Pattern Juggling
jfiore | May 18, 2009What do you expect when you pick up an autobiography of a rock musician? Sex? Drugs? Rock-n-roll exploits with a chainsaw and a gallon of baby oil at the Ramada? Scandalous stories of band-mates and sundry hangers-on? You get virtually none of that in Bill Bruford The Autobiography. It's much better. Insightful, entertaining, and well-written, Bruford gives the reader a unique view into his 40 year career as a drummer to see just how he got to where he is and precisely how this business works (or doesn't, as the case may be). You don't have to be a follower of his music or even a drummer to…
jfiore | February 16, 2009Sad news for the drummers and jazz lovers on SciBlogs. Jazz drumming legend Louie Bellson passed away unexpectedly on Valentine's Day. Some details here.
Update: Here's a short bio video with some nice bits of Louie playing and some rather unique kit layouts.
jfiore | December 29, 2008And now for something almost completely different on The Refuge: How well can you count? No, not like in grade school. I wrote and recorded a tune the other day. It's called Timmy Umbwebwe Lights A Candle (yes, I have a thing for odd titles). The initial beat was composed on the drum kit. Not that I planned it this way, but it turns out that the main theme is comprised of three measures of 9/8 followed by a measure of 13/8. This counting is somewhat "plastic" though, and if you prefer you can think of it as alternating measures of 5/8 and 4/8 with an extra measure of 4/8 thrown in at the end…
jfiore | December 2, 2008Well, at least Stevie Van Zandt and Britain's Youth Music seem to think so. A recent article in The Times refers to research by Youth Music indicating that the games have prompted upwards of 2.5 million children to take up musical instruments.
I'm skeptical. No doubt the games are a lot of fun for people who can't play a musical instrument and they're probably preferable to your average shoot-em-up. Further, it's a decent wager that they do pique interest to the point where the kiddies bug mom and dad to buy them a guitar or a drum kit. But these games, while they mimic real instruments, are…
jfiore | November 27, 2008Much has been written on the Refuge regarding what might be termed fine motor co-ordination experiments. That, and something to do with playing the drums in a manner that most drummers don't, you know, like backwards. Some might ask "What is the point of practicing a double paradiddle on a bunch of left-side mounted toms for a right handed drummer?" I guess one could be philosophical and say "Because it's there" but ultimately, doing something musical is what matters, at least to this little bonobo. Exercising your brain to perform unusual patterns at will simply gives the musician a larger…
jfiore | July 29, 2008I visit certain message boards from time to time, including one called vdrums.com, a site dedicated to electronic drumming. While there's a lot of useful info there and a bunch of friendly and helpful folks, there are also some entertaining end-of-message signatures that folks use. Here are a few examples:
Some people are like slinkies,
They don't really have a purpose,
But they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
I have a mind like a steel trap: rusty and illegal in most countries....
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire,…
jfiore | July 22, 2008So says the BBC. Researchers tested oxygen uptake and heart rate for rock drummers, including Blondie's Clem Burke. They concluded:
"It is clear that their fitness levels need to be outstanding - through monitoring Clem's performance in controlled conditions, we have been able to map the extraordinary stamina required by professional drummers."
and further,
"It is hoped that the results could help develop outreach programmes for overweight children who are not interested in sport."
Hey, a study aimed right at the intersection of my avocations. Wonderful! I've been drumming for about 40 years…
jfiore | June 19, 2008As part of my continuing adventures in drumming symmetry, I have been working on a dual electronic hi-hat pedal. The idea is to have a single hi-hat pad respond equally well to either a left or a right foot pedal. It is similar to having both left and right kick drum pedals. For the hi-hat, this effect is sometimes realized through the use of a switch, but that requires some extra motion and it's not possible to use both pedals at the same time. These pedals (both an FD-7 and an FD-8) are used with a Roland TD20 drum controller. The hi-hat pedal uses a resistive position sensor to indicate…
jfiore | May 13, 2008And now for something completely different, the tongue drum:
The tongue drum is also known as the slit drum or xylo-slit drum. It is the modern descendant of the ancient log drum. This is a large 14 key unit tuned to a pentatonic scale in G. It can be played with mallets or your fingers (with somewhat of a quick, snapping-back style). The sound is very mellow and pleasing. Organic might be a good term. This particular item came from here.
Besides the tone, what I find interesting about the drum is that unlike most musical instruments, it doesn't have a "normal" orientation. That is, the…
jfiore | April 16, 2008This is for the faithful drummer-readers of the Refuge (uh, both of you), particularly those of the electronic kit persuasion. For years I've had difficulty keeping my electronic hi-hat pedals in one spot. They always seem to skate around the kit carpet no matter what I do. I've extended the steel spurs as far as they go. I've tried Velcro. The whole "tie a cord around it and attach it to the drum throne" approach is unappealing and presents positioning limitations. Nothing really worked except placing a several-pound block of steel in front of it.
Well, I came across the perfect solution.…
jfiore | February 9, 2008Here's a fun experiment you can perform to test your coordination and, if you're like a lot of people, experience the precise moment when your brain and muscles go off to la-la land.
First, stand up and extend your arms directly out in front of you. Rotate your right arm clockwise (CW) and your left arm counterclockwise (CCW) at the same rate. Maintain the rotation, and by pushing your elbows outward, begin to draw your forearms toward your chest until your fingers are pointing at each other. This should not be particularly challenging. Return your arms to the starting position and repeat…
jfiore | February 1, 2008Just how well-wired are your brain and muscles? Co-ordination and drummers is a common theme here at the refuge, but it's time for something you can try at home with just your bare little fingers. We're in the midst of an ice storm, so what better time to whip out the camera, put on some classic Kate Bush, and go one better than "Live long and prosper"? Give it a whirl:
Apologies for the 10 frames/second AVI file, but I don't have a nice DV camera (yet). This was taken with my little Fuji point-and-shoot still camera in movie mode.
Click here for entertainment.
jfiore | December 27, 2007As readers of this blog may have noted, I have a thing for patterns and sequences. Maybe it's my musical training (e.g., inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion of a motif) or my love of palindromes, but I have a habit of reading signs and whatnot backwards (right to left). Sometimes funny things pop up. The other day I was riding my bike (on the mag trainer, not in the snow) and sometimes I will count revolutions to pass the time. That gets boring so I might count "alphabets" (hey, it's easier than counting to 26 over and over). I thought about reciting the alphabet backwards. This…
jfiore | December 1, 2007Readers of this blog know that, as a drummer, I am very keen on left-right symmetry of co-ordination. The drummer's world is often filled with patterns (get the pun?) and being able to execute them equally well from the left versus right side opens creative possibilities. Time to get those mirror neurons up and running! Today's question, how's your co-ordination between hands and feet?
Before lab the other day, I noticed that one of my students was banging out a little pattern on the lab bench with his hands. Better I should say he was working at it. It turns out he's a drummer. What he was…
jfiore | December 1, 2007I have added two new categories to the refuge, Audio Island and Pattern Juggling, for the convenience of those interested in a couple of my "off the beaten path" jaunts. I have gone back and retagged a bunch of old posts and will use these tags in the future. Audio Island is basically a catch-all for audio/acoustics/electronics gear, new technologies, observations, and the like. Pattern Juggling is the location for my ramblings regarding the intersection of drumming, co-ordination, art and so forth (for example, the DIY Neuromotor Experiments posts). Audio Island is perhaps a bit obvious,…
jfiore | November 1, 2007In previous installments in the DIY NME series, I've looked at the application of symmetrical motor patterns using the drum kit. For this entry, the approach is a little different and says something about "handedness" as well. A few months ago I rearranged my semi-symmetrical drum kit into what I call the super symmetrical kit. The original semi-sym kit offered a centered hi-hat and three toms on each side, decreasing in pitch from front-center to rear. The remaining cymbals were arranged in a more-or-less typical configuration for a right-hander (ride to the right, crashes arrayed as desired…
jfiore | May 23, 2007"Visualize! Visualize! Visualize!" is a cry often heard by athletes. The idea is to picture a performance in the mind, and by repeatedly doing so, help insure a successful result when the times comes for the real thing. For example, as a runner I might try to visualize striding smoothly and powerfully mid-race so that hopefully, that image will become reality on race day. I have had some luck with this and recommend Running Within by Lynch and Scott if you're interested. But these sorts of things are rather vague and rely on reinforcement of a positive self-image, of a confidence-booster. I'…
jfiore | February 10, 2007One thing I want to dispel immediately is that this is about normal "handedness". Sure, you can pick up a ball and throw it with your non-dominant hand/arm and experience the sensation of a "chicken-arm", but that's not the point under investigation. No, this has more to do with skills that are shared unevenly across the body (or even directionally on a side). Consequently, the attempt at a mirror image action produces sub-par performance in both the dominant and non-dominant sides. Secondly, we expect that repetition of an action will lead to better performance of that action, so repeated…
jfiore | February 9, 2007Owing to an overuse injury that has curtailed my running, I find myself gravitating toward my other main avocation, the drums, in order to maintain my sanity. These two things are at opposite ends of the spectrum: one is all about fitness, the other, skill. In the past couple of weeks I've been performing a little experiment on myself. I'd like to invite other Sciblings and readers to consider joining in with their own self-experimenting and report back their initial findings and then again weeks or months down the road. This could be interesting.
It all has to do with the body asymmetry of…