MY DRUMSET HISTORY

I have finally begun the slow, arduous process of overhauling my old drum set. I, or should I say my parents, bought my drumset back in 1975. It was a Pearl 5 piece set with a 14x5.5 steel snare, 12, 13, and 16 toms, and a 22 bass. They came with locally made soft cases which were so tight that I often got sore fingers from forcing them in, puny stands that wobbled with moderate use, and sheet-metal cymbals that bent the first time I played them. I always thought the set was a local counterfeit, since they were bought from a tiny (now defunct) music store in the edge of the Raon area. I have since learned from internet research that the set was a mid-line series called the "Thunder King" and the shells were indeed made by Pearl in Taiwan, similar to more recent Vision series sets. The sound of the set was never really that impressive, compared to pricier "professional" models. But I quickly developed an intimate relationship with it, for better or worse.

The first thing I changed were the heads. I replaced them with cheap local ones that were no better than the originals. I then graduated to Ludwig Silver Dot batter heads on the toms and bass drum, and an Everplay (by Premier) snare head, which was all that was available at the time from Salonga's Music Store. By 1976, I began buying Zildjian cymbals. Every month, I would visit Salonga's to audition cymbals. So by the time I entered the U.P. Jazz Ensemble, I had 14" New Beat Hi-Hats, an 18" A. crash-ride, a 22" medium ride (which I later dubbed the "infinite ride" because of its slightly trashy sustain), and a 16" thin crash (which I had Steve Gadd autograph). During this period, I also bought three Tama boom stands, generic Hi-Hat and snare stand, and a Maya pedal. In 1984, I replaced all the tom and snare heads with Remo Pinstripes. I also found a store in Sta. Mesa (Anthony's) that sold lug bolts. So I bought out their stocks and replaced them whenever one of them had a loose thread. In the late 1980's, the red oyster pearl drum wraps had started to both crack or warp around the lugs. So I took a bold move by removing them, and had the shells varnished inside and out. I was out of a job and broke at the time, so I could only have it done by a house painter working on my parents house. Much to my relief, the sound did not degenerate. I once rented the set out for a TV appearance of the Hotdog reunion band. The drummer commented that the set looked "photogenic". I played that set everywhere I giged. I brought it on tour in the Visayas with the UP Cherubim; to the Abelardo Hall, TJCC, FEU, and Los Baños with the UP Jazz Band; Bulacan with Captain Bakal; and various places around the city as a session player. By the late 80's the sound of my set was so identified with me that drummer friends could literally recognize the sound a mile away.

In the early 90's the same set was used for the Eraserheads' "Pop-U" album. We also used the snare for the "Circus" album because I was looking for something lively with lots of overtones. My cymbals have gotten the most use through the years, as I often made them available to drummers in albums I produced. Raimund would occasionally use them when he needed a "unique" sound, and Kaka used my ride for the entire "Tala-Arawan" album. I bought a new snare head in the late 90s, an Evans ST for the annual family New Year's revelry. I probably used this only a couple of times afterwards, and it just gathered dust. I also bought Remo Ambassador and Fiberskyn3 snare heads, which never got mounted or used at all. Except for the time when the Cherubim used the rack toms for "Awit Ni Pulaw", the set was largely unused by the late 90's. The hoops became thoroughly rusted, and most of the lug nuts developed loose threads. I kept on telling myself I would overhaul them, but 1) I never committed a budget to buy spare parts since there were more pressing expenses at home, and 2) I didn't have any gigs whatsoever, so no opportunity to play or practice on them.

Suddenly in 2007, I started playing again, first for a couple of songs for Eric Lava's daughters' high school family day at Holy Family, then with the "EraserX", composed of Raimund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala, and a few other "Admit One" regulars, then in mid 2008 with Johnny Alegre. It was then that I caught GAS (gear acquisition syndrome). I began by shopping for a pedal because I didn't like the pedal in clubs, and my own pedal was by now unresponsive. Raimund got wind of it, and gave me a brand new pedal for my birthday. I got my first real, but cheap stick-bag, to replace the gym bag I had been stuffing my gear in. I've played 4 gigs with Johnny since then, and the world has begun to hear the distinctive sound of my cymbals again.

In November, I started shopping for a cheap but nice used snare. Cymbals, pedals and snares are the most personal parts of a set to most drummers. Since snare drums in most clubs are pretty beat up, I decided to look around for a new one. But money is tight (as always with me), so I couldn't spare more than five thousand for something I wouldn't be using very often. Then while I was in the mall a couple of days ago, I suddenly decided that instead of buying a new snare, I'd overhaul my old one. I figured it would be cool to revive an instrument that had a long and colorful history, rust and all. The lugs, tension rods, snare wire, and bottom head cost about 2 grand. Unfortunately the store (Lazer, which specializes in cheap hardware) didn't have hoops in stock. I went to JB Music and all they had was die-cast hoops that cost almost 2,500 pesos for one, and I need two. I found a second hand one but was disappointed because it already had some rust. So I ended up having a ballboy in my tennis club brush and sand my old rusty ones, then oil it to prevent the rust from coming back. The rusted portions have left black stains, and it has lost all its shine, but I buffed it to the point that it wouldn't leave residue or oil on my fingers anymore. I painstakingly reassembled the drum last night with the Remo Ambassador head. It sounded GREAT! I bought a nice Gibraltar 6600 series snare stand to top things off. Before Christmas, Johnny Alegre called me again for a December 30 gig at Saguijo, so I bought a cymbal boom stand since most clubs only have 2 stands, and I've got 3 cymbals.

I spent my Christmas vacation working on the rest of the drums. I read a tip in philmusic.com that an oxalic acid bath is a great rust remover. I disassembled all the metal parts of each drum (hoops, lugs, tension rods and washers) and the stands, and soaked them in the solution. After 8 hours, I would dry them out, spray WD-40 on them for another 8 hours, then dry them off, leaving a thin film of lubricant. The process removed about 80% of the rust. The surfaces are still a bit rough to the touch, but they are now shiny. I put them away in plastic containers, awaiting reassembly. I also rubbed furniture oil into drum shells several times, and wrapped them in old cotton t-shirts before putting them away. I'm planning to get new heads for the toms and bass (Remo Ambassadors) when I get some money. I'm also tempted to get a China cymbal, which goes from 6k to 10k used, depending on the model.

Before I began work on my snare, I was planning to buy other things, such as a flash unit for my wife's DSLR, and new recording gear. But second only to getting a new pair of tennis racquets, restoring my drumset has become my current obsession. I could go out and just get a new entry-level kit for less than what I would spend to restore my old set. But then again, there is something subjectively cool about old musical instruments. I've never really thought about giving them away or selling them, because for all its aural and structural "shortcomings", my drumset is so much a part of my personal sound and musical history that I can't think of parting with it.

RELEARNING DRUMS

I used to play drums a lot in college during the late 1970’s, doing everything from pop, to rock, to jazz, and even avant-garde. But I stopped playing completely from 1987 until the mid 2000’s. I was suddenly called back into action after twenty years for two small gigs in 2007, first for three songs for a school reunion with a fellow parent/friend, and second for three songs in a pop-rock production in Saguijo. While it was a lot of fun, the expectations were minimal. So there was no real pressure on me to churn out a polished performance. I did however realize how rusty I was from decades of atrophy. Then in early 2008 I took the stand for a jazz jam at a local club. Apparently, my old friend Johnny Alegre heard about it, and invited me to play a gig with his band Affinity. I was very surprised with the invitation, given that I had not played all that much for so long. I was also slightly intimidated given that Johnny always plays with the top drummers in Manila. But he insisted, and thankfully gave me two weeks notice. In those weeks, I had to learned and relearned quite a lot in the course of preparation.

First, I went back to practicing rudiments, which I hadn’t really worked on extensively even in my younger days. It was an interesting experience. I didn’t have a drum set to practice on, so I did all my preparation on a small practice pad. All my work was focused on stick work, and nothing whatsoever for the feet. I barely scratched the surface of the “40 PAS International Drum Rudiments”, opting to stay with mostly rolls, and only the most basic diddles and flams. There is only so much one can master in a couple of weeks. But I was at least satisfied with being able to reclaim some of my abilities. This laid the groundwork for the second target.

For this gig, I tried to develop a new personal style of playing. By the time I stopped in the 80’s, most of my playing was single stroke stuff, exacerbated from playing a lot of rock. Since Johnny’s gig called for traditional jazz, I revisited all my favorite jazz drummers. For small ensemble playing, I’ve always preferred listening to the more aggressive drummers from the “modern”, period. My favorites include Elvin Jones, whose driving poly-rhythmic work defined the genre; Tony Williams who brought huge drums, multiple “explosions”, and a rock sensibility to jazz; and Roy Haynes, whose playing sounded like a continuous drum solo in spite of the fact that he was playing accompaniment. But while I revere their playing, I’ve never tried to play like them. I believe one should never directly imitate others, and must strive to develop a personal, identifiable style. What I wanted to emulate was their sense of “flow”. So for the “new” me, I tried add more fluidity to my style. I used to achieve this via my instrument selection, opting for longer decaying cymbals and drums. But this time I decided to rely on myself, making greater use of multiple strokes to get that elusive “flow”.

At the gig, I managed to deploy the multiple strokes I practiced, modestly achieve a slightly more flowing style than I was used to, but still retained the heavy hitting that I had developed prior to having stopped playing. It was quite a long set, almost two hours of jazz standards. It took a while to adjust to a real drum set after preparing exclusively on a practice pad. In fact, I had to tune the drums rather high to get a bounce similar to my practice pad. But I eventually got a hang of it. By the end, I wasn’t tired at all. I could have gone on for another hour. As expected, my footwork was very, very inconsistent due to the lack of right foot drills, and an uncooperative and improperly adjusted pedal. When I asked for an honest opinion, club owner Skarlet stated that my major problem was that I wasn’t locked with the bass player, no doubt due to my inconsistent right foot. While this was a clear indication that I still had a long way to go, I was at least halfway pleased that I had found a way to articulate some of my stylistic targets. Before we parted for the evening, Johnny made me promise to play for him whenever he has a gig in Myra’s Ten-02 bar in QC (but only there, because I don’t relish driving any farther in the evenings). I didn’t know how serious he was about this until ……

A month later, Johnny invited me to play for him again. This time around, I knew I had to do better than the last gig because I had less excuses. That meant practicing my footwork. However, I still didn’t have a bass drum pedal to do drills on. I had begun canvassing for one, but resisted the temptation because I still didn’t think I would play often enough to justify actually spending on one given my my meager teacher’s. Lo and behold, a month before the gig, Raimund Marasigan surprised me on my birthday with a shiny new pedal. I had mentioned to him my interest in getting one a week earlier. But that was just in passing, and I didn’t expect him to take it seriously. Armed with my new gear, I set up the pedal and a piece of wood beneath my computer work desk, and was doing drills with my right foot for consistency, control and endurance. Nothing fancy, just steady half and quarter notes. It took many frustrating days to not only gain consistency, but to set up the pedal for the “right” response. Last week, I started putting my hands (on the practice pad) and right foot (on the pedal) together to play along with some mildly complicated jazz records. I was pleased with the development, and I anticipated that I could at least minimize falling off the beat due to my right foot come performance day.

Another thing I revisited a couple of days before the gig came was maintaining the rhythm in your body. I remember reading back in the 1980’s how Steve Gadd learned this from Chick Corea, who had learned it from Tony Williams. If I remember correctly, Corea once took to the drums, let the sticks freely fall, then came right back to the rhythm without missing a beat. Gadd concluded that ones internal rhythm was more important that what was going on with one’s hands and feet, and that one could “impose” a rhythm without actually playing it. I had tried this before with limited success in practice, but never did it in actual performance. So I tried to play as “out” as I could, then see if my body could maintain an internal rhythm. I managed to get it 50-50, even managing to recover after unintentionally falling out of playing a pattern. I figured this would be handy whenever I would trip over a fill.

I had a lot of fun at the gig. Some of the friends I invited showed up, like Raimund, Vin and Kris. I was also pleasantly surprised that Shinji Tanaka’s band was playing that evening. But the biggest treat of the evening was playing with Dondi Ledesma. We had an unforgettable gig back in the 80’s and I always wanted to play with him again in my lifetime. In addition to the fact that he is an awesome soloist, I found that he also has an ultra-stable internal rhythm. Because of this, I was often able to play on the outer limits of a beat, but stay within the rhythm. It was exhilarating. As always, Johnny was a great leader. We didn’t have any set “pieces”. Given the combination of Dondi and me, he said before hand that we be doing mostly fusion jams. He would start by calling out a pattern, like “medium shuffle”, guiding Dondi and me through the chord changes as we went along, establishing a melodic or harmonic “theme”, then letting us loose. Listening to Johnny and Dondi spar was a special treat, and I noticed it drove the small but enthusiastic audience wild. I still fell over the beat a few times, but I managed to deploy most of what I had worked on, like my pedal work and internal rhythm. My negative comment about myself is that I feel my playing is heavy in a sluggish way. While it may be due to that fact that we were playing closer to the rock spectrum than jazz, I noticed my tempos occasionally dragging.

There are lots of things I’d like, and have to work on in case I ever get invited to play another gig. This would include developing my left foot (high hat), reclaiming multiple strikes on the bass drum, improving the ability to put the brakes on, and accelerate out of a stroke sequence, and controlling the swing of a pattern without disrupting the rhythm.

I don’t know what the future holds in as far as public performance is concerned. I can still only see myself gigging once every couple of months. But I am really fortunate that someone with limited technique such as me can get to play with these fine musicians. This has taught me that reasonable targets, focused practice, and a personal stylistic framework can go a long way.