Planetoids and Drum Rehab
Well we’re back in business. Last week I was pounding on “The Planets” of Gustav Holst. It was a blast. It’s good to unleash once in a while and not get the hand. Gerry Schwarz was conducting–he has no problem with bass drum volume. In fact, he wanted more! I happily complied.
I’ve also got a couple of snare drum rehab projects going. I dug out some vintage drums that I had in my closet and decided to clean them up. One is a Ludwig Pioneer 6×14 that I got in New York a long time ago. It is missing some hardware, but the drum itself is all original. Here’s the ‘before’ picture.
Pretty nasty, no? Well I went at it with some aluminum/chrome polish that I found online and it now looks pretty darn good. Quite shiny. I have to buy new hoops and claws for it, though. When I get all the pieces together I’ll put up the ‘after’ photo.
The other drum I’ve been working on is a very old Duplex snare drum. It’s 15×3 or so, with 10 lugs. Unfortunately, there’s no ‘before’ photo for it.
Believe me, it was not pretty. Everything was dull and dusty. To my amazement, it cleaned up beautifully. I put a calf head on it to match the vintage vibe. It’s not sounding that great, but I think it’s a collector’s piece, not something that would be played on (at least by me). I might decide to sell it at some point to someone who is more of a vintage drum collector.