Tom-Tom

I'm slowly sorting out the "Ebony Concerto".

From rehersal number 4 to rehersal number 6, there are four active lines in the music :

The tom-tom and basses are carrying one line of broken arpeggios in eighth notes and quarter notes.

The harp is carrying a counter melody (a harmony component) to the tom-tom and basses.

The brasses are playing block chords in eight notes, and, at exactly half the rate of the brasses, the saxophones are carrying a melody over block chords in quarter note.

My next move is to see where else in the "Ebony Concerto" this melody in the saxophones is repeated or developed, and then to track the dirge theme.

It's like I got a new and better stereo. Seeing these things in the score is making details that went un-noticed before pop out in stark relief.

I misheard the tom-toms first time out. No diatonic scales, just five notes arranged in broken apreggios. I think it must be five drums.

I am going to do the transpositions of the Eb woodwinds and the Bb trumpets from rehersal 4 to 6, to see if Stravinsky is in two different diatonic keys here. I have read that he does this, but don't have the sound of it in my ear. Here's my chance!

I have been trying to think of the options, and five separate drums would make most sense.

They may be different sized drums too, as the depth and width have an effect on tone, although mostly through the head (skin) being a different size.

The drummers of US college bands often have a set of four or five toms slung around their necks, or on a rest in front of them (they make an awful racket during college football games). It might be a set like that the composition had in mind though.

You can get different notes from one drum, but the accuracy of hitting the exact place on a tom-tom would be very hard. Far harder than that achieved by steel drummers, who have a hard tuned drum head, mark out with notes, a tom-tom is a much more basic drum.

Jazz drummers do change the tone of their snare drum, usually during solos, or breaks, by playing the drum with one stick, whilst pushing their elbow of their other arm down into the skin. Art Blakey did this a lot, and I have seen rock drummers like Stewart Copeland do it too.

Bill Bruford explored this with electronic drums in the 1980's. Interesting at the time, but now it seems more of an intellectual experiment than an enjoyable way of making music.

Earthworks - Up North 1987

Thanks Jamiel_v2,

Tonight I will give a listen to the clip you provided. I'm assuming the drummer in the clip is using tom-toms?

Mike Eschman

In the clip I liked Bill Bruford is playing electronic drums, so apart from an acoustic snare, bass drum and a gong bass drum (mounted), as well as cymbals, all the rest of the kits can be switched to any sound he wishes. I thought it might interest you from the melodic use of drums, rather than a purely percussive aspect.

Prior to that Bruford used roto-toms, which had the drum head on a rotary mount that could be turned to change the tuning.

In the final ten years of his career he went back to a fully acoustic kit, which I preferred. He has now retired.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieL_v2:
In the clip I liked Bill Bruford is playing electronic drums, so apart from an acoustic snare, bass drum and a gong bass drum (mounted), as well as cymbals, all the rest of the kits can be switched to any sound he wishes. I thought it might interest you from the melodic use of drums, rather than a purely percussive aspect.

Prior to that Bruford used roto-toms, which had the drum head on a rotary mount that could be turned to change the tuning.

In the final ten years of his career he went back to a fully acoustic kit, which I preferred. He has now retired.

Very interesting. The electronic drums remind me of nothing more than a harpsichord, because of the articulation.

I must seek out a few other demonstrations of unusual, or perhaps modern instruments that might appeal to you Mike, you seem to have enjoyed a couple I have found links for.

I know that there was a broadcast of Bill Bruford explaining how he st up different drum setting on that kit on a UK TV series in the 1980's called 'Rockschool'. Again more interesting from an intellectual viewpoint rather than and music feel (I thought).

EDIT: Found it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS5X_fv_8LE - there is a bit of an 80's short warning needed though!

About 4.30 mins in there is a nice bit of playing though, a break from a track from the first Earthworks album.

JamieL_v2,

Very enjoyable :-) Now I'm getting an urge to buy new equipment, but not stereo equipment.

I can see how the players might get lost in the technology.