Resources

Two days ago, I bought new cymbals to replace my old ones. I’ve had cracked ones for a few months and the cracks just kept running deeper and deeper into the cymbals away from the edge. It started to affect the sound quality of the cymbals and I started getting scared that it would get to the point where it wouldn’t just be loud; it would be loud and annoyingly awful to hear.

So, with that said, I had decided to continue to use my cracked hi-hat (it’s the cymbal I use the most) and replace the crash cymbal with a pillow hanging on a tall chair. My parents don’t really need that pillow anyway.

However, the pillow obviously didn’t give the same effect as a real cymbal. It’s doesn’t make a noise except for a soft “pad” kind of sound. It was funny. I kept cracking up when I was practicing songs because I’d do a fill to transition from one part of a song to another and I would end with a confident crash and all I hear, in anticipation of the crash is, “puh,” from the pillow. Still, even if the effect wasn’t the same, the feeling of hitting something was, so the pillow made do.

That pillow kind of reminds of a quality of mine that my brother pointed out to me. He said once that I was resourceful. When I think back, I kind of see where he got that from. I think of all the things I made out of household objects to simulate musical instruments or music equipment when they were lacking or too expensive to buy at the time. I once made a djembe drum out of a peanut can. It sounded good too, would you believe! There was a time when I lost my guitar pick, so I made one out of a credit card that my dad didn’t need anymore. Then there was the whole makeshift drum set that I made out of my bed. I think I said this in an earlier blog before and I’ll just repeat it here: I would use the bed as the bass drum, a leather address book as a snare, a bean pillow as a hi-hat and my drum sticks were the legs of an old wooden stool that was rendered too risky to use (like a totaled car). Then, when I learned that the bass drum was supposed to be used with a kick pedal, I – no I didn’t create a kind of pedal (that was a bit far-fetched) – I simply laid down a hard-covered text book (linguistics, by the way) on the floor and stomped on it to create a solid sound. Or I would sit down with a tin can in between my knees that would act as a snare drum, the bean pillow on a chair to my left for a hi-hat and I’d just put that text book bass drum under my right foot – the simplest drum set I’ve ever made.

So, um, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, new cymbals. Got’em and I’m so excited to use them. They came in a package – three zildjian (a very reputable company) cymbals: a crash, a ride and hi-hats. All for around $174 or $190 with tax. To be honest, I thought I’d have to buy them separately and when I was researching how much different cymbals cost, I saw prices that made me think I’d never buy them. I’m talking about seeing prices as high as $200 for just one cymbal! I don’t have that kind of money lying around and the money I used to buy all my drum stuff so far came out of my savings account and my parent’s money. Needless to say, I was very, VERY relieved to find that package deal.

Now, about covers of songs to post on youtube. I made a cover of a song on the piano and I recorded it on Ate Sherry’s laptop. However, I haven’t had time to post it on youtube yet because I used Ate Sherry’s laptop (not mine) so I have to post it when she wants to, which is when she has time and Ate Sherry’s a busy lady; a very busy lady indeed! As for a drum cover, what you gotta understand is that recording drums, at least for me, is a lot more difficult than recording piano covers simply because drums are a lot louder, which makes it hard to get a good recording without the sound quality being very poor. As of right now, I absolutely have no idea how to record drum covers. I don’t have a stereo that plays the music loud enough that I could hear my drums over them because the stereo I have is old and it broke, and I’m not . . .what’s the word? Technologically savvy (which is why Ate Sherry always helps me with the piano covers). All I know is that I’ve seen enough drum covers on youtube and all those drummers used headphones and either synced their music (I have no clue how) or had microphones for their drums. I do believe both options would involve some tech knowledge and money, both of which I don’t have. But, I do have some potential, not definite, connections with some people who may or may not help me. I will try to get a drum cover up before school starts or in some time in September! And no, it’s not an obligation for me because I’ve always admired those people who do drum covers and I’ve always wanted to create lots of them. I have a couple songs that I’ve been thinking of doing by Keane and The Fray. Should I do a solo? I don’t know. The first thing to think of is how to record it and that’s a big step for me.