Circuit-33 (The Band)Not to be confused with circuits of any other variety

Childhood Fascination

I think my earliest recollection of being fascinated with drums goes back to when I was about eight years old, becoming intrigued as I stood near a drummer playing in a band at a wedding reception my parents took me to. This was the first time I ever got up close to a drum set. It had all those big, loud, sparkled drums, and several shiny brass cymbals to hit with those long wooden sticks! Sometimes they would make a metallic ‘ping’ sound, and other times they would make a loud ‘crashing’ sound! Plus there were two other ‘cymbals on a stick’, and the drummer kept moving one of them up and down with his foot! He kept hitting the top one with a stick, making one sound when they were opened, and a different sound when they closed.

Sometimes he held the handle of a drumstick to the head of the drum and tapped the drum rim with the other end, making a sharp ‘clacking’ sound. Then at other times he would put the sticks down and start hitting the drums and cymbals using these other things that had a bunch of thin straight wires fanning out from their handles, (I later learned were called ‘brushes’). And when he would swirl them around on top of one of the drums, (the ’snare drum’), they would make a soft ’swishing’ sound. Then, on the same drum, he would get completely different sounds by going back to using the sticks. What a crazy musical instrument! So many neat things to hit! Who came up with this crazy contraption? (I didn’t understand it, but I wanted to shake his hand.)

I have no idea what music they were playing, but the audience danced to it, and I was mesmerized by the actions of the drummer, probably because there were so many different things the drummer did to make the music. In my youth I took piano lessons for a couple years. I was not very good at it. There were so many things I tried to learn that were completely foreign to me, like chords, keys, sharps, flats, etc. But this drummer did not seem to be concerned with such things. He just had to hit things with sticks and swirl things with brushes while pushing on pedals with his feet. How did he know which thing to hit, and when to hit it, and which way to hit it? It proved to be quite intriguing to this eight year old, (as much as an eight year old can be intrigued, that is).