The roots of drumming—Downfall of Paris

Oops. I forgot to reply directly, but I responded. BTW, are you still in the Dallas area? I'n in Austin.

I live in Virginia, although I’m from NC originally. We did the Chavez while I was there too. I played the bass drum part. Easy piece, but fun to play. We did a lot of harder stuff, like Ku-Ka Ilimoku and Rock Etude #7. Deb Mashburn got fired the summer before I started there, she was replaced by Bob Stroker, who has since moved on to Temple as the Dean of Music, last I heard. Stroker really raised the bar as far as difficulty goes, although I think very little of him as a person.

Did you ever study with Mr. Cherry? He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s the main reason I went to SMU. I met Amy Reichardt at Brevard and ended up at SMU due to learning about him through her.
 
I live in Virginia, although I’m from NC originally. We did the Chavez while I was there too. I played the bass drum part. Easy piece, but fun to play. We did a lot of harder stuff, like Ku-Ka Ilimoku and Rock Etude #7. Deb Mashburn got fired the summer before I started there, she was replaced by Bob Stroker, who has since moved on to Temple as the Dean of Music, last I heard. Stroker really raised the bar as far as difficulty goes, although I think very little of him as a person.

Did you ever study with Mr. Cherry? He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s the main reason I went to SMU. I met Amy Reichardt at Brevard and ended up at SMU due to learning about him through her.
Yeah, I studied with Cherry. Cranky old bastard, but in his day, he was a great player. He doesn't have much to do with anyone anymore, evidently and is very bitter, for some reason. He didn't even come to any of Doug's retirement stuff. Doug's last concert with D'Drum at the Meyerson was on Friday night. He wasn't there either.

I think the politics of that place must have gotten weird after I left. Deborah and I locked horns a few times while I was a student, but we got over it. Facebook friends now. She and I both had bigger issues with a couple of students that we both hated with a passion, lol.

I hope you were still on good terms with Doug when you left.
 
Yeah, I studied with Cherry. Cranky old bastard, but in his day, he was a great player. He doesn't have much to do with anyone anymore, evidently and is very bitter, for some reason. He didn't even come to any of Doug's retirement stuff. Doug's last concert with D'Drum at the Meyerson was on Friday night. He wasn't there either.

I think the politics of that place must have gotten weird after I left. Deborah and I locked horns a few times while I was a student, but we got over it. Facebook friends now. She and I both had bigger issues with a couple of students that we both hated with a passion, lol.

I hope you were still on good terms with Doug when you left.

Wow, lots of emotions coming up for me discussing all this. I left on good terms with Doug, although he’s prone to listening to whoever gets to him first, so I’m sure Delaney turned him against me as much as possible. Jon Lee hated me and turned Doug against me as much as he was able. I beat him in two auditions for big parts when I was a freshman and he was a grad student. LOL He never got over it. Things were really bad there my freshman year, most of the perc grad students hated me for beating them in those auditions and for being the general jerk I can be LoL.

The politics in the studio got a lot less intense after my freshman year, although they got really bad again my senior year. We lost two of our 4 grad students due to bad grades, and Stroker and Delaney were pushing us all really hard to further their careers with conferences, recordings, etc.. It was REALLY bad. I don’t think anybody who went through it is over it. I’m not proud of everything I did that year AT ALL, but I ended up being the focus of everyone’s hate when the real cause of the problems was how much stress we were all under.

Amy mentioned Jim Snell and Mark O’Kane, did you go to school with those guys?
 
And I’m not surprised about Mr. Cherry being weird and bitter. He was always weird, and I think he’s mad that none of his students ever won big timpani jobs. But the audition circuit got stupid in the 90s, people were shipping their own timpani to auditions for part-time jobs, and I took one look at that and said “eff it”. I think he was hoping I’d be the one that did it. He tried to take me into auditioning for the Malaysia Phil job that opened up in 97, but I wasn’t feeling the tropics at that time. LOL
 
I respectfully disagree. I was a member of the United States Military Academy Band at West Point several years ago. The Hellcats are a sub-group of the band as a whole. These guys in the Hellcats today have raised the bar far past what we did to include contemporary rudimental style, and they kick ass.

Funny, after seeing this post I started thinking about Jeff Prosperie. I went to University of North Texas at the same time he did. I was always in awe of his hands! I'm glad to hear he is doing doing so well and getting much deserved recognition.
 
Funny, after seeing this post I started thinking about Jeff Prosperie. I went to University of North Texas at the same time he did. I was always in awe of his hands! I'm glad to hear he is doing doing so well and getting much deserved recognition.

I bet you knew Jon Lee and Rob Bridge and Shawn Schietroma. Rob and Jon were grad students when I was undergrad at SMU. I was forced to take a couple semesters of 4-mallet marimba with Shawn. *sigh* LOL
 
I bet you knew Jon Lee and Rob Bridge and Shawn Schietroma. Rob and Jon were grad students when I was undergrad at SMU. I was forced to take a couple semesters of 4-mallet marimba with Shawn. *sigh* LOL
No, I didn't ever know those guys. Of course, I met Jon this past fall. Is Shawn Bob's son?
 
Did Doug have you play that first etude from the Podemski book to death? I swear, I had to play that thing in every lesson for a year.
 
And I’m not surprised about Mr. Cherry being weird and bitter. He was always weird, and I think he’s mad that none of his students ever won big timpani jobs. But the audition circuit got stupid in the 90s, people were shipping their own timpani to auditions for part-time jobs, and I took one look at that and said “eff it”. I think he was hoping I’d be the one that did it. He tried to take me into auditioning for the Malaysia Phil job that opened up in 97, but I wasn’t feeling the tropics at that time. LOL
Yes, his heavy, dark Hinger style of playing went out of fashion and has never come back. On a run-out I played with the DSO one time, I watched in awe as he played Bartok's Concerto for orchestra on chain drums.
 
Yes, his heavy, dark Hinger style of playing went out of fashion and has never come back. On a run-out I played with the DSO one time, I watched in awe as he played Bartok's Concerto for orchestra on chain drums.

He always claimed that you can retune faster with two pedal timp in the middle and two chain drums on the outside. I never knew just how good he was on chain drums, though. The Bartok is a challenge even on pedal drums. Did you guys have that set of Walter Lights at SMU? God I hated those. They weren’t well-maintained, and it took tremendous force to even get the pedals down when I was there.
 
Did Doug have you play that first etude from the Podemski book to death? I swear, I had to play that thing in every lesson for a year.
No. I did all the Podemski stuff in high school with my teacher in OKC. Doug and I spent a lot of time in the Delecluse books 3 and 4.
 
He always claimed that you can retune faster with two pedal timp in the middle and two chain drums on the outside. I never knew just how good he was on chain drums, though. The Bartok is a challenge even on pedal drums. Did you guys have that set of Walter Lights at SMU? God I hated those. They weren’t well-maintained, and it took tremendous force to even get the pedals down when I was there.
The Lights! Yes, they were new my freshman year. I played a lot of timps in the orchestra and learned very early on to keep my foot on whichever one I was playing because the ratchet would slip!
 
The Lights! Yes, they were new my freshman year. I played a lot of timps in the orchestra and learned very early on to keep my foot on whichever one I was playing because the ratchet would slip!

Ugh. Yeah, nobody took care of them. The ratchets weren’t an issue when I was there, but the 26” literally took most of my body weight to pedal all the way up to F natural. Just that one drum was really bad, the 29 wasn’t nearly that bad, and the 32 and 23 weren’t too bad. Some idiot dropped the 32 while I was a senior, and it never really recovered a decent pitch center after that.
 
Ugh. Yeah, nobody took care of them. The ratchets weren’t an issue when I was there, but the 26” literally took most of my body weight to pedal all the way up to F natural. Just that one drum was really bad, the 29 wasn’t nearly that bad, and the 32 and 23 weren’t too bad. Some idiot dropped the 32 while I was a senior, and it never really recovered a decent pitch center after that.
LOL. The other thing I remember about all the timpani there was that they all 'cracked' and made noise when changing pitches because Kal insisted on coating the rims with 'Door Ease' whenever we changed a head, which would dry out and just be nasty. Doug just shook his head and let Kal be Kal.
 
LOL. The other thing I remember about all the timpani there was that they all 'cracked' and made noise when changing pitches because Kal insisted on coating the rims with 'Door Ease' whenever we changed a head, which would dry out and just be nasty. Doug just shook his head and let Kal be Kal.

So THAT’S what caused that noise! LOL

We also had an unexplained BAD rattle in the 32 sometimes. It liked to loudly rattle during really quiet parts in orchestra concerts.
 
So THAT’S what caused that noise! LOL

We also had an unexplained BAD rattle in the 32 sometimes. It liked to loudly rattle during really quiet parts in orchestra concerts.
I remember that issue. We put moleskin on the rims underneath the tension rods to stop that, and also between the rim and the head collars, but our big problem was we had to constantly replace the sawtooth teeth on the pedal ratchets because they would wear away due to them slipping, which in turn would make the slipping worse. Yeah, they sucked. I don't play any timpani today. I avoid it.
 
I remember that issue. We put moleskin on the rims underneath the tension rods to stop that, and also between the rim and the head collars, but our big problem was we had to constantly replace the sawtooth teeth on the pedal ratchets because they would wear away due to them slipping, which in turn would make the slipping worse. Yeah, they sucked. I don't play any timpani today. I avoid it.

The ratchet issue must have been a design flaw. It got fixed before I got there, the only time the teeth slipped was when I didn’t make sure the ratchet was fully in place before I took my foot off.

Did you have Dr. Mayer-Martin for music history? Dr. “Mmm. Beethoven bagatelles” Turrentine? Lol
 
The ratchet issue must have been a design flaw. It got fixed before I got there, the only time the teeth slipped was when I didn’t make sure the ratchet was fully in place before I took my foot off.

Did you have Dr. Mayer-Martin for music history? Dr. “Mmm. Beethoven bagatelles” Turrentine? Lol
Very odd. Turrentine was there, but I never had him. However, I'm confused with Dr. MM. I had her for her first semester there, but she didn't make it through the whole semester before she got horribly ill. My understanding was that she was in the ICU and near death until they figured out that she was deathly allergic to Mesquite pollen. After the first half of her first semester, I never saw her again and heard she left the state asap. To get her there they gave her tenure immediately, so she must've gotten some sort of treatment and came back. Crazy.
 
Very odd. Turrentine was there, but I never had him. However, I'm confused with Dr. MM. I had her for her first semester there, but she didn't make it through the whole semester before she got horribly ill. My understanding was that she was in the ICU and near death until they figured out that she was deathly allergic to Mesquite pollen. After the first half of her first semester, I never saw her again and heard she left the state asap. To get her there they gave her tenure immediately, so she must've gotten some sort of treatment and came back. Crazy.

How did you avoid Turrentine? I had him twice, once for Romantic and once for Medieval. Got the big D- for Medieval, then had to retake it under Mayer-Martin, the toughest professor I’ve ever had. LOL Seriously, she was rough. There was a kid that had someone pull the fire alarm during one of her tests. They went outside, confined the lack of a fire, then went back in. And she made them FINISH the TEST!

I will admit that she knew her stuff, though. She was the world’s premier expert on Medieval French love songs.
 
Back
Top