Odd percussion instruments

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:28 PM

A friend tells of a musician he met in Mexico who bills himself as "Sir Rocksalot". He plays, you guessed it, rocks. Apparently makes a pretty decent living at it.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:25 PM

TB-- TAPE, always use TAPE.

*G*

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:20 PM

From Santiago de Compostela: two scallop shells ( the symbol of St James -Sant Iago -) Hold one in left hand and run the rim of the other against it plus chink-chink in between: very effective, but when you use new shells expect bits to come flying off like dandruff everywhere!
I also remember doing Britten's "Noye's Fludde" at school: we all had to take teacups in which were then tested for pitch, and the suitable ones strung up in a line and gently struck to represent raindrops.
WYSIWYG: I have the Scottish version of your shaker: a tube which originally housed shortbreads. I hit it too hard in a session last summer and the sellotape holding the top on popped off and everyone got showered with rice!
Tattie B

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 08:30 PM

Claymore, Hardi also taught munitions in ROTC, and "Claymore" as a program title seems, to him, raucously appropriate....

We thought he simply took too much of that fine over-the-counter preparation, VaVoomm, but the thermometeer tells a different story!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,JennyO
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 08:03 PM

There's a guy here in Sydney called Mick Griffin who makes tunable didges by putting a piece of PVC pipe inside another slightly larger piece and sliding it up and down like a trombone. Personally, I like to play my tummy with my fingers - it makes a very satisfying slapping sound, rather like hitting two fish together. It's also quite close to the bowel, and there might be some variation in sound, depending on how much I have eaten (or drunk).You can add beer or wine, or Jameson's for pitch variety, too. Organ recitals are another matter entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 07:04 PM

My bodhrani friend Carol has a bodhran-sized piece of Masonite that's primary function is to protect her bodhran's head while in its case. If more than a couple of bodhrans show up for a session she'll put her drum up and just play the piece of Masonite instead.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 06:44 PM

No, I tried water but it reduces the resonance. The sound does not come from the difference in the volumn of air, but from the resonance of the side of the bottle. The three bottles I do have, difer only in the thickness of the walls, and the number of rings on the sides. I know this sounds crazy, but you actually have to hear it to understand... Think of something that goes OMMMMMM as you strike it, but again, only with a rather soft tipper.

And it sounds like Hardi is on the Claymore 12 Step Program... you must stay within 12 steps of the toilet at all times... Good Luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 06:27 PM

But bowel read so much better, as I read Hardi your post! Esxpecially since he's got the poopy flu right now!

Add water for pitch variety then?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 06:06 PM

Having reread my post, please change the word "bowel" to "bowl".

I'm sure there are percussion instruments which may sound like the "wet rim of a large bowel", but I'm not sure I would want to hear it...

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,Walking Eagle
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 05:23 PM

Interesting bit about using PVC pipe. I've seen some didgeridoos (sp?)made out of PVC.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Kim C
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:59 PM

Too Slim from Riders in the Sky plays his face.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:22 PM

Actually you are all in for a treat; introducing the Bottlehran. It is the current rage in the Cultural Hub of the Western World, (Shepherdstown, WV, natch!).

Get a plastic water bottle, the type that are now used to service your standard water cooler. Bring your chromatic tuner, and strike the side of the empty water bottle with a well padded tipper (more on this later). You will find that with the right water bottle, they will give off a low note (I now have E, F, and C# bottles, but the Holy Grail is an A bottle, or failing that, a D or G). The right bottle has a wonderful drone note, which will remind you of the wet rim of a large bowel or a very clear diggerydo.

You hold the neck of the bottle in your left hand (they are quite light) and strike the side in bodhran fashion. You cannot really do the two headed tipper bit and most regulr tippers sound like s--- anyway. Get a regular drum stick (or dowel) and cut the thumb out of a cotton (not leather) glove. Cut a strip of sponge about 3/4 of an inch wide and 3 inches long. Fold it over the top of the drum stick and cover it with the glove thumb. Tie off the loose end of the glove thumb by winding it with heavy tread or light wire. You now have a soft end with which to stike the bottle in bodhran fashion. It helps to use plain spray household furniture wax on the side of the bottle, and the drum stick tip, to reduce the friction. This increases the hum as well as the deep bell-like tone.

I'm now using the F bottle on the Xmas tune "Little Drummer Boy" as well as the "Campbells are Coming", and the E on "Morrisons Jig" and "Swallowtail". I have also used it with a Tabor pipe in some French Renaissance music.

I have a friend of mine who is a private pilot. He is now holding a tuner, and tapping empty water bottles in every small airport he lands at...

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Mooh
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 10:09 AM

Jeanie...My Dad did the same thing with his pipe against his teeth, I think subconsciously. I wonder if it's common among pipe smokers.

Recording sessions sometimes turn up some weird percussion things. Drum sounds can be hard to fine tune, so we once ended up with a piano stool covered in (I think) a cloth instead of a snare drum. Trouble was the drummer had to reposition the cloth throughout the recording while he played, without loosing the beat. He was brilliant.

We once had trouble getting the right bodhran sound so I ended up playing it between my knees with my hands, bongo style. Muting with alternate hands took some otherworldly concentration, but the sound was there.

We used to play Shule-a-roo (please forgive the spelling) with shaker, drum, guitar scratches, and best of all a tamborine rigged to the end of a stick the other end of which was beat on the floor. Two sounds in one from the stick rig.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 10:02 AM

Plastic cassette-tape case filled with dry beans and covered with contact paper.

Gold-foil cardboard tube with metal top (empty liturgical incense container), filled with rice I think... it's been awhile since I made a bunch of these with oatmeal, rice, beans, and so forth, using Pringle's cans and anything else available.

Oh yeah, and wooden ice cream spoons (remmber those?), some with rows of tiny sleighbells wired on and some drilled and put together in 3's with elastic to make a clacking/snapping thingie on a little handle.

Cheap and not TOO loud fun for kids at singalongs.

More seriously, a wooden cooking spoon and iced tea spoons, with which I hammer my autoharp. Dulcimer hammers are just not heavy enough.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:51 AM

Two matchboxes (sandpaper to sandpaper) make a nice effect at sessions. And you can use the contents for setting fire to bodhrans and piano-accordions as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: PeteBoom
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:00 AM

Ahem... including but not limited to:

3 sizes of paper bags, opened, closed, struck with fingers, pencils, ball-point pens (biros), flicked with water, wrinkled and unwrinkled;

A stack of folding chairs (pushed down a stair-well);

Music stands (the big heavy, black types used by orchestras, etc.,), played with drum sticks, rattans, marimba mallets, nails (of varying sizes), screws (of varying sizes) and car keys;

A brake drum.

Cheers -

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Boab
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:40 AM

Ten inch square three quarter inch thick laminate board a la bodhran rim. Twelve inch wooden school ruler on the bottom teeth [I used to drive my language teacher crazy with "Sur le Pont D'Avignon".]Kitchen knives on any damn' thing. Two empty beer bottles rattling off each other. The bowl of my old briar pipe on the table top. Two beer mats [very effective!]

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 10:42 PM

NH Dave is right. The Blue Man Group does play a xylophone made from PVC pipes. I've seen a library book which tells how to make it. I have a feeling this book is widely available.

2. One year I wanted to get the sound of a snare drum for a song at the Highland games. I experimented and decided the best effect comes from laying uncooked linguine inside a shallow drum such as a bodhran. You hold it horizontally and upside down, of course.

3. Cottonwood branches often produce a sonorous tone when struck. I made a drum by supporting good branches on lengths of 1-by and hitting them with spoons.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: NH Dave
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 07:36 PM

I believe Blue Man Crew plays on sections of PVC drain pipe, many with one end blocked to make them sound lower, and often with a slider over the open end, like a trombone. This makes an interesting, tunable, instrument.


Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: CraigS
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 06:52 PM

Will Hall uses a bodhran tipper on his concertina case - says it's easier than carrying a bodhran.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: open mike
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 06:25 PM

if making music in the kitchen,
a wide mouthed canning jar is a
good rhythm maker--add some water
for interesting sound effects...
also i have made a great train sound
by playing my bodhran with a Kush toy-
which is like a bunch of rubber bands
bundled together. kush toys look like pom-
poms...

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 05:49 PM

I remember a session where someone played a morris tune and somehow all the non-players where asked to get out their keys (no ash-trays were hurt in the making of this music). The keys were held up and jingled in time to the music. And everyone fell about in inebriated laughing. Very realistic it was too.
I have yet to find any red spoon BUT I found some plastic salad servers and they do make a pleasant enough sound.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: Jeanie
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 05:46 PM

My dad, sadly no longer with us, used to regularly play the stem of his pipe against his teeth and his metal pipe-cleaner on his tobacco tin. His favourite was "Bye Bye Blues" - and a very good job he made of it, too !

- jeanie

Subject: BS: Odd percussion indtruments
From: GUEST,Walking Eagle
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 04:57 PM

Jack Ashford, one time percussionist for Motown, once played a hotel bed sheet by snapping it on some Motown tunes.

What's the oddest percussion instrument that you have played? I once played a paperbag containing marbles.