Percussion Deconstruction™

Today is Friday. I got up early, loaded my instruments into my van, then drove to a local place I arranged to use, set everything up, and then waited for the television people to come for 10am. You see, a few weeks ago I presented a Gong Meditation session that a local news anchor happened to attend. He was suitably impressed by the experience and passed his enthusiasm onto someone who does a local afternoon show at the station. He said that what I do might make an interesting story. So after a few phone calls with the person from the show, we arranged to get together and shoot something that hopefully could be used. So it's early and I am the Gongman. We talk, I play, he interviews me. He's knocked out by the Gongs and their vibrations (everyone is the first time they experience them). His enthusiasm for this shoot grows by the minute. So does mine. Once we get things going, it's actually fun. There's so much to explore. I feel like we've only touched the su

Ahhh, the haters are out in force again. Aerosmith's Joey Kramer has moved from his longtime Ludwig endorsement to Pearl drums. And people are posting to drum forums their displeasure in this (one forum has 48 posts as of this writing). I can only laugh! How does one drummer changing his brand of drums affects the rest of the drum community? The same thing happened a few months back when Vinnie Colaiuta decided to part ways with Ludwig drums after a short time. I fail to see where any artist has signed a life long  endorsement contract. People change. Companies change. I also fail to see why this is such a big deal. Are all you Ludwig players now feeling sad or betrayed? Are you Pearl players feeling vindicated? They're just drums. I can't believe the amount of condescending and hateful comments from drummers across the web in both of these situations. We are ALL free to choose and play what we want.  Play what you want. Change your mind, and play something d

fa·nat·ic fəˈnatik / noun 1 . a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, esp. for an extreme religious or political cause. Remember when you were younger and got excited when your musical/artistic heroes released a new recording/book/film, or you went to their concert/show? Remember the excitement you felt? Even after years of working and creating your own works, it's still important to remain connected to others, and to have that fan excitement. It's so easy to get caught up in working on a daily basis, and to become blasé about everything, especially if you reach a certain level of fame and/or success. I have to say, that even after over 40 years of making music, art, and writing, I still get excited by the people I admire and follow. I'm very fortunate that in writing for MODERN DRUMMER and other magazines, I've been able to interview almost all of my musical heroes. And I have to tell you, that each time I talked to them, it wa