YaGMCB Drum Cam

I used my cheesy old video camera to film me playing the last several songs in Act 1 of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. It was pretty dark down there in the pit.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

I just finished playing in the pit band for several performances of the 1999 revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I placed my trusty Alesis on the left side just below my hi-hat because I needed to play some bells and vibes parts on my MIDI keyboard. Here's a picture of my set-up. Check out my new Miller Machine positioned just above the Alesis!

The Music Man

Next year's musical is The Music Man! The percussion part is snare-drum-happy, but who am I to complain? :-) There's timpani to be played, so I'll need my trusty Alesis MIDI drum controller once again. In the past, I set up my MIDI keyboard in the normal way, but that takes up way too much space in the "pit". Since I don't have the cash to purchase a smaller MIDI source, I came up with a discrete way of stowing the keyboard to minimize its footprint. Positioning the device keys-down allows me easy access to the A/C power, MIDI, and audio outputs. And it's a good thing I kept the white styrofoam inserts.

Who knows, I may even be able to employ the Alesis as a second MIDI snare part on Seventy-Six Trombones! Beats having to locate a real parade snare drum.

Annie Get Your Gun

So it's been two years since my last post. I just finished performing in the pit for Annie Get Your Gun. It was the hardest show I've ever worked on, but it was really fun!

Here's a picture of the complicated setup I used for this show. I had to move the Alesis "above" the floor tom because I needed to use both instruments. You can see the volume pedal peeking underneath the floor tom. I got to connect the pedal to a boss Roland bass amp (100 watts! w00t!), but I still managed to get drowned out by the brass section. Sigh.


I had to pencil-in the timpani (and other percussion) parts onto the drum set score, since it's hard to flip through two books on a single music stand. The Act II Entr'acte had four sets of timpani tunings, so I had to come up with a wacky color-coordinated Post-It system to help me hit the correct pad at the correct time. Here's a picture of the first page of the Entr'acte.

I realized during rehearsals that I should not have tried to play as many of the timpani parts as I wanted to, because I tied up all 21 of the Alesis' drum settings. If I had had a chance to re-program the controller, I would have divided important songs like the Entr'acte into several sets, not just one, which would have alleviated the stress of having to hit one of the eight little pads during the course of the performance.

Well, God willing, I hope to report back in two years! Happy MIDI drumming!

My Oklahoma! Setup

Here is a picture of the drum setup I used for Oklahoma! Notice the volume control pedal.
I plugged the output of the MIDI keyboard into the pedal's INPUT1 jack, and the amplifier to the pedal's OUTPUT1 jack. (If you click on the image, you'll notice that the pedal is not connected to anything. It drains the 9V battery when connected. Good thing I had extra batteries and a screwdriver in my bag :-) BTW, I had to replace the little 15 watt amp with a 65 watt tube amp for the performances because the former was being overpowered by the rest of the orchestra. I must say, this setup worked like a charm.

Alesis DPC

It just occurred to me that I neglected to describe the most important part of my MIDI timpani setup: My Alesis drum pad controller. It's really easy to program. The only problem with it is that during a live performance, say at a place in a song that calls for a quiet timpani roll, you can hear the sticks hitting the drum pad. (I have a DVD of one of the Oliver! performances, and when I wear headphones, I can hear these noises. Of course, only an electronic percussion geek would care.) One way around this is to turn up the volume on the amp. Timpani mallets may work too, but that defeats the purpose of having the Alesis, since I want to use sticks for everything. Sorta like Neal Peart and his MIDI marimba setup, but in his case, the volume is cranked up!

Oklahoma!

Well, the musical for the 2009-2010 academic year is Oklahoma! A fine choice, if I may say so, because it means I get to play timpani again. After almost two years of thinking about the problem, I finally figured out how to add dynamics to my MIDI timpani setup: Add a volume control pedal! I don't play the electric guitar (or the electric organ), so I never knew this sort of thing existed until I decided to peruse a guitar catalog one day. My kid has a Fender amp and a guitar effects box with a volume pedal (who knew?), so we plugged the output of the MIDI keyboard into the effects box (which in turn is attached to the amp) and then I played a drum roll on the Alesis drum pad controller (it drives the keyboard) while he adjusted the pedal at the same time, and voila! dynamic control like a real timpani! His effects box makes too much noise in the amp for my taste, but that's not a problem, I guess, if you play your guitar at high volume, but in my case, I would need a quieter setup. Perhaps a simple pedal like this Behringer may do the trick. Stay tuned.

General MIDI

Although I'm not a keyboard player, even I know that keyboards exist that allow one to play a variety of musical sounds, including fixed pitch percussion instruments like the xylophone and timpani, via a standard known as General MIDI. It turns out even the cheapest portable General MIDI keyboard has a decent collection of sample sounds. But I'm not a keyboardist, I'm a percussionist. I'd rather play timpani with mallets rather than with my uncoordinated fingers. Not only do I find it difficult to simulate a timpani roll with two fingers, but what a pain it would be to have to drop my sticks to tickle the ivories. I have enough trouble finding middle C on the keyboard!

Oliver!

I recently served in the pit orchestra for a local production of Oliver! "Pit" is a misnomer, for although we were positioned in front of the stage, the audience members could see the tops of our heads. As the percussionist, I had a corner all to myself, but it was a very small corner! If you know anything about the score for Oliver! you will realize there are quite a few timpani parts. I really wanted to use real live timpani, but space (and money!) constraints forced me to think of alternatives. MIDI, anyone?