RESOURCES

Those big barrels, I’ve nowhere to store them! Perhaps the commonest response we get. Many groups want to work with the big drums and other giant instruments but the problems of storage tend to defeat them. There are a number of answers to this problem, ranging from, “but you don’t need such big instruments” to “perhaps its not such a problem”

Lets look at activities that cover a spectrum from working with nothing but your body as a percussion instrument to playing giant drums

1) Body drumming. Tapping out rhythms on the body is an obvious start for whatever you do. Your co-ordination is bound to be superior using something you have got used to all your life. Stomping and the beginnings of dance is another way of extending powers that you already have. For rhythms you will already have material you already know (such as the Scotland football chant for example). Or, try the simple expedient of taking names and words and making up rhythms with them. From pure body work you can move on to introducing surfaces that can be stamped on, metal or wood, rough or smooth. Attaching jangling, tinkling things to the arms, legs and abdomen is another extension of this. Use of the voice, experimenting with tone, volume, pitch, rhythm. Splitting the group into sections with their own parts to work on. Bringing the separate parts together to create a new work. With a minimum of material resources or storage the group can be involved in co-operating, leading the section, leading the whole group. Individuals can become conductors and on an individual, or co-operative basis, can start to create their own music.

2) Found objects: really needs no explanation. You can play a room, trying out the different surfaces and objects (getting permission of course), or find small containers and indeed anything that suggests musical possibilities. This starts to expand into the area of more conventional instruments. Everyone will have made shakers at some time in their lives and, anyone who has seen an samba band, will have some idea of what can be done with such simple means. Once you start down the found object road you are into drums, no matter how small, metallic containers, rods, plates, wood, whether solid or hollow. A step further and you can source old furniture from which a whole range of sound boxes can be made.

3 The big stuff such as the plastic barrels we use, the giant batphones, metal-phones (from scaffolding poles), wheels and xylophones can pose a problem for many groups, both in terms of sourcing them and storing them. We have been lucky over the years both in terms of finding what we needed and having somewhere to store finds. We have a plastic recycling depot near us and a number of other industrial users who have a ready supply of barrels and, even, a supplier of cut to order plastic pipe. Wood for stands and instruments is available (sycamore used for our xylophones is regarded as a weed by foresters). I don’t believe we are uniquely lucky. Ask around; make it a challenge for the group. Storage space on site may be you big problem. Bear in mind that our average performance group hovers around 8 to 10 in numbers as initial enthusiasm gives way to the need to graft. The equipment for that size of group is really not such a problem. Perhaps you can share with another group and only bring everything together when you need to (for a taster session for example). You will have to think about how you move stuff; vans are an expense for us.

4 Arts and Crafts gives you a whole other area to work in. One of our early projects ended up with the building of a TRASH city. We have always painted the drums and built simple stands for batphones and the like. You can also look at designing clothes from cast-offs.

5) Simple technology used to make instruments (a giant rain stick is an impressive beast) and as part of learning about the materials that surround us. May have benefits in the area of simple auditory experiments (certainly tubes and suspended wire both allow pitch experiments).

6) Recording progress and observations. Simple audio and video records gives everyone a way of following their progress and the potential to make a CD.

7) Work is another area on which all the above can have some bearing. The number of potential, organisational, social and technical skills involved in the above has been commented on many times.