Learning to play the drum

[cwilson]

I just bought my son a drum and am looking for any advise on where he may learn to play some of the basic beats. We do have people that we can get lesson from at events, but I would like for him to be able to learn a little before we get to an event.

[Jim Moffet]

Re: Learning to play the drum

I've trained lots of drummers over the years. Many period manuals will give provide a written description of a method. That's a great start. The Drummer and Fifer's Guide, by Bruce and Emmet, certanly describes how to told the drum, hold each stick, make strokes, and the all important first lesson - how to close a 'long roll.' Very important lessons - gaining proper stick control before launching off into trying to "play beats' is very important. Learning the core rudiments - also required. And as on any musical instrument, practice makes perfect, and merely thinking about it will not. There are way too many beginners who try to get into the field without the proper schooling and practice beforehand.

If your unit doesn't have a drummer as an example, try to find one. Modern lessons can be VERY useful - if nothing else to keep him practicing! (Traditional grip is REQUIRED - avoid the modern "Match-Grip.") But most modern drum instructors are not necessarily adept at period styles of playing. If you end up going with a modern instructor, make sure to have good period manuals (use the search feature here to find numerous discussion of which books are recommended.) and some recordings of good reenactment units (Camp Chase Fife and Drum; 2nd Maryland CSA are two of my favorites - there are others!) for the instructor to listen to to help him understand what your son's goal would be. (Lessons at school will not get it done - modern band/orchestra drumming is not at all the same thing.)

If he only gets practice at events - he'll never be a good drummer. (Unless he does it at a "3 year or the duration...." event).

Jim Moffet

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Practice the long roll for 15 minutes a day, every day. If his long roll is not even and smooth, your son will never be a good drummer.

Here are some of my webpages. The first one has some instructional material, but is still under construction. This reminds me that I need to work on it.

http://drumandfife.110mb.com/cotton.htm

http://drumandfife.blogspot.com/

Send me a PM if you have questions.

[Hardtack Herring]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Will,

The blog spot is looking good!

We need to get back to work on recording the rudiments again.

[cwilson]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Thanks so much guys! These are great starting points.

[robert-m]

Re: Learning to play the drum

I have no clue if you have gotten him a practice pad. Trust me, it will save your ears and aggravation in the long run. I my self started many many years ago. I took lessons from the music store in my home town, and they tout me a lot about stick control and the rudiments. Take a look into those. I am now a Music Education major with a percussion concentration, at Jacksonville State University and the kids that I give lessons to at events and the one that I work with that are more local and I get to spend more time with, all have a practice pad, and they all improve leaps and bounds over the ones that do not have a pad. If you ever hear the saying " practice with a heavier stick, it makes it easier to play when your doing it " is not true... Muscle memory is the best thing for any musician. That is were the pad comes in. He can sit and play on the pad for hours and you wont hear a thing. Hope this helps. I like being able to go to an event, and find that I am not the only one there that knows how to play and play well.
Gods speed, Robert

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Learning to play the drum

If you ever hear the saying " practice with a heavier stick, it makes it easier to play when your doing it " is not true...

I recommend a heavy stick for practice and for use in the field.

Even period photographs of "drummer boys" show what appear to be ebony or rosewood sticks, which are heavy because of the wood's density. All of the period sticks that are made of a less dense wood like hickory are typically very thick, like 7/8". The tubes on the period brass stick holders often have an inner diameter of about 3/4" and can be found with rosewood or ebony sticks.

Sticks of the period probably weighed between 100 and 130 grams each.

I personally prefer my sticks to weigh around 120 grams. I have a pair of rosewood sticks that I got when I was 11 or 12 years old that weigh 120 grams each. They never slowed me down.

I wonder how much the sticks in these photos weigh? One drummer has some light-colored "logs" and the other has what look like ebony sticks.

http://www.cowanauctions.com/upcoming_dates_view_item.asp?ItemId=40670

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Learning to play the drum

You should find several photographs of drummers holding sticks here:

http://blogsearch.google.com/?bl_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fielddrums.com%2F&ui=blg&as_q=drummer

Also the LOC has some very hi-res images of drummers that clearly show their sticks.

You can really zoom in on Drum Corps of the 10th Veteran Reserve Corps and Drum corps of 61st New York Infantry.

Here's a great photo of the 2nd RI

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b46925

[joewhitney]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Hate to disagree with you Will, but most of the original sticks I've seen are smaller and lighter than modern repro sticks, and differ substantially in shape. Even the ones in that LOC 2nd RI photo are way too narrow to fit in those stick holders without sliding out.

Also, color in photos and surviving examples can be decieving. Both fifes and sticks were often made with lighter, cheaper woods and then stained or painted to look like more expensive and heavier woods like ebony and rosewood. Of course, the cheaper lighter copies broke more often, but being lighter, they were easier to play faster.

The typical small acorn tip back then and narrowing towards the tip also put much less weight at the tip, allowing rolls to be much tighter, and therefore the playing faster, since it's the rolls that drag out most beats. Most corps today unconciously drag out their rolls, and then have to speed up on the taps and flams to catch up and maintain the beat. In New England, this has often been exaggerated into an actual delliberate playing style.But that may have only started when the tips got heavier and the sticks straighter over the years.

However the smaller tips and narrower front ends also made them play much quieter. That's probably how three or four fifers could be heard over the six to ten drummers in a typical corps, because the drumming was much quieter than with modern straighter repro sticks and their huge round tips.

Of course, there was plenty of variation, and I've seen plenty of huge sets of sticks with almost round tips made from all kinds of woods, but from what I've seen in photos and over 20 years of research and collecting, most sticks from this period I've seen were much smaller and lighter at the front than today's repros, which would greatly help them get closer to the 110 beats a minute quickstep the manuals called for..

Joe Whitney
2nd SC String Band
Md Line Field Music
Liberty Hall Fifes and Drums

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Learning to play the drum

There's really no way to be 100% sure which surviving sticks today are really from the war. It is more credible that the two sets that have U.S. 1862 and U.S. 1861 stamped on them would be from the war. That's why I attached those. As far as the photos of drummers are concerned...it is not an exact science, but at least we can see how their sticks are tapered more than most repros.

The brass stick holders say a lot. It doesn't make sense that a manufacturer of sticks would make sticks that wouldn't fit in the brass carriages. Commonly used sticks sold by Cooperman, the "Connecticut Drummer", "Virginia Drummer", etc. will slip right through as they are all less than 3/4" in diameter. But these sticks are not copies of originals, and like you said, Joe, they are more cylindrical and less tapered with bigger tips than 1860s sticks.

Drum-maker Elias Howe said in his 1862 fife and drum manual that ""the sticks are sixteen or seventeen inches long, of cocoa or rosewood; the slings or belts are of white webbing, two or two and one half inches wide, with brass carriages as sheaths for the sticks."

Here's another ad from Howe:

"Sticks of Ebony, Rose-wood, Cocoa-wood, Leopard-wood, &c. &c. Bass Drum Sticks, (wound and covered with Buck-skin), ....Address Boston Drum Manufactory, Elias Howe, Agent."

Hart also had an ad for sticks and other supplies in one of his editions.

We could also look at the records for army orders for drumsticks. They often specify "cocoa" or rosewood sticks.

The cocobolo sticks that we have been using in Liberty Hall, by the way, are too big to fit in a brass stick holders, and weigh 120-140 grams. They are on the heavy end of the spectrum. I would like to find a source for rosewood sticks 3/4" diameter at the butt end, that weigh around 105-115 grams, with a small acorn tip and a good taper.

I will get some measurements and weights of my repros and also a pair of antique rosewood sticks I own and post them here along with the photos. I hope some others can do the same. Originals would be very helpful.
I started a new thread for this purpose:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?p=170517#post170517

[joewhitney]

Re: Learning to play the drum

You're right about drum sticks. If you look on ebay, it seems every pair of old sticks still surviving were all made between 1861 and 1865, and go for big bucks!

Many original drums have a pair of sticks associated with them, but they could have been bought after the war. The photos are the only real way to see what they were using.

I've seen many types of stick holders, the common spindled brass ones, silver shield ones, leather ones etc., and they all vary as to the size and shape stick they hold. Of course, accurately dating the holders is difficult too.

Leopard wood sticks sound ubercool. Would go well with the infamous leopard skin trousers!

Good idea on the new drum stick thread.

Joe Whitney
2nd SC String Band
md Line Field Music
Liberty Hall Drum & Fife Corps

[HangarFlying]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I figured it would be best to do that than start a new one.

Are the rudiments in B&E acceptable for learning the drumming of the period? I know the Camp Duty is not appropriate, but if I were to take the B&E manual to an instructor and tell them I need help learning the rudiments in B&E, would that work or is the entire B&E manual considered junk from an authenticity stand point?

Any recommended sources for good drumsticks?

Thanks for the help guys. Although I'm not completely giving up on the fife. It'll be easier to practice on a drum pad while on the road - which I'm on the road more than I'm at home...so...drumming it is.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Are the rudiments in B&E acceptable for learning the drumming of the period?

Short answer: yes

I know the Camp Duty [from B&E] is not appropriate

I think the best way to get an idea of the style of drumming used and which tunes were played during the period is to look through all the manuals and see what they all have in common. If one does this, he will find that Bruce and Emmett's Camp Duty (and to an even greater extent, Hart's Camp Duty) varies the most from what the others have in common and what appears in the tactics manuals of Scott, Gilham, etc.

Applying the same concept to the rudiments, it seems that the rudiments vary relatively little from manual to manual. So following the same logic, playing the rudiments from B&E is appropriate.

There are subtle differences between the various manuals in terms of the rudiments. Actually most reenactor drummers adopt the 26 rudiments from Strube's 1869 system, which was written by a former drummer from the 5th NY. Again, if one wants to consider Strube, compare it to the other manuals and see what is in common and what is different.

One rudiment that does vary from manual to manual is the flamacue, which I wrote about here:

http://drumandfife.blogspot.com/2010/01/flamacue.html

But I recently got copies of a couple pages from the pre-war Emmett's Standard Drummer, which has a couple beats with the Strube style syncopated flamacue. I've attached a PDF.

[joewhitney]

Re: Learning to play the drum

What Will said.

Joe Whitney
2nd SC String Band
Liberty Hall Drum & Fife Corps
Md Line Field Music
47th Pa. Regimental Band

[HangarFlying]

Re: Learning to play the drum

Hey guys,

Thanks for the reply. Since I don't know how to read drum music yet, I can't see the differences you all are talking about, but hopefully some day that will change. So for the mean time, I'm just looking for a starting point. I figure, if I'm going to learn, I might as well learn correctly from the beginning. Thanks again!

James