Photo by Scott Pickering

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Set Up for Dara Maclean Event

Playing percussion when there is no drum set has its challenges.  You "drive the boat" a bunch of the time.  Here's a glance at a recent set up for a concert with Dara Maclean (and friends).  The instrumentation was two acoustic guitars, one electric guitar, string bass, violin, and percussion (ME!).

The cajon was my "go-to" for most of the night but I also used snare drum w/brushes some of the time to hold the groove together.   You can see my trusty metronome was right on the  near corner of the trap table. 

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Sleigh Bells Tutorial

Okay--it's December and you know what that means.  Percussionists should not leave home without the sleigh bells.   You just don't know when someone will ask.   Be ready with this the techniques from this short tutorial!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Jingle Shake

The Aluminum Jingle Shake from Meinl can you a tight shaker sound along with a nice hint of tambourine.

Rotate the octagonal tube so that the discs are sounding or take out the tambourine tone by moving the tube so that the jingles are resting (inaudibly) on top.
http://meinlpercussion.com