and difficulty,imp lemen t control , imag i n a t i o n , se-quence, continuity and showmanship.

THE CONTESTANTSBarry "Joe" McCreary of Anderson,

Indiana was the semi-finalist represent-ing the South Eastern region. Prior to hisregional victory, McCreary won the lo-cal competition at the Anderson MusicCenter in his home town.

He is currently attending the Universi-ty of Miami School of Music on a music

Semi-finalist Joe Pulice. Jr.

scholarship, and recently performed inJapan with the University Band. He isaiming for a career as a professional per-former.

"I like vibes as much as drums,"McCreary told me after completing hissemi-final round. "I'm taking music the-ory. I've written drum charts, for highschool drum lines, and I've written vi-braphone solos.

"A studio percussionist is a hot job,but you really have to be good," said the18-year-old. "I'm really going to try towork at i t all and be a total per-cussionist."

Ken French of Calimesa, Californiawas the Southern Ca l i fo rn ia regionalwinner. He has been involved in concert,marching and jazz bands, and for fouryears performed and recorded with theHallelujah Gospel Group.

He also toured five European coun-tries with the American Youth Sym-phony Band last June. Additional honorsFrench has earned i n c l ud e repeatedawards from the National Association ofJazz Educators, and Outstanding Drum-mer of the Hemet Jazz Festival.

French is currently attending CraftonHills College in Yacaipa, California andplans to become a professional musician.

Scott B. Johnson of A lbuque rque ,New Mexico was the semi-finalist repre-sent ing the Rocky Mou t a i n Region,Johnson was a local winner at LuchettiDrum and Guitar, Inc. in Albuquerque.

Besides his performances in the Eldo-rado High School marching band, stageband and symphony orchestra, Johnsonplayed in the New Mexico All-StateBand. As a graduating senior, he re-ceived both the Music Student of theYear Award, and the John Phi l l ip SousaBand Award.

Johnson is now attending the Univer-sity of New Mexico on a presidential ac-ademic scholarship as a pre-med stu-dent.

Semi-finalist John Mosemann

"I like drumming. I 've always beenfascinated by it. When parades went by Ialways looked at the drummers. Mostly Iwanted to keep drumming for my ownenjoyment. It 's a hobby rather than aprofession," he said. Johnson reportedthat drumming not only helps relieve ten-sion from school but "it helps relievetension from everywhere. It 's a goodform of escape."

Stephen S. Johns of Natick, Massa-chussetts was the winner of the NewEngland Regional competition. Johnswas a local winner at Pampalone MusicSchool in Boston.

He is currently a member of the Bos-ton Youth Symphony Orchestra and re-cently represented the state of Massa-chusetts in the McDonald's All Ameri-can High School Band appearing on theJerry Lewis Telethon which originatedout of the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas.

Among Johns' numerous plaudits ishis award as Most Outstanding Musicianfrom the University of New Hampshire.He plans to become a professional per-former.

Kurt Snider of St. Petersburg, Floridawas the first winner of the local com-petition held at Bring Music Co. in St.Petersburg. He went on to win theSou the rn regional . Sn ide r has playeddrums in his high school stage band, per-cussion ensemble and the Sylistics Drumand Bugle Corps.

He was awarded the All-County StageBand, Outstanding Award and the HarryBreckinridge Award. Snider is presentlyattending St. Petersburg, Jr. College.

"From just this contest I got a job,"Kur t h app i l y re la ted . "Tarkh i l l Fire-power, a local band, heard I won andasked me to play with them."

As to the future, Snider likes the bigband sound. "I'd love to go to NewYork," he said.

Joe Pulice, Jr. of Racine. Wisconsinwas the Northern Midwest regional win-

Master of Ceremonies for the Semi-fi-nals wax contest coordinator, Sam Geatiof Slingerland.

ner. Pulice has played in concert band,dance band and jazz ensemble , plusthree years each with the Kilt ie Kadetsand the Racine Kilties who presentedhim an Award of Merit in 1975.

Other awards inc lude : Outs tand ingDrummer for Horlick High Jazz Bandand Outstanding Musicianship from theNational Association of Jazz Educatorsfor his performance at the University ofWhitewater Jazz Festival in February1979.

Pulice has placed first in state com-petition for the past four years and nowis enrolled at the University of Minne-sota, with plans to become a professionalmusician.

John Mosemann of Emmaus, Pennsyl-vania was the Eastern regional semi-fi-nalist after scoring a winning victory lo-cally at the Drum Shop in Allentown,Pennsylvania.

Along with his participation in themarching band, concert band and jazzband at Emmaus High School, John hassubstituted in local jazz groups.

His honors include the John PhilipSousa Award, Outstanding soloist at theMonmouth College Invitational Concert,and a certificate of nomination toMcDonald's All-American High SchoolBand.

Mosemann is currently in his senioryear at Emmaus High School and wouldlike to attend Philadelphia College ofPerforming Arts to prepare for a profes-sional career in music.

Chris Crockarell of Denton, Texas be-came a semi-finalist after winning theSouthwest regional competition. He iscurrently a member of the North TexasState Universi ty Percussion Ensembleand participates in the university concertband.

Crockarell has received awards for hisparticipation in the Tennessee All-StateBand and, for the past three years, haswon honors in the orchestra and jazzband. He wants to complete his educa-tion at North Texas State University inpreparation for a career as a musician/composer, and drum corps instructor.

4th place winner in the finals was Rick R.Porello

His solo performance was a selectionwhich he had composed, making him theonly semi-finalist to perform his ownwork.

Brian Dunn of Beaverton, Oregon wasthe Northwest regional winner. He iscurrently involved in the wind ensemble,stage band and vocal jazz ensemble atMt. Hood Community College.

Dunn has also participated in the Port-land Junior Symphony, the Oregon All-State Concert and the Music in MayHonor Band. He was the 1977-78 Oregonstate champion on rudimental snare.

Other recognitions include the JohnPh i l i p Sousa Band Award, a Dis t in -guished Musicians Award from the Ma-rine Corps Youth Foundation, and a list-ing in Who's Who in American HighSchool Students. Dunn plans to continuein the field of music.

The morning event concluded with theplaying of each of the 13 Regional win-ners. The compet i t ion was narroweddown st i l l fur ther leaving only fouryoung drummers to compete in the after-noon finals for first place.

THE FINALSCurly haired Rick F. Porello comes

from a long line of trained, professionalmusicians. His brother, Ray, Jr. is thedrummer for Sammy Davis, Jr. His fa-ther Ray, Sr. is an officer in the Cleve-land Musician's Union.

The 17-year-old emphasized he's hisown man. "I don't follow my father's ormy brother's style. I follow my ownstyle. I follow some of their things andthen I add my own stuff. I like jazz. It'swhat I 'm oriented towards and alwayshave been."

Although his brother had appearedmany times in Las Vegas with SammyDavis, for Porello this contest affordedhim his first visit to the 24-hour enter-tainment mecca. "It's a fairyland," hegrinned.

Gum chewing, in an open neck blueshirt, his blue eyes flashed as he headedinto his semi final solo, selecting the bigband selection Number One "because ofits jazz beat."

Porello, the Mid Eastern regionalchampion, had previously won the localcontest at DAL Drum Studio in Erie,Pennsylvania. He has performed withthe Cleveland Heights High School sym-

3rd place winner in the finals, JimMcCarty.

phony orchestra, the wind ensemble ,marching band and jazz ensemble. Hereceived special recognition for his par-ticipation in instrumental music at Cleve-land Heights High School in 1978 and1979.

He plans to combine his enjoyment ofmusic with his interest in electronics bypreparing for a career as a music/elec-tronics technician.

Brown eyed finalist Jim McCarty, 18,has been playing drums since he wasseven years old.

"I first started when my parents rent-ed me a set of drums and bought my sis-ter a guitar. They thought I was the quit-ter of the two, renting my drums. Ishowed them," excla imed the th i rdplace winner . "She qu i t after threemonths and I kept going.

"I'd practice every morning in thethird and fourth grade at 7 o'clock for 40minutes. Then, after school, I'd practice.I would love to get into recording as astudio musician or anything to do withtelevision. There are some good drum-mers on the TV shows," he observed.

"I play in all of the local groups," herelated before the finals. "I have a dif-ferent feel with the jazz band at schoolthan I do with a disco band. I don't mindplaying disco. I don't mind playing any-thing.

"I'm the only one of the four finalistswho selected the Big Band, NumberThree selection. I feel a little more re-laxed with it. It's funky with a groove,and a lot of feel. I could feel that best,"he explained.

McCarty finished in first place at theCentral California regional . While hewas a member of the Bul lard HighSchool Jazz Band, the band placed sec-ond in the Reedley City College JazzFestival.

He has also played with local rock andjazz groups, one of which ranked firstrunner-up in the battle of the bands at

2nd place finalist, Todd Strait.

Fresno State College. McCarty is cur-rently playing drums with the FresnoCity College "A" Jazz Band.

"That's my brother," screamed ToddStrait's 15-year-old sister as his namewas called as a finalist. Eight-year oldsister Amy grinned and applauded. TheTopeka, Kansas family is extremely sup-portive of Strait's musical ability, al-though they conceded his prac t ic ingused to drive them crazy.

At 17, Strait has been taking formallessons for the last eight years, oftenpracticing until one in the morning.

"He plays for all of the groups andtries to get out of Topeka as much aspossible and get with other groups." ex-plained his sister.

Strait was the local winner at MissionMusic in Lenexa, Kansas going on toplace first in the Middle West regional.

Todd has performed with the TopekaJazz Workshop, and Civic Symphony, infive local dance bands, and two perform-ances with Johnny Desmond's back-upband.

His recognitions include three years offirst ratings at the State Music Festivaland Outs tanding Music iansh ip highschool award. Todd is also listed in the1979 Who's Who in American HighSchool Students.

Besides music, his interests includephotography, nature and creative writ-ing. Strait is currently a senior at SeamanHigh School in Topeka. Following grad-uation he plans to study music privatelybefore attending college.

THE WINNERWith his eyes closed and nose

wrinkled, Henry "Hank" Guaglianonesufficiently impressed the judges to cap-ture the first place trophy in the contest.

During the semi-finals, Hank, wearingan open necked, yellow shirt and bluesuit asked for the sound to be put up. He

The four finalists: (l-r) Rick Porello,Jim McCarty. Hunk Guaglianone, andTodd Strait.

kept his eyes closed and nose wrinkledwhile playing Big Band selection Num-ber One. For his solo spot he took off hisjacket, wadded it into a ball and tossed iton the floor.

Guaglianone was two weeks awayfrom final exams at Northern IllinoisUniversity, DeKalb campus, when hecame to Las Vegas for the drum com-petition.

"I'm so excited I 'm sick to my stom-ach," confided Hank's father immediate-ly after his son had been declared thewinner.

The young Guaglianone says musichas been an important part of his familylife ever since he can remember, but themain musical thrust is from his mother'sside, as his maternal grandfather was acomposer and clarinetist in Italy. Anuncle, trumpet player Bob Perna, leadsan eight-piece contemporary jazz groupin Chicago, and was an important influ-ence.

Though there are fami ly snapshotsshowing Hank banging on toy drums atthe age of four, it wasn't unti l six yearsago that Hank seriously took up drum-ming.

"I used to watch my uncle's band re-hearse and perform in concerts. I knewthen I wanted to play music , but itwasn't until I saw Stan Kenton in con-cert that I got started. I said, 'I 've got todo that sometime. I've got to have some-thing sound like that."

Not only did he start practicing withKenton-Peter Erskine albums, Guaglian-one also joined his Rolling MeadowsHigh School marching band, in which hespent a year on cymbals, a year on bassdrum, and two years on snare as per-cussion section chief.

He was also in the concert band, thesymphonic band playing timpani, ma-rimbas and snares, the pit orchestra forschool musicals, and the Rolling Mead-ows Jazz Band under director Len King,which has been recognized nationally asone of the top high school bands.

By the end of his sophomore year,Guaglianone began private lessons fromJake Jerger who teaches part-time atOakton Community College in MortonGrove, Illinois.

The progression to the national titlebegan early in 1979 when Guaglianonewon the local contest at the Wheeling

Contest winner Hank Guaglianone, per-forming with Louie Bellson's band. Ex-plosion. I Photo courtesy of Slingerland DrumCompany)

Holiday Inn sponsored by Karnes MusicStore in Elk Grove Village, Il l inois. Lat-er, Gualianone moved on to win the five-state regionals held at Harper College inPalatine, Illinois.

Last June, he was awarded the JohnPhilip Sousa Award and was one of fortystudents invited to join a jazz band com-prised of students from various schoolsacross America to tour Europe as part ofJazz Abroad.

In addi t ion to numerous musicalawards. Guaglianone has earned plauditsin science, art and citizenship. After hecompletes his education he intends toplay professionally.

"My real dream was to play with StanKenton. I looked to him like a father inmusic. I met him once before he died. Hetreated everybody the same. He didn'tact like a big star," he recalled.

"Right now, I'm not going to look atanything very differently because I wona contest. I still have the same objec-tives. I'm still setting goals for myself. Ifeel a good all-around background in mu-sic is important.

"But whenever I get a chance to giveadvice to other younger drummers I tellthem to work on the fundamentals, thebasics. I need a lot more of that myself,too.

"I never even thought I'd make thenationals. There were so many reallygood players out there. I play more forthe music than just trying to play fast. Ithought I'd get blown out, that they'd belooking for just chops."

THE WIND-UPAs promised, on December 12, 1979

Guaglianone performed with Louie Bell-son on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show.Hank was also awared his choice of aSlingerland drum outfit, an $8000 schol-arship or $4000 in cash.

Second place winner Todd Strait re-ceived a $6000 scholarship or $3000cash; Third place winner Jim McCartyreceived a $4000 scholarship or $2000

Louie Bellson congratulates Guaglian-one on his victory. (Photo courtesy of Slinger-land Drum Company).

Larry Linkin, President of Slingerland,(left) welcomes Wayne Newton, Masterof Ceremonies for the contest finals.(Photo courtesy of Slingerland Drum Company)

and fourth place Rick Porello is eligiblefor a $2000 scholarship or $ 1000 in cash.

Master of Ceremonies for the finalswas Las Vegas entertainer Wayne New-ton, who affords local university talentthe opportunity to sit in with his orches-tra when he stars at the Sands hotel.

"We see a lot of young people comethrough our orchestra," explained New-ton. "They don't get a chance to re-hearse. They have to read the book cold,no matter who the artist. They do an in-credible job."

After hearing the four finalists Newtoncommented, "Obviously there are fourwinners. To pick the top, one, two,three, four is more difficult than you canimagine. This is the kind of talent thatwill help the music business tremendous-ly."

Odd Rockby David Garibaldi

Experimentation with new ideas and concepts brings growth.There is always a way to incorporate new ideas into your per-sonal musical situation. Many times it has taken me months oreven years to successfully incorporate new concepts into myplaying in a practical, usable way.

What and how we th ink determines our successes and fail-ures. The thing we can do with rhythm and meter are inexhaust-ible. Rhythm is mathematical and math is infinite. Therefore,we can (if we so desire) put together infinite rhythmic combina-tions.

An exciting concept is the playing of odd meters within thecommon meters (2/4, 4/4, etc.) . I've chosen two examples ofthis: 7/8 over 4/4, and 17/16 over 4/4.

Take any 7/8 pattern:

Ex. 1, a.

Ex. l , b .

Play this over a quarter note pulse which can be set with yourleft foot on the hi-hat , or with a metronome at first. I recom-mend turning the metronome off after you've become comfort-able with the pattern. This now begins a cycle of 7 bars withinthe 4/4. On the eighth bar of the 4/4, the cycle of 7 bars beginsagain. The 7/8 pattern moves within the 4/4. One bar of 4/4 con-tains 8, eighth notes, so as the 7/8 moves through the 4/4, itsfirst beats shifts ahead one eighth note per bar of 4/4. Write itout if you don't believe me!Now take a basic one bar pattern in 4/4 that has a 'half-time'feel:

Ex..2.

Then add one sixteenth note which wil l now make the 4/4 pat-tern a bar of 17/16.

Ex.3 .

After you're comfortable with this, play it over a quarter notepulse (4/4). This begins a cycle of seventeen bars within thequarter note pulse. On the eighteenth bar of 4/4, the cycle ofseventeen bars begins again. One bar of 4/4 contains 16, six-teenth notes, so as the 17/16 moves through the 4/4. its firstbeats shifts hack one sixteenth note per bar of 4/4. Repeat thisun t i l you can count 4/4 (1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, etc.), while play-ing the 17/16 and do the same with the 7/8 over 4/4. The count-ing will help you to coordinate your mind and limbs.Try this one:

Ex.4 .

You'll notice this is the same 17/16 pattern but with the 'addi-tion of some thirty-second notes. Don't let the thirty-secondnotes intimidate you. It 's easier to play than it looks. 4/4 equals8/8.8/8 + 9/8= 17/8. . . still a pulse of 17, but easier to read.

Ex .5 .

Double TimeCoordination

Often a soloist will play over the rhythm section in either halfor double the tempo of the section. Sometimes it is musicallyeffective if the drummer complements the rhythmic direction ofthe soloist by playing part of the set in the original tempo andpart in either the double or half-time of the soloist.

Following are some basic examples which may be expandedthrough the use of your imagination. As well as pertinent tocomplementing a soloist, this concept is interesting for thedrummer's own solo development. It is also valuable coordina-tion practice. Keep in mind that in previous articles, we talkedabout a unity of rhythmic interpretation based upon a con-sistency of either triple or duple notes in all four appendages.Now our unity comes from the consistency of the original, orfoundation tempo phrased in eighth-note triplets over which issuperimposed the double-time which is phrased in straighteighths.The foundation pattern is:

Example I:

Next, continue the eighths of the ride and hi-hat and fill in thetriplets on the snare or bass.The next step is to turn the straight eighths of the ride into abasic ride pattern:Written, the patterns would now be:

Example II :

Photo by Scott Kevin Fish

by Ed Soph

A comfortable tempo at which to start when practicing this isMM = 138. Play the eighth-note triplets at this tempo and playthe ride and hi-hat twice as fast.

Some of the problems that you might encounter are:1) Maintaining the flowing triplet pattern in the snare or basswhile playing the eighths of the double-time ride. Don't try tofigure out how the two "go together." Don't think of themseparately. Instead, relate them to the common 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 ofthe original tempo. This is the first step towards learning howto feel and play two rhythmic interpretations at once. Re-member, the tempos are different but the meter is the same.2) Making sure that the hi-hat falls on the strict "ands" of thebeats and not on the third note of the eighth-note triplets. Away to overcome that is to play only the hi-hat in double-timewhile playing the ride and snare/bass figures in the originaltempo.

Example III:

Perhaps the ride pattern will try to change to a dotted eighth andsixteenth note. To overcome that try this:

Example IV:

When this is accomplished return to the original ride pattern.You will find many ways to practice your double-time techniquein any book which has exercises composed of triplet patterns oreighth-note patterns which may be phrased as triplets. I strong-ly recommend both Jim Chapin's Volume I, and Ted Reed'sSyncopation. Remember, play all the snare figures on the bassdrum, too.

In closing, some basic variations of the double-time conceptare: 1) Double-time ride pattern with snare/bass and hi-hat inthe original tempo. 2) Ride and hi-hat in half-time with snare/bass patterns in the original tempo. Another way of saying thisis double the snare/bass patterns. In this case, we will be play-ing triplets with all four appendages at one time or another, de-pending upon how we move the patterns around the set. Butputting an eighth-note triplet ride pattern with sixteenth-notetriplet snare/bass figures can be gruesome!

SimplePercussionModifications

by David Ernst

In this column, we wil l look at various methods by whichpercussion instruments may be modified via electronic devices,including synthesizers. Emphasis will be on practical appli-cations, geared to live performance situations rather than torecording studio procedures. Of course, everything that we de-scribe can be done in a recording studio, but you will also beable to perform these modifications in concert situations.

Since we are going to modify percussion sonorities you willneed to set-up a microphone network as shown in Figure 1. Themicrophone may be either a transducer or a highly directionalmike. For the type of work that we will be doing I suggest thetransducer, such as the Barcus-Berry guitar transducer, be-cause it is easily attached to the instrument and you do not haveto be concerned with picking up extraneous sounds. Each mi-crophone will need an individual pre-amplifier, which is thenconnected to a traditional instrument amplifier/loudspeaker.This is a basic amplification network, and all of our work will bebased upon this system.

1.INSTRUMENT MIC PRE-AMP INSTRUMENT AMP/SPEAKER

Referring to Figure I , any modification of percussion in-struments must take place between the pre-amplifier's outputand the input to the instrument amplifier. And unti l we discussthe use of control voltages and automated systems it will benecessary to work with an assistant—one who will control man-ually the electronic devices that we will now cover. Perhaps themost standard timbral modification is equalization, and like allelectronic devices, an equalizer consists of an audio input andoutput. Figure 2 illustrates how the equalizer fits into the basicamplification network.

INSTRUMENT MIC PRE-AMP EQUAL IZER INSTRUMENT AMP/SPEAKER2.

The function of an equalizer is twofold—to boost and/or at-tenuate the amplitude of frequencies within predetermined fre-quency ranges. Equalizers are divided into octave ranges, andthe frequencies (i .e. pitches) are defined as cycles-per-second(cps); the modern terminology for cps is Hertz (Hz). Therefore,the pitch concert "A" may be defined as 440 Hz, and the "A"one octave higher is 880 Hz (440 x 2). Figure 3 shows two waysof describing these pitches. Since equalizers consist of pre-determined frequency ranges they usually cover a wide portionof the audio range, and a typical format is given in Figure 4.This is a 10-band octave equalizer. Notice that the letter "k" isused to denote multiplication by 1000, e.g. 1k = 1000, 2k = 2000

3.

A = 440 Hz A = 880 Hz

The amplitude (i.e. loudness) of the frequencies within theseoctave ranges is calibrated in decibels (dB), where +dB signi-fies boosting specific frequency ranges and -dB signifies atten-uating specific frequency ranges (see Figure 4). Each octave hasan individual control for amplitude to allow rather precise con-trol over the resulting timbre. Although equalizers are standardequipment in a professional recording studio they offer manyadvantages in live performance situations. Again, rememberthat an assistant will be needed to operate the equalizer whileyou are playing, but you will be able to obtain many interestingeffects that normally would be possible only in a recording studio.

4. Hz: 31.2 62.5 125 250 500 1k 2k 4k 8k 16k

+12 dB

0 dB

-12 dB

As an 'electrified' percussionist you must now experimentwith various equalization settings, and any percussion in-strument may be equalized via microphone and pre-amplifier toalter its inherent timbre. At first it is best to work with individ-ual instrumental families—skin, wood, and metal, and you willfind that each instrument responds best within a few select fre-quency ranges. Some standard recording studio equalizationsettings are as follows:

1. Bass drum—Boost between 1k and 3k to add more 'punch'.2. Snare drum—Boost at 100 and at 10k to give a 'fatter'

sound.3. Toms—Boost at 5k for a better attack.

These are standard equalization settings used for most rockand disco recordings, and you may want to play around withthese to 'improve' the sound of your drums. But if you have anassistant controlling the equalizer while you play, many moreeffects are possible. For instance, consider the standard hi-hatcymbal part in disco—a succession of eighth notes. By sendingthe hi-hat into an equalizer (see Figure 2) your assistant will beable to change the cymbal's timbre simply by moving the ampli-tude controls of the high frequency ranges. Many 'space' ef-fects are obtained in this manner, and specific equalization set-tings may be worked out and rehearsed for individual tunes. Ofcourse, these techniques may be applied to any style of music,but the most important aspect is to experiment with simpleschemes and to document those that sound best.

Many effects-devices for guitar, piano, etc. are commerciallyavailable, and all of these are applicable to percussion if youset-up the appropriate microphone-amplification network.Since percussion instruments provide such a vast range of tim-bres it will be necessary to experiment with individual in-struments at first, and soon you will be able to hear which typeof instruments provide the most useful sounds for specific situa-tions. Metallic and wood sonorities, for instance, tend to resultin clearly articulated modifications; high-pitched drums react ina similar fashion. On the other hand, bass drum and related in-struments may produce thick, muddled sonorities upon modifi-cation, so that some compensatory equalization will be neces-sary. Echo and chorusing effects work well with all percussioninstruments, but those with slower attack (response) times arenot suited for rapid successions of repetitions. They often pro-duce undesirable feedback oscillations.

If you decide to employ effects-devices it is wise to include aseparate equalizer for each device. With the aid of a single as-sistant it should be possible to control a simple percussion mod-

ification system as illustrated in Figure 5. In this configurationthe equalizers not only help to emphasize particular registers,but they also provide the opportunity to alter the cymbal and/ortom-tom timbres quite easily. Also, the simplicity of such anarrangement should eliminate the hazard of overpowering elec-tronic textures. Finally, use these techniques discriminately.

CYMBAL

INSTRUMENT AMP/SPEAKEREQUALIZEREFFECT DEVICEPRE-AMPM I CHI TOM

Each musical style requires individual attention, and for themost part we have been speaking of percussion effects. Al-though some of your instruments may be electrified this doesnot cancel their normal acoustic properties. In other words, alistener at a concert will hear both the natural and modified so-norities. It is the responsibility of your assistant to mix (blend)these diverse timbres to produce an appropriate musical effect.

6.

5.

The techniques that we have spoken about so far are suitableboth for solo and ensemble situations, but there is growing in-terest in solo music, especially with electronic modifications.One such method involves two tape recorders and utilizes thetechnique of feedback. Originally employed by the Germancomposer Karlheinz Stockhausen in his piece "Solo" (1965-66), the idea of using multiple playback heads to repeat pre-viously recorded music has been popularized recently by com-poser Brian Eno and guitarist Robert Fripp, i.e. "Frippertron-ics." The basic plan is outlined in Figure 6. The first tape re-corder is set in record mode, and the second recorder inplayback mode. In place of standard audio cables to connect theoutput of the first recorder to the input of the second, a tape isthreaded from the supply reel of the first recorder to the take-upreel of the second recorder, making sure that the tape passesacross both sets of record/play heads. Tape recorder #1 recordswhat is played, but this is not heard because there is no ampli-fier-loudspeaker connected to the tape output; the material issimply stored on tape. The distance between both tape record-ers determines the time delay between recording and playback.For example, recording at 7 1/2 ips will produce a two-seconddelay if the recorders are 15" apart. As the recorded materialpasses across the playback head of recorder #2 it is simultane-ously played via the amplifier-loudspeaker system, and re-re-corded on recorder #1. Such a feedback loop network allowsthe performer to 'play against' that which was played pre-viously, in addition to giving the impression of an ensemblerather than a solo performer.

An assistant is also required for this feedback-delay configu-ration, and his function is to control the record and playbacklevels. Since this should not be too difficult a task it is reason-able to have the assistant also control a simple modification de-vice for one of the percussion instruments. Yet another possi-bility afforded by a feedback-delay system is to play the entirerecorded tape as part of another composition. Many alterna-tives are possible, and they can add much variety to a smallensemble. Experimentation is the key to working with such sys-tems. After the novelty of these 'new' sonorities wears off youwill be in a better position to be discriminate in your use ofmodified percussion timbres. In the next issue we will begin toconsider percussion interfaces with synthesizers and other in-struments.

MIC PRE-AMP EFFECT DEVICE EQUALIZER INSTRUMENT AMP/SPEAKER

INSTRUMENT MIC PRE-AMP

TAPERECORDER

#1

TAPERECORDER

#2 INSTRUMENT AMP/SPEAKER

A New ApproachTowards Improving Your Reading

Some musicians seem to have an in-nate capacity for permanently recordingmusic in their memory after hearing itonly once or twice. Most of us, however,are not so blessed and must acquire thissk i l l by a pa ins t ak ing process ca l l ed"music dictation". Since personal guid-ance and instruction is indispensable inthis area of study, the best I can hope toaccomplish is to point to the right direc-t i on and recommend a p r a c t i c a l ap-proach to mastering th i s art. The follow-ing suggestions might prove helpful:

(1) Always use a tape recorder whenpracticing. It is a valuable aid toear training and music dictation.

(2) Begin by singing the time values ofsimple melodies and then writedown what you hear in music no-tation. Start with the easiest tunes(i .e. , nursery rhymes, etc.) andprogress to the more difficult mel-odies and r h y t hm i c pa t t e rns .Gradually work your way up tofigures of increasing complexitywith regard to tempo, durations,rests, accents, syncopation, quan-t i ty and form of attacks, metricgroupings , etc. Always wr i tedown accurately what you hearfrom the play-backs. Make thisyour first project. Make it a dailyroutine. If you persevere, the re-sults will surprise you.

(3) Select one or more of your studybooks. Choose a few appropriateexercises, play them on your prac-tice pad or snare drum, recordingas you go. Then close the book,listen to the play-back and writewhat you hear. Compare your no-tation with the printed notation.Do this daily, too.

(4) Repeat the above procedure withanother drummer. Let him play

and record exercises of his choicewhile you take the dictation off ofthe play-back. Then you chooseand record the exercises while hewrites out the notation. Finally,the both of you can play exercisesand take d i c t a t i o n , compa r i ngyour notations. Note the similar-ities and differences between yournotations and the printed text. Ifthis project is carried out faithful-ly, fixing your full attention on thework, you wil l experience a pro-gressively increasing awareness-level. Soon you'll learn to hearand visualize musical patterns ofvarious degrees of diff icul ty .

(5) Listen to some of your favoriterecording artists and take the dic-tation of their figures, phrases,solos, etc. Be sure you write outthe music faithfully; be accurateand thorough. This procedure wil lhelp you to instinctively developyour repertoire, to make a preciseanalysis of some of the best re-corded music and to combine thevisual, auditory and tactile associ-at ions so necessary to b u i l d i n gwell-rounded musicianship. Thewritten music actually played bymany top record ing a r t i s t s hasbeen published and is available insong-book form. Usua l l y , thesame t i t l e appears on the pub-lication as on the album. The ad-vantages of us ing these booksshould be obvious by now: listento the record, take the dictationand compare your written notationwith the published version. Soonyou'll acquire the subtle art of tak-ing d i c t a t i on wi thou t having towrite it down.

(6) The practical application of your

by Danny Pucillo

music dictation studies wi l l be per-fected in actual on the job situa-t ions . I 've come across somedrum parts which were so uniformthat any musical conception of thechart would have been impossibleif I didn ' t apply dictation automat-ically. Automatic dictation is in-dispensable on the majority of rec-ord dates, TV shows, etc., wherebudgets and deadlines are the rule.Musical directors, producers, con-tractors, etc., know precisely thesound they hope to get and havelearned to appreciate those musi-cians who can get it for them witha minimum of effort and expense.The ability to take dictation is a la-bor-saving device and musiciansskilled in its use will be rewardedwith steady requests for their serv-ices.

(7) Playing with a rehearsal band willalso improve your drummingskills. Here you'll find that mostbig band charts have a definite mo-tif. Once you've dictated the maintheme you'll find that the high-lights of the arrangement are eas-ily analyzed. Usually, they willconsis t of reoccurrences of thethematic material with minor vari-ations designed to exploit the mo-tif. This is accomplished by in-t r oduc ing va r i e t y in to un i t y inbeautiful proportions; such high-lights can readily be dictated onceyou've spotted the main ideas. Ifyou play with rehearsal bands reg-ularly you'll soon find that all ofyour woodshedding will pay off.You'll discover, by simply doingwhat now comes naturally, thatplaying with big bands can be agreat experience.

(8) Jamming is one situation whereyour d i c t a t i on s k i l l s wi l l reachtheir highest level. This requirest r igger- l ike men t a l i t y s ince themusical patterns are flowing spon-taneously among the musiciansand the intensity of concentrationat t imes approaches t e l epa t hy .Jam all you can with the best musi-cians you can find. The toil of de-veloping your dictating skills willat last come to fruition in the jazzsituation. What once required dili-gent practice on your part maynow become unconscious and ef-fortless. This should come as nosurprise since it is self-evident thatoptimum performance is achievedwith no apparent effort on the partof the musician. At this point, youmay find the final reward for thedrudgery of practicing music dic-tation.

Knowledge and experience go handin hand; one invigorates, the other ma-tures. I must emphasize again that per-sonal instruction from a fine teacher/player is a must. In the end, however,the respons ib i l i ty for success restswith you.

by Charlie Perry

TeachingJazzDrumming

The novice jazz drummer invariably attempts to improve hiscraft by going through the voluminous mass of instructional ma-terial that is available. Before very long, however, the high ex-pectations with which he set out begin to wane. Somehow, themass of "knowledge" he has gulped down has done little if any-thing to improve his drumming. He finds himself faced with di-verse and seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of theories whichlack the structural cohesiveness, purpose, and direction that areabsolutely necessary to form a coherent whole.

What does he do then? He decides to study. But studyingdrumming does not guarantee a solution to this common di-lemma. Many teachers are confronted with the same problem asstudents when selecting and applying instructional materials totheir teaching. They too lack a comprehensive plan for teachingjazz drumming (the essential elements and principles arrangedin a rational order of connection and dependence).

This article, the first in a series on jazz drumming and its al-lied forms, will help to provide such a plan. It deals with theway the jazz drummer interacts with members of the group,both collectively and individual ly , in the preconceived as wellas the improvised segments of jazz.

ABOUT IMPROVISATIONIn jazz, the drummer's favorite musical ideas and devices

form part of his style. These ideas and devices are sometimesreproduced exactly; at other times they are altered or extended.

When the drummer responds suddenly to a given musicalstimulus provided by the other performers, or, at times, by him-self, he responds with either preconceived or spontaneousrhythmic and tonal punctuations, figures and phrases.

What the drummer plays is not always brand new and mayhave been played in one form or another, either by himself oranother drummer, at some time or other. It is often a matter ofthe familiar being shaped differently, occurring in different placesor in a different sequence. But even familiar ideas, when used inimprovisation, occur spontaneously as a response to a givenmusical stimulus or as counter rhythms played independentlyof what the other musicians might play.

Although the jazz drummer might play a given piece or ar-rangement numerous times, he will never play it exactly thesame way twice. When playing an arranged piece, he may playsections, the same, or nearly the same, each time. But this oc-curs only in highly structured, fixed arrangements. Even then,however, he will almost invariably make some changes in whathe plays. And during the improvised sections, when he is in-volved in spontaneous musical exchanges between himself andother musicians, he will never play the same punctuations, fig-ures and phrases in the same order twice. The entire group willadhere to a basic form, but they are free to improvise withinthat form. In true free-form music, anything can happen at any

time: tempo changes, key changes, meter changes and so forth,all taking place spontaneously. Such improvisation is entirelyunpredictable since it has no guidelines to give it a pre-determined direction.

Underlying the drummer's improvisation is a fundamentalconcept, a specific approach—the elements of style. And fromthis base he explores, seeking new directions and formats.

DRUMS-BAND INTERACTION & IMPROVISATIONWhat the drummer plays relates to what the other members

of the group play. In addition to generating and establishingtime, the drummer interacts with soloists, sections (rhythm,brass, reeds) and ensemble.

At various points throughout the music the drummer's punc-tuations, figures and phrases coincide with, echo, or answer thepunctuations, figures and phrases of the soloist, sections or en-semble. At other times, however, the drummer's rhythms donot interact in these ways with the soloist or band. Rather, theytake place independent of the other musicians' musical contri-butions. These independent rhythms take the form of poly-rhythms (counter rhythms played against harmonic and rhyth-mic contributions of the other members of the group).

Listen to Tony Williams on the tune "Straight Ahead" fromthe Kenny Durham album, Una Mas (Blue Note 8412). Notehow Tony echoes the rhythm at the end of the trumpet solosome 2 1/2 bars later. There are many examples of drums-bandinteraction on this tune.

When the interaction between the drummer and the soloist isexpertly done, the contributions of the drummer can become soconjoined with those of the soloist that there emerges a solopartnership: a single solo which is the work of two musicians.The drums then are more than merely supporting or com-plementary. Rather, the drummer is in conversation with thesoloist, in part providing responses in musical conversation, inpart leading the conversation. Usually, but not always, thesoloist remains the dominant member of the solo partnership.Elvin Jones' playing on "Sometimes Joie" from The UltimateElvin Jones (Blue Note BST 84305) is an excellent example ofthe solo partnership.

The extent to which the drummer interacts (coincides, ech-oes, answers or is independent) depends on his style, the styleof the band and the music itself. There is less complex inter-action in swing oriented bands, for example, than there is inavant-garde jazz groups. In avant-garde jazz, such complexdrums-band interaction is heaviest and the drummer is busiest:Miles Davis, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Joe Farrell, HerbieHancock, Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes Hip Ensemble, Sorcery,etc.

EXAMPLES OF DRUMS-BAND INTERACTIONThe drum rhythms coincide with the rhythms of the band

when the drummer plays the same rhythm as played by theband or the soloist at the same time:

1.

Soloist or Band:

Drums:

The drum rhythms echo the rhythms of the soloist or bandwhen they are played shortly afterward in the form of an echo.

2.

Soloist or Band:

Drums:

On his album, Keep the Customers Happy, Liberty recordsLST 11006—tune of the same name—Buddy Rich "echoes" theeighth-note triplets of the trombonist (on the trombone solo).The drum rhythms answer the rhythms of the soloist or band, asin conversation, with a different rhythm. Note: The echo andthe answer can come under the heading of "fills."

3.

Soloist or Band:

Drums:

The drum rhythms are independent of the rhythms of thesoloist or band: what the drummer plays does not coincide,echo or answer. Rather they are played independent of rhythmsof the soloist or band, creating a counter rhythm effect.

Begun: continued from page 23sound of a garbage can. There's no rea-son why our mult i-mil l ion dollar indus-try can't serve the player a l i t t le bit bet-ter.HH: Did you see changes in the Ringerdrum when Ludwig bought the compa-ny?FB: Ludwig copied everything faithful-ly, absolutely, to the final degree, includ-ing the things that needed to be cor-rected. I say t h i s in the most com-plementary terms.

On a subsequent trip to Europe I hap-pened to see one of the last sets of drumsthat Ringer made, and it had the sameproblem with the suspension of the bowlthat two of mine did. The bowl should besuspended in the frame to fit exactly overthe spider; the top of the spider and theair hole in the bottom of the bowl shouldbe in perfect alignment, provided every-thing else is in perfect alignment. If it'snot aligned, whatever you do, the headthat you're using is going to pull to oneside. This was happening. Ringer toldLudwig about this problem that he him-self had never solved, and Ludwig madethe correc t ion to my drums . Con-sequently, th i s has become a procedurein all subsequent Ludwig Ringer in-struments.

I feel that they've done a fantastic job.In many ways my drums work betterthan some of the older German-madeRingers that I've played.

Peart: continued from page 15CI: Why do you use the same sizedouble bass drums instead of two dif-ferent size drums to achieve two dif-ferent bass voices?NP: I don't know. I can't see the pointof it really. I'm not looking for differentsounds. I don't use bass drums for beatsor anything like that. My double bassdrums are basically for use with fills. Idon't l ike them to be used in rhythms. Ilike them to spice up a fill or create a cer-tain accent. Many drummers say any-thing you can do with two feet, can beachieved with one. That just isn't true. Ican anticipate a beat with both bassdrums. That is something I learned fromTommy Aldr idge of the Pat TraversBand. He has a really neat style with thebass drums. Instead of doing tripletswith his tom toms first and then the bassdrums, which is the conventional way,he learned how to do it the other way, sothat the bass drums are anticipated.CI: Giving it a flam affect?NP: In a sense. It has an up sort of feel.You could just be playing along in an or-dinary 4 beats to the bar ride and all of asudden stick that in. It just sets thatapart. When you listen to it on the track,it sounds strange. It really works welland it's handy in the fil ls. You can be inthe middle of a triplet fill and all of a sud-den you can leave your feet out for a beatand bring them back in on the beat. It 'sreally exciting. And I like to interposetwo bass drums against the hi-hat too.There are a few different things I dowhere I throw in a quick triplet or aquadruplet using the bass pedals andthen get right over to the hi-hat. I ' l l com-plete my triplet and by the time my handgets over to the hat my foot is alreadythere. So you'll hear almost consecutiveleft bass drum and hi-hat notes. If youwant a really powerful roll, there's noth-ing more powerful than triplets with twobass drums. I could certainly get alongwithout two bass drums for 99% of myplaying. But I would miss them for someimportant l i t t le things.CI: Did you go to the Zildjian factoryto select your cymbals?NP: No, I must admit I've cracked somany cymbals, that would be futile. I justknow the weights that I want to get and ifI have one that's terribly bad, I ' l l take itback. I go through an awful lot of crashcymbals. I hit them hard and they crack.Especially my 16" crash which is mymainstay, and my 18" crash.CI: Where do you buy your cymbals?NP: From the Percussion Center. I ac-tually haven't seen their store in manyyears. Most of our business is done bythem shipping the merchandise out to us,or Neil Graham comes out from thestore. He brought me my new drums acouple of weeks ago. I know he has a lot

The Art OfEntertainment

Rick Van Horn has been drumming professionally since theage of thirteen. His experience in the club scene has rangedfrom rock bands and lounge trios, to stage bands and nightclubshowbands. Rick has also played with the national tour of the"Bonnie & Clyde Show," a Las Vegas style floor show and hasa degree from the University of California in Theatre Arts. Cur-rently drummer with Summerwine, a top act in the southernCalifornia area, Rick Van Horn brings with him over fifteenyears of expertise in the club date field.

Columns and interviews elsewhere in this magazine featuretips by drummers performing in specialty areas: rock, big-band,jazz. etc. But a large number of professional drummers are notfortunate enough to perform music of their own personal prefer-ence, but instead make a living playing in the most grueling anddemanding of all musical occupations, the club scene. No stu-dio musician, no recording artist, not even a drummer on thetoughest concert tour is expected to play high-quality music in amul t i t ude of styles for five hours a night five or six nights aweek.

Let's start by defining terms. When I talk about the clubscene. I 'm not talking about a jazz club, supper club, or anytype of cabaret situation where a drummer will be specializingin one style of music for an audience who've come to hear thatmusic. I 'm talking about the typical hotel or restaurant/cocktaillounge featuring l ive music and dancing as an attraction todrinking customers. The band's job in this situation is to playpopular, familiar tunes in order to fill the room with people,keep them dancing and most important, keep them buyingdrinks. A manager will judge a band's success by the bar total atthe end of each night.

In the club, the band does not have the psychological advan-tage that a show group or concert act enjoys. People have notpaid admission to see them. They have not listened to their mu-sic at home on records. They are not prepared in advance toenjoy the show. In fact, quite often the opposite is true. Attimes the club band is faced with an audience coldly staring, asif to challenge: 'Okay, here I am, now entertain me!' Often theclientele is largely local: "regulars" who get to know a band'smaterial almost as well as they do. The fact that a band may bebooked in one club for several weeks adds to the difficulty ofsustaining audience interest. And no other type of musical act.

by Rick Van Horn

be it recording, concert or show, is faced with the responsibilityof holding an audience that has only to walk to the next clubdown the street if they are dissatisfied with the music.

Even on busy nights, with a lively crowd, it's likely that mostof them came to dance, not to watch or listen to the band. It 's asad side-effect of the discos that audiences have been condi-tioned against responding to the music with applause. Livebands are often treated as nothing more than human juke-boxes.

Musically, the demands made on the club drummer are exten-sive. He must play well in all popular styles. He must be solidand steady in order to give support to the dancers. He must bedelicate with a ballad, and dynamic with a hard rock tune. Hemust be ready to field requests from a wide variety of areas.You may get a polka-crazy party one night. More often thannot, club bands are small in number and the drummer is re-quired to add to the vocals. This can be a major problem initself, as many drummers find it difficult to keep steady timewhile concentrating on song lyrics and melodies.

The club group has to remember that they are asking peopleto stay and watch them for several hours. They must thereforebe visually interesting, or showy, and the drummer must do hispart. In my next article, I ' l l give some ideas on how the drum-mer can contribute to the performance of his group in other thanmusical ways.

With all these things in mind, the club drummer's responsibil-ities include the following:1. Be totally versatile. Competent in all musical styles, fromdisco to C&W. hard rock to tasty ballads. You never knowwhat the next request will be.2. Be professional. This means being able to play the same re-pertoire night after night and make it fresh and exciting eacht ime, for yourself as well as the audience.3. Be dedicated. You've got to be able to survive slow nightsand apathetic audiences and sti l l want to come back and playthe next night.4. Be entertaining. You have to make your audience want tostay, watch and listen. They haven't invested more than theprice of a drink in you, and unless you catch their interest,they' l l go bar-hopping down the street.

In subsequent articles, I'll focus on these and other specialproblems faced by the club drummer, and give some sugges-tions and ideas that I've found helpful in over fifteen years inthe club scene.

The TechnicallyProficient Player

by Paul Meyer

The making of a well-rounded, techni-cally proficient drummer. What does ittake? Along with years of practice anddetermination, it takes a complete under-standing of each important phase of tech-nical development. Each area should befully understood and a program to ad-vance in each area should be started atthe early stages of development.

A well developed technique is evidentin most of the top players of today, yetthe young student rarely understandshow the e lements of t echn i ca l pro-ficiency ultimately come together to pro-duce a polished professional. A goodtechnique is the foundation upon whichall future playing is bu i l t , enabling one toexecute with accuracy and facil i ty, notonly difficult reading material, but im-provisational ideas as well.

Technical development can be brokeninto six basic categories: 1) Good basicposition. 2) Execution and control. 3)Strength. 4) Touch. 5) Speed. 6) Endur-ance. Let's take a look at each areaindividually.

GOOD BASIC POSITIONEstablishing and maintaining a good

stick position is important, especially atthe early stages of development. Trum-pet players spend years developing anembouchure; classical guitarists consid-er hand position of the greatest impor-tance; p i an i s t s t ake great pains toachieve correct wrist and finger action.Why should we be any less concerned?

Good position also relates to correctposture, and accurate wrist and arm ac-tion. A good teacher will take great painsto see to i t that his students are con-scious of position, not only at the earlystages, but throughout their study. Thegood student, in turn, will help the causeby being constantly aware of the impor-tance of developing good initial habitswhich have a lasting effect.

EXECUTION AND CONTROLI ' l l define stick control as the abil i ty of

the hands to control the message beingsent from the brain. The hands must betrained through constant repetition to re-act as a team, rather than a left and righthand separate from each other. Everydrummer can surely recall his first en-counter with the double stroke roll or thesingle paradiddle. The fumbling was notcaused because they were difficult to un-derstand, but because they were difficultto con t ro l , espec ia l ly at inc reas ingspeeds. Another perfect example is theGeorge Lawrence Stone book. StickControl, where sticking patterns and no-tations are relatively easy to understand,yet playing them with facility becomes atotally different matter. Developing stickcontrol calls for more time and hardwork than any other area. Getting thesticks to do what you want them to dorequires a great deal of patience andhours of practice with correct study ma-terials, all under the direction of a com-petent instructor.

STRENGTHAll things considered, drumming is

perhaps the most physically demandingof all music endeavors. The contempo-rary drummer is at a definite loss if he isnot physically prepared to meet the de-mands of hard playing situations. Noteany of the top players in the countrytoday for an example of muscu la rstrength and dexterity. Buddy Rich, Bil-ly Cobham and Steve Gadd are perhapsthree of the finest examples of drummerspossessing s t rength . They obvious lycould not perform at high energy levelswithout i t . When we refer to strength,keep in mind that we are not talkingabout muscle bound l imbs developedthrough weight l i f t i ng programs, butstrength applied to the instrument in ac-cordance with the requirements of themusic we may have to perform.

Strength is especially important for theplayer with aspirations of entering thehard rock or big band field where high

degrees of power are absolutely essen-tial. Any player who has experiencedpushing a six or seven piece rock group,fighting amplifiers all the way, or drivingan 18 piece big band will attest to the im-portance of strength.

TOUCHTouch can simply be defined as the

quali ty of sound the drummer producesfrom his instrument. A good touch willproduce a pleasing and clean tone fromthe drum at all volume levels. Drummanufacturers go to great lengths design-ing and producing instruments that arecapable of producing resonant tonalquality and yet, so many young playerstotally overlook this area of technical de-ve lopmen t . The most perfect ly con-structed drum in the world cannot pro-duce a truly professional sound if thedrummer has not cultivated his ability toproduce a good tone. Contrary to popu-lar belief, a top quality drum does notcover up shortcomings in this area, butrather, amplifies them!

Listen to the sound of the players youadmire. Experiment during practice ses-sions with your sound through the use oftape recording. Listen to your sound andyour touch. What yon hear on that tape,is what they hear.

SPEEDThough the ability to play fast can be a

great asset, this author has noted afteryears of teaching experience that one ofthe most common faults of young stu-dents is their desire to attempt to playtoo fast, too soon. It must be understoodthat speed without clean execution, fi-nesse and control is virtually useless.What sense does it make to execute ex-ceptionally fast patterns around thedrum set without control?

Speed for the sake of speed equalsnothing. Speed is an outgrowth of theother areas in the technical developmentof a good drummer. As muscular dexteri-ty becomes more refined, speed will nat-urally evolve.

A careful program of developmentthrough the use of a metronome is an ex-cellent means to gauge progress on a dai-ly or weekly basis. There are any one ofa hundred ways of incorporating a speeddevelopment program and each teacherhas his own individual views on this sub-ject.

At the advanced stages, a fast pair ofhands cannot be undervalued. Power inreserve can be a great asset in everyphase of playing. However, the studentmust become aware of its importance atthe right stage in his development.

It is also important to point out thatthough speed and power are importantfor various musical forms, it is only ameans to an end. To overemphasize inthis area is to overlook the many otherelements essential in the development ofa well-rounded player such as t ime, con-ception, taste, musicality, etc.

ENDURANCEThe final area in our discussion of

technical development, is endurance.Endurance can be viewed as the main-taining of one's control, touch, strength,speed and clean execution after hours ofstrenuous playing. If the drummer's en-durance level is not developed suffi-ciently he can easily find himself at agreat loss in many ways. As muscles fa-tigue, hand speed begins to slow down,control wavers and strength diminishes.Execution may begin to get sloppy. Thedrummer can only avoid this by buildinghis endurance level to a point where anystrenuous playing situation will have nodirect bearing on his overall perform-ance. He must develop a "margin of en-durance" (a reserve of stamina) muchthe same as a sprinter with that l i t t le ex-tra going into the final lap. The endur-ance level should ultimately be broughtto a point over and above that which onecan reasonably expect to find in his indi-vidual musical situation.

Take note of some of the top drum-mers today and you will readily see thattheir speed and control is vir tual ly unaf-fected by strenuous playing. Their play-ing level remains as polished at the con-clusion of an evening's performance as itwas at the onset. They have developed a"margin of endurance".

It is important to understand that eache l emen t discussed here even tua l l ycomes together after years of painstakingeffort; each factor plays an equally im-portant role, and each works with theother resulting in a polished and refinedtechnique. Technical facili ty, of course,must continue to be looked at as merelya means to an end. The ultimate aim ofall serious drummers must remain in theend itself, in essence, becoming a well-rounded and musically sensitive musi-cian.

Drums And Drummers:An Impression

by Rich Baccaro

The music world, as interpreted by some, is densely popu-lated with realists and modernists. In that world, one speciesscientifically and emotionally classified as "The Drummer" en-dures as the constant impressionist. Besides the drummer's ob-vious rhythmic duties, he is required to convey the mood of thecomposition to the listener. And he must do this by strikingobjects made of wood, plastic and metal with other objectsmade of similar materials.

Limited by his imperfect tools, the drummer's role and pur-pose is to subjectively support the statements of the composer.Those musical statements, either melodic or verbal, are morethan mere sound. They are organized emotions, that tell stories;paint pictures; express happiness; sadness, freedom, disgust,and contempt. The drummer supports and encourages theseemotions with dabs and strokes of percussive color, just as animpressionistic artist does with paints; creating images recog-nizeable enough by eye (or ear) alone, while setting a mood,a l lowing the v i ewer ' s (or l i s t ene r ' s ) imag ina t i on some in-tellectual exercise.

A cymbal is an impressionistic instrument. Its bell can por-tray comedy or uncertainty, its ride area when played at full-throttle represents confidence, while its outer circumference istemperamental, sometimes scary. When crashed, a cymbal de-picts the surprise of a summer storm. When played with abrush, it becomes a breeze. And when rolled upon, a cymbal isa reminder of the complex power of an ocean. There is certainlymore to a cymbal than superficial bashing.

While backing a vocal composition, especially in a jazz ori-ented format, the drummer/impressionist has an emotional fieldday. In this context, the music is ornamented with words,which the drummer i s free to punctuate. The snare drum dancesaround the lyrics, sometimes teasing, sometimes coaxing, butalways enhancing their meaning. If the words are hot, the snareroars with approval, intensifying the mood of sheer elationfound in those si tuat ions. Conversely, sadder lyrics bring dark-er, more sympathetic colors out of the snare drum; the vibrantroars are gone. The snare drum empathetically transmits thefeeling of rejection and insecurity by accenting all the keyworks with a shading here and a quiet obscure buzz there. Thegeneral darkness of this style of music seems to inspire the useof simple, but tastefully placed snare drum notes, with thespaces of time between these notes being equally as effective.

Tom Toms. Now these are really versatile items. They areprimitive. They are sophisticated. They are impressionistic es-sentials. At last count, there were seven million different mod-

els available: in every definable size and shape. The tom tomsare the instruments which blend the colors into some type oflogical finished product. Their own individual sound transformsa musical blur into recognizable shapes. They complement andfit all musical styles. The drummer/impressionist would be near-ly colorless without them.

The patriarch of the drum set family is the old reliable bassdrum. The bass drum is the oldest, wisest elephant in the jungle.In the impressionistic approach to drumming, its voice may notbe constant, but speaks loudly and clearly. The bass drum gen-erates excitement and intensity as it calls the listener's attentionto critical segments of the composition being played on the oth-er instruments of the set. Sometimes without warning or antici-pation, the bass drum acts as an additional hand, augmentingthe music, adding tension, totally involving the drummer andl istener in the performance.

The drum set alone is a mere machine. The drummer is theperson in charge. A drummer is a creature who is often misun-derstood, occasionally misbehaved, and sometimes mistreated(the use of his trap case as the band's waste-basket provesthat). But seriously, for the drummer to more than adequatelyperform impressionistically, he himself becomes part of the mu-sic. All commercial and materialistic pressures vanish. An im-pressionistic drummer assumes the psychological attitude of themusic to be played; the musicians, the audience and all immedi-ate surroundings become vital factors in the total picture. Thesesensory impressions act as the background for the musical sub-ject. An art ist ically alert drummer allows all these surroundingimages to influence and motivate his playing. The reactions ofthe listeners are felt, interpreted and re-channeled to them innew colors. The general appearance of the room and its lightingemerges as a picture in itself, and the drummer states his opin-ion of what he sees. If the performance is outdoors, perhaps thepatterns of sunlight on the trees and the odorless fragrance ofclear air wil l trigger some hidden "shot" of sensitivity, thusgiving the drummer's renderings that much more character. Byremembering and expanding upon what he has already played,the drummer's musical picture gains insight and depth, andmaybe even a pinch of profundity.

There is no published method book covering impressionismin drumming. There can't be. There shouldn't be. There is noneed. There is no means of teaching it. There is no teacher whocan teach it. There is no student who can learn it . The truth isthat we all possess impressionistic abili t ies, and we all can usethem if we don't view the world too realistically.

Peart: continued from page 46of imag i n a t i o n ; if I want someth ingcrazy, he'll come up with it. If I wantcrotales on top of the tubular bells, or atemple block mounted on top of my per-cussion, he can do it . When you presenthim with an idea, he thinks of a way toachieve i t . He never let me down in thatrespect. He bui l t my gong stand. Thegong stand mounts on the tympani and isattached to the mallet stand.CI: With the extensive set-up that youuse, I'm wondering why you do not useelectronic percussive devices.NP: It 's a matter of temperament real-ly. I don't feel comfortable with wiresand electronic things. It 's not a th ing forwhich I have a natural empathy. It 's notthat I don't th ink that they're interestingor that there aren't a lot of possibilities.But personally, I 'm satisfied with tradi-tional percussion. I have distrust forelectronic and mechanical things. I'vegot enough to keep me busy, really.When I look at my drums, the five pieceset up is the basis of what I have. I mighthave hundreds of toys, but for me mostof my patterns and most of my thinkingrevolves around snare drum, bass drum,hi-hat , and a couple of tom toms. Butthere's more to it than that. I can add alot more. I don't understand the peoplewho are purists or fundamentalists, whowould look at my drum kit and say, 'Allyou need is four drums. ' That makes meas mad as looking down on someone whohas only four drums. I 'm not afraid toplay on only four drums, but there'smore that I can contribute to this band asa pe rcuss ion i s t . I 'm c e r t a i n l y not akeyboard percuss ion v i r tuoso by anymeans, nor do I expect to be. I just wantto be a good drummer at th is point in mylife. Having eight tom toms to me is ex-cellent, because I can do that many morevariations of sounds. So you're not hear-ing the same fill all the time, or the samesort of patterns. There are differentnotes, different perspectives of per-cussion. To me it sounds like a naturalevolution. I couldn't understand anyonewho would look at it with bitterness, orreproach, because I don't neglect my

drumming because of that . When I 'm notbusy drumming, I have something else todo. And the guys show me the notes toplay and I play them. I know Carl Palmerspends a lot of t ime on keyboard per-cussion and I admire him for that. He'sgetting quite proficient. Bi l l Bruford'sgetting amazing on keyboard percussion,because he's devoted the time and theenergy that it takes to become a properkeyboard percussionist. I admire that tono end. I spend a lot of time th inkingabout composition, and drumming has tobe the prime musical force. I spend a lotof time working with words. I look atthat as a simultaneous education whileI 'm refining my drumming skills .CI: Do you use lyrics as a guide to yourdrumming?NP: Not after the fact. Once we haveagreed on the musical structure and ar-rangement, it then becomes a purely mu-sical thing. Obviously, if there's a prob-lem in phrasing I might have to rewritethe structure. But for the most part I for-get about the lyrics and listen to the vo-ca ls . Ge t ty ' s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is rea l lywhen it becomes an i n s t r umen t , sothere's a way I can punctuate the vocalsor frame the vocals somehow musically.CI: What are some of your thoughts ondrum soloing?NP: I guess there are mixed feelings.How musical it is depends on the drum-mer. I find it very satisfying. I guess a lotof drummers do improvise all the waythrough their solo. I have a frameworkthat I deal with every night, so I havesome sort of standard where it will beconsistent. And if I don't feel especiallycreative or strong, I can just play myframework and know it will be good. Butcertain areas of my solo are left open forimprovisation. If I feel especially hot, orif I have an idea which comes to mespontaneously, I have plenty of room toexperiment. I try to structure the sololike a song, or piece of music. I ' l l workfrom the introduction, and go throughvarious movements, and bring in somecomic relief. Then build up to a crescen-do and end naturally. I can't be objec-tive. Subjectively, I enjoy doing it and

like listening to it. It's a good solo. Non-drummers have told me it's a nice drumsolo to listen to.CI: Do you have any advice for theyoung d rummers w i t h aspi ra t ions ofsomeday playing in a musical situationsimilar to your own?NP: I used to try to give people advicebut the more I learned, the more I real-ized that my advice could only be basedon both my values and my experiences.Neither of which are going to be sharedby very many people. I would say tothem, 'Go for what you're after.' I can'tget much more complicated that that. Idon't feel comfortable t e l l i n g peoplewhat to do.CI: Have you ever taught private stu-dents'?NP: No, I haven't. I've been asked todo clinics which I'm interested in, butfearful of. But I would like to get intodoing that, relating to people on that lev-el. I like to talk about drums. I like totalk about things I'm interested in. Forme to talk about things I 'm honestly in-terested in, and obviously drums is oneof them, is foremost.CI: What are your thoughts on inter-views?NP: I won't do an interview for a pro-motional reason. I do them because I l iketo get my ideas out. Sometimes, I cantalk about something in an interview andrealize that I was totally wrong. And I ' l lhave had the opportunity to air thosethoughts out which most people don't.You don't have conversations with yourfriends about metaphysics, the funda-mentals of music, and the fundamentalsof yourself really. When I do an inter-view, I look for an ideal. I 'm looking foran interview that's going to be stimulat-ing, and I'll get right into it. Just sit forhours and relate. That's an ideal, like anideal show. It doesn't happen that often.CI: Before setting up your kit, yourroadie Larry Allen cleaned and polishedeach cymbal to a high gloss and cleanedall the chrome. Does he take this greatcare as per your instruction, or is thissomething Larry does on his own?NP: That's a reflection of Larry's care.He takes a lot of pride in having the setsparkle and the cymbals shining. On hisside I relate to that, but it doesn't affectme really one way or the other.CI: Do you hear a difference in the bril-liance of the sound when your cymbalsare clean instead of tarnished?NP: No, not really. It 's hard to justifyreally. To me a good cymbal soundsgood, and a bad cymbal doesn't soundgood. That's the way I feel about it. My20" crash has a very warm, rich soundwith a lot of good decay. I don't thinkdirt would improve that.CI: Some drummers feel that as thecymbal is played, gets dirty, and gets tar-nished, it takes on a certain character all

continued on page 58

its own. Do you think it is really the ag-ing process which is the factor?NP: Yes, I th ink age has something todo with that. But the cymbal is metal,how can dirt make it sound better? If youdon't want the decay, stick a piece oftape on it. I t ' l l do the same thing dirt willdo. It may be true that dirt is a factor.But it won't give it a warmer sound bydefinition, because the note of the cym-bal is still the note of the cymbal.CI: The dirt wi l l only affect the sustain.NP: Exactly. So if you want a shortersustain, get it dirty. My cymbals are cho-sen for the length of decay that I want.And a cer ta in f r equency range. Theamount of decay is especially crucial.CI: Tell me about that Chinese cymbalyou're using. It sounds great!NP: I had an awful time trying to getinto China cymbals. I bought an 18"pang, just looking for the Chinese sound.It had a good sound and I found myselfusing it for different effects. But it's al-most a wh i s p e r y , e lec t ron ic sound.When I listen to its sound in the studio,or on a tape it sounds l ike a phaser. It hasa warm sort of sound, but it didn't havethe attack I was looking for. So I got theZildjian China type which had that, butalso a lot of sustain. Larry picked thisone up at Frank's Drum Shop. It wasmade in China. It's a 20" with a l i t t l emore bottom end to its sound.CI: For the size of your set up I wassomewhat surprised to see you using 13"hi-hats. Why 13V?NP: I've always used 13's. I use a cer-tain hi-hat punctuation that doesn't workwith any other size. I've tried 14's, andeverytime we go into the studio our co-producer Terry Brown, wants me to use14" hi-hat cymbals. I 've tried them. I'man open-minded guy. But it just doesn'thappen for me.CI: Are they just conventional hats?NP: Just conventional, regular old hi-hats. We work with a band a lot calledMax Webster, and their drummer and Iwork very closely, listening to each oth-er's drums. Webs te r told me not tochange that hi-hat, because for any openhat work or any choke work, it's soquick and clean. It just wouldn't workwith 14's. The decay is too slow.CI: Are you talking about that particu-lar pair of 13's or any 13's?NP: Well any 13's for me. I've gonethrough about three sets of I3's in thelast 8 or 9 years. And they've all soundedgood. When I found myself to be one ofthe only drummers around using 13's, Itried others, but either my style devel-oped with 13" cymbals or the 13" cymbalswere an important part of my style.CI: You are using Evans heads on yourtoms.NP: Yes. The Evans heads have a nice

attack which gives a good bite from thedrums. At the same time you never losethe note. I play with a lot of open drums,open concert toms. But my front tomsand my floor toms are all closed withheads on the bottom. I never lose thenote on account of that. With certaintypes of acoustical surroundings, opendrums just lose everything, all you hearis a smack. I get that with my concerttoms. I hear that with other drummers. Ifyou're in a particularly flat hall, or if thestage area is particularly dead, it k i l l s thenote of the drums. I think it's easier toget a good sound with open drums. I'vebeen talking to people about this lately,and developing a theory. I th ink that per-haps, especially with miking, it 's easierto get a good sound with open drums.But I think that a better sound can beachieved with closed drums. A moreconsistent sound. I think that over arange of hundreds of different acousticalsurroundings, closed drums have a bet-ter chance of sounding good more often.That's just a theory. It depends on anumber of things of course. I open up mybass drums in the studio, but I leave thetoms closed.CI: Yet for your live performance, Isee you have left both heads on the bassdrums. Why?NP: I think I get a rounder note, and amore consistent bass drum sound. Andour sound man's happy with both headson. We just have a small hole in the fronthead and a microphone right inside.CI: I noticed you use a microphone un-der your snare drum.NP: Yes, I use an under snare mike forthe monitors only. Which Ian doesn'tuse out front. I don't use the over snaremike in the monitors, because I 'm get-ting all of the middle I need out of thedrum itself. It 's the high end that getslost in the ambient sound of the rest ofthe band. The high end gets lost first.CI: What about in the studio?NP: In the studio sometimes both, butusually the top.CI: In the studio, do you use one miketo catch the snare and the hi-hat or is thatdone separately?NP: Just one mike on the snare alone,and the hi-hat has a separate mike. It's alogistical thing. We have to go for closemiking. Just about everything is individ-ually miked. There are three overheads tocover the cymbals, one separate overhead for the China-type. I have a certainset of long, tubular wind chimes thathave to be heard at a particular point sothey have a mike. There's a mike for thetympani, there's two mikes for the or-chestra chimes and they also pick up thecrotales. There's also a separate mike forthe glockenspiel. If I want to try to injectthat much subtlety into our music, the

glockenspiel has to be miked closely or itwon't exist. It's crucial. Miking is a sci-ence that I can't talk about with muchconviction. I don't know a lot about itother than a few bits of theory I pickedup in the studio. As far as live mikinggoes, I'm pretty ignorant I must admit.I'm just trying to get my drums to soundgood to me, and then it's up to the soundman to make them sound good in thehouse.CI: Could you tell me a little aboutyour recent album?NP: There's quite a variety of thingsthis time. We didn't have any big ideas towork on so it 's a collection of smallideas. Individual musical statements. Wegot into some interesting things, andsome interesting constructions too. Webuilt a whole song around a picture. Wewanted to build a song around the phe-nomena called Jacob's ladder, where therays break through the clouds. I came upwith a couple of short pieces of lyrics toset the musical parts up. And we built itall musically trying to describe it cine-matically. As if our music were a fi lm.We have a luminous sky happening andthe whole stormy, gloomy atmosphere,and all of a sudden these shafts of bril-liance come bursting through and we tryto create that musically. There's anothersong called "The Spirit Of Radio." It'snot about a radio station or anything, it'sreally about the spirit of music when itcomes down to the basic theme of it. It'sabout musical integrity. We wanted toget across the idea of a radio stationplaying a wide variety of music. For in-stance the "Spirit Of Radio" comes fromthe radio station at home called CFMYand that's their slogan. They play allgreat music from reggae to R&B, to jazzto New Wave, everything that's good orinteresting. It's a very satisfying radiostation to me. They have introduced meto a lot of new music. There are bits of

reggae in the song and one of the verseshas a New Wave feel to it. We tried toget across all the different forms of mu-sic. There are no divisions there. Thechoruses are very electronic. It's just adigital sequencer with a glockenspiel anda counter guitar riff. The verse is a stan-dard straight ahead Rush verse. One is anew wave, a couple reggae verses, andsome standard heavy riffing, and asmuch as we could possibly get in therewithout getting redundant. Another songthat we also did in there, "Free Will" isa new thing for us in terms of time signa-tures. I mentioned before that we experi-ment a lot with time signatures. I get a lotof satisfaction out of working differentrhythms and learning to feel comfort-able.CI: What time signatures are you usingduring this tune?NP: We work in nearly everyone that Iknow of that's legitimate. All of the 5's,7's, 9's, l l ' s , 13's, and combinationsthereof. There were things on the last al-bum that were 21 beat bars by the timethey were actually completed. Becausethey had a 7 and a 6; a 5 and a 4; or 7. 6,7, 6, 7, 6, 5. I get a tremendous amountof satisfaction making them feel good. Idon't think that you have to play in 4/4 tofeel comfortable.CI: How did you develop your under-standing of those odd meters?NP: I remember figuring out some ofGenesis' things. That was my first under-standing of how time signatures werecreated. And I 'd hear people t a l k i n gabout 7, and 5 and if they played it for meI could usually play along. But I didn'tunderstand. I finally got to understandthe principle of the common denomina-tor. Once I understood it numerically Ifound it rea l ly easy to p ick up therhythm. Then you take on something justas a challenge, and turn it into a guitarsolo in 1 3/8, and find a way to play thatcomfortably and make changes. As Iwould change dynamically through a 4/4section. There would be certain waysthat I would move i t , try to apply thosesame elements to a complicated concept.I think Patrick Moraz put it best. He

said, "All the technique you have in theworld is still only a method of translatingyour emotions." So we're coming backwith that acquired technique. There's alot of truth in Moraz's statement becausenow we're finding out as we have gonethrough all those, some of them honestlywere technical exercises. You have tosay that sometimes you get excited aboutplaying something just because it is a dif-ficult thing. And certain times we wouldget into the technical side of i t , but be-come bored with i t . Now we're findingout how to bring those technical ideasback and put them into an exc i t i ngframework. We have a song that's al-most all in 7 and has some alternatingbars of 8 and the chorus that goes into itagain is in 4. It 's all very natural to play.I can play through the whole song and Idon't count once. The only thing I countare pauses. If I 'm stopping for 8 beats orsomething I ' l l count that off with myfoot. But when I 'm playing I just don'tcount, unless I have to, for meter rea-sons.

This is probably a common experi-ence, but slower things for me are themost difficult to keep in meter. If I 'mplaying really slow straight 4's, I countthat, but if I 'm playing really fast in 13, Idon't dare count, I just play it. We weretalking earlier about music taking pat-terns as a musician. I th ink it does that . Ihave a program in my head that repre-sents the rhythmic pattern for a 13, or a7, or a 5. And I can bring those out al-most on command, having spent a lot oftime getting familiar with them. It 's soexciting when you start to get it right thefirst few times and you're putting every-thing you have into it . That's the ul t i -mate joy of creating. That joy is such ashort lived thing, most of the t ime youdon't have time to enjoy i t . Most timeswhen I write a song the moment of satis-faction is l i tera l ly a matter of a few sec-onds. All of a sudden you see it 's goingto work and you're going to be happywith i t , and then bang you're back intoworking it again. You're thinking howam I going to do this? Whether it 's lyr-ical ly or musical ly , the moment of satis-faction is very fleeting.

Soloist or Band:

Drums:

In performance, one often runs into the other. For example, ananswer will lead directly into coinciding, or from coinciding intoan answer into coinciding again.

5.

Soloist or Band:

Drums:

4.

Ed. Note: The material from this article has been excerptedfrom Jazz Drumming by Jack DeJohnette and Charlie Perry bypermission. The book will soon be published by Long IslandDrum Center Publications Division.

RB: Remo, Inc. introduced the tunable practice pad manyyears ago, which to this day has been a very successful item forus. It provided the student with a product that gave him a senseof realism that he didn't have before.

The Roto-toms came along, using parts of the practice pads,as a development by Al Payson, of the Chicago Symphony Or-chestra. When we introduced the Roto-toms in the late 60's, wehad only the 6", 8", and 10" sizes because they were the sizes ofour practice pads. When the oil crisis of 1973 came along, wewere told that we would get a cutback in the plastic we wereusing for producing practice pads. Rather than sacrifice thepractice pads, we thought we'd give up on the Roto-toms, sincethey were not a big seller.

About that t ime, one of our engineers came up with the ideathat if we took two of the different (metal) castings and put oneopposite the other, we would get the same results as we hadusing the plastic parts. Subsequently, using the metal castingsand metal counterhoops, we introduced the larger sizes and theRoto-toms took oft". They became accepted in many segmentsof the percussion world.

Which brings us to the pedal. The pedal is a combination ofdevelopments. It was first introduced to me, in concept, by BobHenrit of London, England. The technology was such that wecould never succeed because of the amount of energy that ittook to depress the pedal in order to change the pitch of thedrumhead. We spent two years not being able to do anythingabout i t .

We recently hired an engineer and when we asked him to lookinto the possibility of developing a pedal for Roto-toms he cameup with an unusually fine mechanism. The "Rapid Tune" Roto-tom pedal adapts to any Roto-tom, and will find itself as part ofthe equipment that many individuals, as well as insti tutions andstudios are going to want to have. I believe it's going to be thatimportant.

LM: Remo Inc. has gone right along with the growth of thepercussion world. Actually, Remo has contributed a great deal.Remo, Inc. tends to develop products that contribute to the per-cussion world, as opposed to making a product that some-body else makes with the intent of getting a piece of themarket or a share of the business.

The head was developed because of the need for it. It wasinnovative. The tunable practice pad is probably the most over-looked contribution to players and the industry. It was devel-oped because there was nothing that lent itself to a tensionedmembrane that duplicated stick response, at the same time re-ducing the volume for practice. This allowed the student to ana-lyze problems with his technique. The practice pad then applieditself to the practice set.

Roto-toms are another contribution. Roto-toms came out ofthe practice pads, and the pedal is an extension of that. With thepedal, people in many areas of percussion will have anothermeans of express ing themse lves . I t ' s commun ica t i on , andthat's what music is all about.

HH: So you feel that the Ringer repre-sents the state of the art?FB: It's the Stradivarius. I've playedon everything, and for me it's the best.HH: Who have been some of your fa-vorite conductors over the years?FB: That's going to be sort of ticklishto answer. Every player has certain posi-tive vibes about the permanent music di-rector of the orchestra, so that figureshould be a given quantity. Rostropovichis a living legend, and I can't add any-thing to it. As far as others who conductour orchestra are concerned, some withwhom I specifically enjoy working areRafael Frubeck de Burgos, Erich Leins-dorf, Max Rudolf, Leonard Bernstein,and Lorin Maazel.HH: Do you find it more or less re-warding to perform a given work whenthe composer himself conducts it?FB: I t ' s an interest ing thing. Some-times composers do things with theirown music that are far different, bothgood and bad than what you would ex-pect. It's curious to see what comes fromthe horse's mouth.

Stravinsky was noted for being asomewhat unusual conductor of his mu-sic. He would do things differently fromwhat we would call "accepted" inter-pretations. He was very surprising insome of his deviations of tempo andrhythmic intensity. Sometimes, it wasn'tthe total intensity that you would expectfrom the man who did it all.HH: When did you last work with Stra-vinsky?FB: I guess it was during the 60s. I re-corded Le Rossignol and Oedipus Rexwith him.

He could really hear the inner voicesand was thoroughly involved. He was ajoy, and it was one of the highlights ofmy life to perform with him.HH: How about favori te piecesthrough the years?FB: Well, I have to say, hands down,Le Sacre is the one. It's not just my fa-vorite work in the repertoire—it's cer-t a i n ly a landmark t impan i part—butthere's something significant about it tome. It seems to be an important force inmy life, a source of nourishment. There'sa certain source in the music for which Ifeel an affinity.HH: Are you recorded on albums otherthan those of the NSO which evoke es-pecially fond memories for you?FB: Years ago I was on a recording ofVarese's Ionisation with a group of guyswho were at school at the time, like Bus-ter Bailey, Artie Press, Morris Lang, it'squite an illustrious group of youngsters!

I'm not too fond of recording. In manyways, recording is a distortive processfor the timpani. I have to do things onrecordings that I don't really like to doregarding mallet selection and tone pro-

jection. I 'm not happy that the million-dollar equipment these people have issupposed to make a good record butcan't capture my sound.HH: That seems to be a problem withrecording percussion instruments in gen-eral, that all sorts of undesirable altera-t ions must be made in order not to"overload" the electronics with reso-nance. The musical content often be-comes secondary to the recording pro-cess itself.FB: It drives you up a wall, the thingsyou have to do on a record and how alienthey are to the music you want to pro-duce.HH: Do you have any unfulfilleddreams in music?FB: Well, if I had it all to do over again,I would have studied conducting and for-gotten all about drums. From the begin-ning. I feel that I've been able to do thekind of playing I want to do and, manytimes, the way I want to do i t . But, if Iwere to have changed anything in mymusical life I would have done it all dif-ferently, knowing what I do about thecloseness between conducting and play-ing the timpani, the creative control, thefact that as a timpanist so much of thetime you're carrying the conductor onyour back.

How that would have worked out Idon't know: maybe in my next reincar-nation I ' l l find out.

FIRTH COMPANYSELECTS REMO/PRO-

MARK FORQUANTITY

MARKETING

Remo, Inc. has been ap-pointed to distribute Vic Firthcustom drum sticks and mal-lets internationally in a moveto augment marketing of theFirth line.

Firth custom sticks will beavailable to all Remo and Pro-Mark dealers on a direct basisonly in prepackaged quan-tities of 6 pairs of any modelof timpani sticks or 12 pairs ofany model of mallets or drumsticks.

Lesser quantities and otherFirth accessories will contin-ue to be avai lable onlythrough Vic Firth Incorporat-ed, headquartered in Dover,Massachusetts.

Firth will continue to mar-ket its entire line on a dealerdirect basis, as in the past.

The Firth mallets and sticksto be sold through the Remo/Pro-Mark organization com-plement the Pro-Mark line andwill carry the same guaranteesand assurances as those mar-keted by their manufacturer.

Vic Firth (left) and Remo Belli,of Remo, Inc.

LES DEMERLE JOINSSLINGERLAND

Jazz-rock drummer Les De-Merle is now endorsing Sling-erland Drums after a 5 yearr e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h Pear lDrums.

A European tour was re-cently completed and a duoclinic with Peter Erskine pre-sented at DeMerle's CellarTheatre in Los Angeles. Fu-ture plans for a DeMerle /Slingerland clinic album arebeing negotiated.

HEEEEERE'S EDDIE!

Ed Shaughnessy, drummerfor Johnny Carson's TonightShow and Modern DrummerMagazine Advisory Boardmember, recently participatedin a clinic sponsored by theRuss Moy Drum Studio ofElizabeth, New Jersey.

After the c l in ic , Shaugh-nessy and members of theModern Drummer editorialand administrative staff met

for dinner and a discussion ofthe history of jazz drumming,a subject on which Shaugh-nessy is well versed.

Pictured are, left to right:Cheech Iero, Associate Edi-tor; Leo Spagnardi, Circula-t ion Manager; Ed Shaugh-nessy; Ron Spagnardi, Editor-in-Chief; Isabel Spagnardi;Karen Larcombe, FeaturesEditor; and Ann Lambariello,Assistant Admin i s t r a t i v eManager.

SCHOOL OFFERSRECORDING STUDIO

PROGRAM

New York Recording Musi-cians is now accepting stu-dents for their program.

The purpose of the school isto introduce developing musi-cians to recording and preparethem to function competentlywithin a professional environ-ment.

N.Y.R.M. students performin recording sessions con-ducted by leading profession-als. All sessions take place inthe major recording studios ofNew York City. Students arerequired to read music andmust have attained some levelof musical proficiency.

For more information, con-tact: New York RecordingMusicians, 125 Village CircleWest, Paramus, NJ 07652.(201)265-9491.

SUCCESSFULJAPANESE TOURFOR LP JAZZENSEMBLE

The Latin Percussion JazzEnsemble performed for en-thusiastic audiences in citiesthroughout Japan (Tokyo,Sendai, Sapporo and Osaka)on a tour jointly sponsored byLatin Percussion, Inc . andYamaha.

The stars of the LPJE areTito Puente and Carlos "Pa-tato" Valdez, assisted by Ed-die Martinez, piano; JohnnyRodriguez, bongos; and AndyGonzalez, bass.

The clinics were attendedby both local pros as well asbeginners and, according toTito Puente, the newcomersdemonstrated superior coordi-nation and took beautifully tothe Latin rhythms that madeup the foundation of the musi-cal performances.

NEW SERIES OFSNARE DRUMS

FROM D.W. DRUMS

The Drum Workshop, Inc.is introducing a complete se-ries of Snare Drums withthree choices of Shel l con-struction, maple, brass andacoustic-phenolic.

Don Lombardi, D.W. Presi-dent says, "We feel theseSnare Drums will meet the de-mands of today's drummer.The Concert-Brass model is a6 1/2" by 15" drum, made of sol-id rolled brass. The increasein size from the standard 14"drum greatly increases the pro-jection while maintaining the

crisp resonant quality of thebrass shell. The maple shellmodel is 6" by 14" made of allmaple using 6 plies for the shelland 6 additional plies for thereinforcing rings top and bot-tom. The hand standing andf inishing we feel w i l l makethis drum a collector's item.

"The Acoustic-Phenolicmodel is a 14" drum, 8" deep,and offers a desired recordingsound for a l ive perform-ance."

Paul Real, Vice President ofMarket ing says, "The newdouble lock throw off systemis standard on all models. It isguaranteed not to "throw off"while playing."

RESONANTINTRODUCES RUBBER

GRIP STICKS

Resonant, a new l ine ofdrum sticks, are now availablein 5A, 5B and 7 A models.

The Resonant sticks featurenylon tips and a rubber insetto assure p lay ing ease andcomfort. The rubber grip isavailable in several colors.

For fu r the r informat ion,contact: Resonant Drum-sticks, Drum Workshop, Inc.15312 S. Broadway, Gardena,CA 90248. (213) 515-7826.

SILVER STREET, INC.PRESENTS

DEADRINGER™

Silver Street, Incorporatedhas introduced Deadringer,

TM

an invention designed to elim-inate interfering drumheadring. The device can be usedon bass drums, tom toms andsnares.

"Drums equ ipped wi thDeadringer are easy to tuneand depending on what inter-vals used, enables the drum-mer to play chords, wh ichgreatly enhance solo perform-ances. Because of the Dead-

ringer design and application,the drumhead vibrates evenly,allowing the purest tone pos-sible," said Bruce Hardy,president of the company.

For fur ther in format ion ,write: Silver Street, Incorpo-rated, 54394 S i lve r Street ,Elkhart, IN 46514. (219) 264-2376.

SLINGERLANDINTRODUCES

NEW HEAVY-DUTYSTANDS

Slingerland introducesGrandstands

TM

, a new line ofheavy-duty stands for cymbal,boom cymbal or boom tomtom.

Grand Stands feature a 35"leg spread, height extension to8 1/2 feet and middle sectionsthat are constructed of extra-durable 18-gauge tubularsteel, one inch in diameter.Rachet-grip swivel mecha-nisms on the Grandstand se-ries are hexagon shaped forbetter grip. Other features in-clude counterweighted boom,oversize wing nuts and 1/4" di-ameter outer legs.

New Grandstands areavailable from Slingerland.For more information writeSlingerland. 6633 N. Milwau-kee Ave., Niles, IL 60648.

ELEK-TREKMUFFLING SYSTEM

Elek-Trek, U.S.A.. a firmthat designs and builds spe-c ia l ized microphones andmixers, has introduced theirfelt muffler stripping.

Dave Donohoe, productionand engineer ing manager,said, "I just got tired of seeingsome of the weird stuff drum-mers were us ing for muf-fling."

The 66" roll of felt featurespressure sensitive adhesivewith a quick release, paperbacking. Appropriate lengthsare cut from the roll and at-tached to the drumhead. Thefelt is light and will cancel outobjectionable harmonics and

overtones, but does not affecttone and power.

For fu r t he r in fo rmat ion ,write: Elek-Trek, 2454-G EastFender Avenue , Fu l le r ton ,CA 92631. (714) 773-0551.

CARLPALMER

BILL GOODWIN

THE GREATJAZZDRUMMERSPART 1Plus

Results of MD'sSecond Annual

READERS POLL