Percussion Deconstruction™

Further YouTube adventures. This time looking at different Gong types: ~ MB

In case you haven't seen this on my Facebook page, I've just released the 1st in a series of Gong instructional videos. The 1st topic is Mallets & Striking Impliments . So check it out. Coming next week is a look at different Gong types and sounds. Cheers ~ MB

I’m always intrigued when I read about someone asking the question, “Can I put a hole in a Wind Gong and use it as a flat ride cymbal?” While at first glance this would seem to be a very good idea, the answer isn’t as simple as just yes, or no. There seems to be a common misconception that because cymbals and Gongs are both made of metal, are both round, and are both percussion instruments, that they are really the same thing, just mounted differently. But the similarities end at both being metal and round. Let’s take a look at each instrument, both how they are made, and how they react when struck. Design & Shape While music books will classify a Gong as an idiophone , a Gong is essentially a membranophone : "any musical instrument, as a drum, in which the sound is produced by striking, rubbing, or blowing against a membrane  stretched over a frame." The face of a Gong is a vibrating membrane that is hammered—which is much like stretching a skin over a frame—which puts ...

This time I look at creating different sound textures to expand on the basic instrument pitches. Even with 9 drums (10 counting the mounted tambourine) in my solo set up, compared to most other instruments, I am limited in scope as far as creating melodies. So I need to be creative to change the sound texture of those notes, giving me a wider range of sounds to present to the listener.  Implement Options A wise drummer once explained to me that “the easiest way to change your sound is to change your sticks.” With that in mind, I use a wide array of sticks, mallets and other implements to give me a panoply of sound textures . Even with wood sticks, there is a lot of sound variation between using a standard 5A—with its beefy, full sound—and using a very thin, straight sabar stick that elicits the higher frequencies, giving a very sharp, pointed sound. But I find myself most often using things other than wooden sticks. As a rule, a bigger, heavier stick/mallet will bring out more l...

This is another revised and updated article from the past. This time looking at my ideas about Gongs and why I set them up the way I do. In my solo music, I use 5 distinct gong stations :  the Kulintang the melodic gong play the Sound Plates the table Gongs/Bowls the large gong array . The Kulintang   is a set of 8 pentatonic bossed gongs from the Philippines. They are similar to the gong chimes of the Indonesian gamelan.  While they aren’t tuned to specific Western pitches, they are tuned as a pentatonic set themselves. They are traditionally played on the center boss (also known as a knob, cup, or nipple) with soft wooden sticks. The sound is percussive and melodic. I can also strike the face to get more harmonics, or even turn them upside down and strike the sides getting a sound very much like church hand bells. Like everything else, I use different implements to change the tonality. Hard and soft cord vibe mallets bring out a very full, rich tone, while Vic...

In this revised post, we'll look at how I reworked my drum set up back in 2004/5 and mapped out the possible patterns and melodic combinations. This was all based on Kulintang & Gamelan Gong set ups.  Here are the Kulintang Gongs as I have them set up, followed by the note sequence: Here is the tuning order for the drums. While they are also in 2 rows, the tuning runs back and forth between the rows. The bass drums are also tuned to different notes, giving me 9 pitches to work with: Looking at the drums, I have various pitch maps available to me. The first is just going down and up the drums/scale (Fig. 1): Then I can break the drums up into two rows  that  are different scales (Fig. 2): I can also play 3-note chordal clusters (Fig. 3 & 4): Or 4-note chordal clusters (Fig. 5 & 6): With this set up, I thought of my playing in geometric shapes. I could do 2 & 3-note chords, arpeggios, and melodic lines. Next time we'll look at ...

This series was originally written back in 2004/05. It represented my search for something different in my drumming - both performance and composition. The whole search started when I purchases a set of Philippine Kulintang Gongs. This is a set of 8 pentatonic bossed Gongs that are played horizontally, suspended in a frame. Partly because I had been a fan of Gamelan music for years, I decided to set them up in 2 rows, similar to the Bonang pot Gongs of the Gamelan . The other aspect was to make them more compact in my set up.  From there, I was inspired to build a drum set that I could play in the same sort of way, using the same sort of visual patterns as I had been using with the Kulintang . The whole experiment was successful and I created the music that I heard in my mind. I ended up using the set up for about 3 years, until I moved on to a new idea. This is a revised and updated version of the original unpublished article. Be Your Own Map Maker  Part 1 - Creating Drumm...