Jan 20
Have Drums, Will Travel – How I managed to get around with my drums The subtitle for this entire blog site is called “Have Drums, Will Travel. It is a tip of the hat to an old western entitled “Have Gun, Will Travel”, which starred the actor Richard Boone as “Paladin”. Eighteen or so years …
Oct 14
The Des Moines Metro Opera YearsThe Eventful 2002 Season The 2002 DMMO Summer Festival was one of those memorable seasons for more reasons than one. First, musically it was a blockbuster season. Three fantastic productions, all full of challenge. For this season, Dr. Larsen and the management decided to stage Puccini’s Turandot; Richard Strauss’s Salome; …
Jun 10
Instruments| Ludwig Timpani I have performed on many makes and models of timpani, but I started out as an eleven-year old aspiring musician on an old pair of Ludwig pedal-tuned timpani. These dated from about the late 1930s, and were the template model for what Ludwig later developed into their Universal model pedal timpani. …
Mar 27
My Instruments | A Timpanist’s Toolbox NB: This post is mainly for those of you (and there are many) who wonder what a timpanist is and what is in that case (or cases) that he carries with him to rehearsals and concerts. To those of you who are already expert, consider this a …
Mar 11
My Instruments -Timpani Sticks Ron Carlisle Mallets It wasn’t until relatively late in my career with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra that I heard of Ron Carlisle and his hand-crafted timpani mallets. The year was 1994, and it was during a tour of the USA by the orchestra that this came about. It happened in Pittsburgh, …
Mar 10
My Instruments -Timpani Sticks|Part One You might think it a little strange for me to talk about timpani sticks (or mallets –call them whatever you will) in a blog post with the heading “My Instruments.” However, when you think about it, timpani sticks are the tools one uses in the hands to make …
Nov 07
My Instruments|Chain and Cable-Tuned Timpani I have played on pedal-tuned timpani for most of my career, which now spans a forty-year period and have always enjoyed the experience. However, whenever I have had the chance to play on timpani that were either hand-tuned, or equipped with an Anheier-like cable system or a chain system such …
Mar 29
My Instruments – Part Two In my previous post, I talked about the Light Mark XI timpani, which I use as my primary instruments. In this post, I’ll talk about what I call my secondary instruments, which I use for church gigs and pops concerts, as well as for the times when there …
Mar 27
My Instruments – Part One Over the course of my musical life, I have used many different types of timpani. Most of these have been of the pedal-tuned type, but I have had some experience with the hand-tuned as well as cable or chained tuned timpani as well. For the purposes of this post …
Mar 16
The Timpani Most musicians know what the timpani are, and so do many people, but I still get questions from quite a few, especially from those who are not familiar with classical music and young people who have not had exposure to the instruments of the orchestra. So, that being the case, I think that …
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