Don't judge a snare by it's colour

I like snare drums. They give me a certain artsy pleasure. Something about the design, construction, finish, and massive scale of variety makes me a sucker for them. I love how one drum can be so individual to the drummer that plays it; how the material used to build the drum, as well as the heads on the drum, and the tuning of both heads, and the snare wires below, all affect the end result when you hit it.

Sometimes my fiancé gets a little irritated with my snare fetish. Why do I need another one? Isn’t 7 enough? I understand that, to an extent. But we are no different to other musicians, who all want plenty of options to choose from. The only downside for us drummers is we cannot pack our sounds all into one foot pedal and carry it in a backpack.

Guitarists have effects pedals. Drummers have snare drums. And cymbals. And blocks. And double pedals. And lots of sticks. And many drum keys. Because we keep losing them.

My snares (left to right): Gretsch Catalina Club, Ludwig Supraphonic, Pearl Joey Jordison, Gretsch Catalina Maple, Pearl Virgil Donati, Remo Masteredge, Sonor Phonic

One of the things I like to do is buy and sell drums very now and again. Not like a business (although that would be fun too) but just for myself. So while I have my primary Gretsch drumkit – a thing of great beauty, I cherish her immensely – my second kit often changes. I like to sell off whatever the second kit is every few months and look for something new. It gives me an easy opportunity to try many different kits. (Recently that has also become a problem – something I will address next week). And I like to do the same with snares, although the selling part rarely happens. I just keep buying J

One of the snares I have been using is a unique little beast. The Pearl Joey Jordison ‘Power Piccollo’ snare. Joey is the drummer for the metal band Slipknot. Indeed. The drum looks the part.

I bought the drum on a whim. It is professional quality, and was on sale on Gumtree super cheap. And I had a student whom I knew would buy it from me for at least what I would pay for it, should I not like the drum’s sound. So I figured, why not? It probably won’t work, being a ‘metal music’ snare drum, so I’ll just check it out for a week and sell it on for a small profit afterward.

That was a year ago. I have yet again found parting with the drum close to impossible.

First off, look at her. She’s a beauty, no doubt about that. Ignore the fact that those are Slipknot logos on the side and you have a matt black snare with a cool tribal painting on the side.

Second, she is beautifully constructed. I have long maintained that, pound for pound, Pearl Drumworks are the best overall drum company working today, across all budget levels and quality inspections. This drum lives up to that reputation of being seemingly unbreakable.

Third, she is LOUD. And for a drummer like me, who is not a hard hitter, a potent snare drum is a welcome addition.

But here’s the big thing. The character of this drum – the ‘metal music’ persona it seems to carry – is a complete misrepresentation of her real qualities. Beneath the goth black and Slipknot logos, this drum is massively diverse and capable. I have tried it at medium tunings and high tunings, with single and double-ply heads, using sticks, rods and brushes. In every scenario – with the correct tuning for that scenario – the drum delivered.

And it delivered well. In watching footage from one of my gigs, and seeing/hearing the drum in action, I really got to witness that diversity. She was powerful but sensitive, and surprisingly warm for a drum made of steel. It just sounded…right. And that was an acoustic, folk-rock band.

I took it to that first gig thinking ‘this will look cool and be fun to knock around before I sell it next week’. But within minutes I was completely won over. I genuinely thought it would be a one-trick pony. And it isn’t. And now I love her.

Yet another snare drum I never want to sell. Even though I am once again eyeing another one…

Also, as promised, my first Youtube video is online. Go check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLO0kQ9i_k8

It's time to be pro-active

Recently I have felt my practice routine stagnating.

That's a lie. Because I don't have a practice routine. I mostly st down behind my electric kit and fart about on my iPod, playing through the same playlist that makes me feel awesome about my drumming.

But that needs to change. I am seriously feeling a loss of momentum in my playing, and I need to do something about it. A few things, in fact. I'm here to discuss one.

Before we get there, my options:

1: Practice routine. Goodness gracious, it's nothing short of disgusting that I, as a teacher do not have a regular practice routine comprised of technicals, practicals, songs, reviewing past gigs for weak points. Probably because I don;t play enough gigs. I want more gigs..! I partly blame it on my attempt to play too many instruments very well, at the same time. At the moment I have a drumkit, guitar, bass, banjo, and trumpet sitting in my room. And I try to make time for them all. Can you spell N-E-R-D?

2. Fresh faces: I love my band K, Ray and The Bird. They are awesome people who make me laugh and I cherish them and the strange music we write. But rock music has always pumped through my blood, and I desperately need to find an outlet for my rock angst. If you know of anybody looking for a drummer, I am into most forms of rock, provided there are guitar riffs (not just chords) and the vocals are actually vocals, not pointless screaming. And don't worry K, Ray homies; I'm not leaving. But we all know you won't be adding any electric guitar riffs anytime soon.

3. Educational content: An idea I have had for a long time is to upload educational material to Youtube. Being a teacher, I can honestly say I have seen some definite subjects that need addressing, as well as songs/bands that fellow musicians struggle to interpret. I've held back mainly because it's not easy/cheap to properly record an audio track for a drumkit and catch that content on video. But you know what? It's never gonna be. And I have an electric kit, which I can line straight into Pro Tools and get crystal clear audio. And iPhones record great visual. Maybe I can experiment with recording audio from my Roland, playing the same track on my acoustic kit, and overdubbing the sound...hmmmm

Anyway, the point is this: I am going to pledge right here. Because when you pledge on the internet, there's no turning back. Within the next month I will have uploaded some form of educational material to Youtube. I am not yet sure exactly what, but it will come to me. Maybe a song cover with some explanation, maybe a specific subject dissected...we'll see.

If you are a muso and you would like some topic or other covered, please comment, or email me or something, and ask. I would be only too happy to oblige (assuming I can play it) :-)

Self-publishing - easy, yet a little bit difficult

A little know fact about me is I have written 3 books.

A fantasy trilogy. I started the first one in high school (grade 10) as part of an English project. We had to write the opening paragraph and climax paragraph (because the entire climax of a story takes place in one paragraph right?) so I figured I might as well just keep writing. At that time I was reading heavily (I was a real nerd/dork in high school, reading, playing PC games, music instruments...I had no idea if a girl ever flirted with me because I had no clue how to read it. I just smiled back and agreed. Maybe I was secretly a big playa without even knowing it. One of my school friends told me I was.)

Over the past 10 years I completed the first book, rewrote it, wrote a second, rewrote both, then wrote a third, and finally made substantial changes to all three. And now we are here. Three books of blood, guts, spit and ass, with some romance and comedy thrown in.

Over the years I have given various versions of these books to trusted friends to read and assess. My only demand was that they assess it VERY honestly...as in brutal honestly. If it was total donkey twoddle I wanted to know. But the feedback was generally very good, and I was highly encouraged to get them published, which involves getting them edited, proof-read, ect.

I'll skip past the part of the story that involves me approaching mainstream publishers. Suffice it to say it was a waste. All of them have very, very strict requirements before they will even think about farting in the direction of a manuscript, and most of them are completely uninterested in the fantasy genre. Particularly in South Africa, where most publishers want non fiction or 'historically-based' fiction around a 'South African' story - in other words, a story from Apartheid, a man in a township, something like that.

So I had the option to approach overseas publishers (same strict requirements) or self-publish. I went for the latter. I figured, if I self-publish I have control, I have the say, I have all the power of decision-making.

And people always say self-publishing is easy. And it is, to an extent. The tools are all available online these days, and you can get a book ready for E-readers or physical printing at no cost other than your internet cap. The problem is, to really make it shine, you still need some green. And depending on how far you go, that can add up pretty fast.

After some online tampering: my beauties

For example, getting it set up for free excludes any editing. And unless you have a friend who does editing for a living and has no problem sorting it out for you, you pretty much have your own untrained eyes to do the work. And here's the truth: they are untrustworthy as hell. Trust me; you can stare at your work on a PC screen for hours, and still miss plenty. If you are gonna do it yourself, at least print it and do it on paper, with a highlighter in your hand or something. I also had some great friends who took the time to sift through my books and identify errors with post-it's, emails and word documents. Awesome. But after all that there's still some that snuck through. And editing ain't cheap. Once off, for sure, but still a fair amount.

What about cover design? I took the easier option; I bought online images, thus acquiring the rights to use the image (don't be illegal about it - just now your book takes off and you have a lawsuit on your hands. Can happen...), and they became my covers. But if you want a tailor-made cover, you're talking lots of bucks. Any quote I looked at was over R1000 per book, per design.

And marketing? The only way your book will sell is through excellent marketing. And that's the biggest expense of all, depending on how you do it. Word-of-mouth won't do anything for people on another continent.

Most self-publishing websites offer all these services and more, so if you are interested go and check one out and see what they can cost. You'd be surprised how quickly it can add up. At the end of the day, a professional product is still a professional product, and they don't come cheap. Ever.

So where am I?

Well, the first book is active online - I.E. for sale at the link below and on the iBookstore. It isn't perfect yet, but dammit, by now surely most of the errors are eliminated. The rest give it character, I keep telling myself.

I haven't really marketed the book, because I am still investigating editing options. I probably should just do it, but with a wedding around the corner (in wedding terms 7 months is around the damn corner) I have other things to save for. I am actually happy with the covers, but it might still be a better option to get ones designed. And for physical printing, the shipping costs from America are killing. I am still sourcing a local printing press to print my manuscripts.

What I did in the meantime, with the advice of a friend, is upload a portion of my book to a website called Wattpad, where you can share literature for free. I am hoping to gauge some sort of response based on that portion of the book, and hopefully encourage some folk to make their way to the digital store on Lulu or the iBookstore to purchase the entire story. And the feedback will be awesome. By that I mean getting feedback will be awesome. Not the feedback content will be awesome. Although it might be, but that's conceited...anyway...

At some point, when I decide I have done all I can for that first manuscript, I will officially launch it, backed with some proper marketing and all that jazz. Big announcements, party, opening specials, that sort of thing. And then parts 2 and 3 will need to follow soon after. In the meantime I just keep writing other stuff. I never got into writing to make money; it was always a fun thing to do. And it always will be. If the stories hit a note with other people and they want to support, awesome. If not, I doubt I'll just stop. Art, in any form, should be done for oneself, not for others.

And on that philosophical note, I bid you farewell.

Want to read some of my book for free? Go here: http://www.wattpad.com/23490485-baldornad%27s-chamber#.UhEsx5JmiSo

My online store on Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/eman101