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

Drums are Inherently Different

When you stop and think about it, the drums are inherently a very odd instrument.  And it’s not because drums are played by striking them with sticks either.  Playing the xylophone or vibraphone, (sometimes called ‘Vibes’), with mallets does not seem odd to me.  And playing the different hammered out tonal areas of steel drums, (sometimes called “Pans”), seems right to me too.  So what is it about a drum set that seems so unconventional to me?

In trying to understand and put into words why it is I feel so strongly about drums being odd in relation to other musical instruments, I’m thinking it must be in the fact that,  even though you tune them, they have little to do with the actual melody of the music.  I mean, at the end of a song, nobody turns in disgust to look at the drummer and say: “What key were you playing?  Dude!  You need to tune those things!” Don’t get me wrong:  The drummer can get himself into trouble just as easily as any other musician, although for completely different reasons, none of which will be because his bass drum was tuned a quarter-tone flat.

Rhythmic, Not Melodic

So if the drums are not contributing to the melody, why are they there?  If the drums are taken out of the equation, the melody continues, the harmonies still blend, the guitar solos still impress the listener, but there is a definite void that cannot be filled simply with more melodic instrumentation.  Why not?  Because drums supply drama!  Drums provide dynamics!

But drums are also like an audible beacon, providing a rhythmic signal to the other musicians navigating along the song’s blueprint, providing the framework that the  melody is interwoven through.  This is true even in songs not known for exceptional drumming, as well as in music where the song has an extended break.

The Perfectly Placed Beat

An example that comes to mind is:  “I Will Always Love You”, sung by Whitney Houston for The Bodyguard movie soundtrack.  This song does not exactly ‘feature’ the drums, and yet you can imagine how hollow sounding it would  be without them.  If you are familiar with the song, can you imagine how it might sound at the break, the part right after she sings “But above all this I wish you love”, and before the ‘change in key’ that brings in the final chorus, the most emotional part of the song, but without drums?  What a letdown! The suspense would still be there in anticipation of the crescendo, but it would never arrive!

I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston)

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For me, that one essential drum beat on the ‘toms’, marking the end of the break as she sings, “And I . . . will always love you . . .”, that is crucial to the power of the whole song, not because of melody, but because of rhythm.  It reestablishes the song’s emotionally slow cadence, which serves to frame the perfect foundation for her powerful ending chorus, with its sweeping falsettos!

One simple yet essential, perfectly placed drum beat!

Am I saying that no music is dynamic without percussion?  No, not at all.  Nor am I saying that it is solely to the credit of the drums that music is dynamic.  There are many dynamic pieces of music that have no drums.  But I do believe that when the music calls for it, there is no truly satisfying substitute for properly played drums.

And although I believe that to be true, I certainly do not want to imply that I think I am that ‘proper drum player’ in all cases.  Just because a doctor knows what the patient needs, does not mean he thinks he is always the best physician to provide the cure.  If I were to find myself someday in the position of being a musical “Surgeon General”, I would be writing out a veritable font of Percussion Prescriptions, fillable only by the most qualified of drummers:  Steve Gadd, Harvey Mason, Dave Weckl, James Bradley Jr, Jeff Porcaro, Steve Smith, Richard Bailey, etc.  Of course I would be honored to occsionally ‘scrub up’ so that I might make myself available to hand them their sticks, or replenish their favorite beverage.  (I would be a musical Surgeon General with a realistic sense of modesty . . .)

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).

I started singing when I was in the 2′nd grade, and that’s about the time when I got the bug to perform in front of an audience.  When I was in Junior High School there was a band called “5 Fluid Ounces”, and they let me sing with them, but never in a show.  I guess they all got a kick out of hearing a kid sing songs from Foreigner, Journey, Tom Petty, and so on.   But I never took it too seriously until I moved to Mexico.

In Mexico my friends were all into groups like Motley Crew, Journey, Iron Maiden, Def Leopard, Judas Priest, and so on.  They heard me sing along to the music, as we all did. But one day there was a band holding auditions looking for a singer.  My friends told me that I should go try out, so I did.

At the audition I remember singing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”,  and “Breaking the Law” by Judas Priest.  At the end of the audition they asked me if I would consider joining the band.  And in my very limited Spanish, I said yes, (“Si”).  They asked me where I was from.  When I told them “California”, they said: “No wonder you can pronounce the words so well!”  When they asked how much experience I had, I answered “none”, (or possibly “nada”, I don’t remember).  They were okay with my answer as long as I could consistently sing as well as I did in the audition.  That’s when the band “Jest” was born.

Jest played with another band that back then was known as “Green Hat”, (now known as “Mana‘ “).

After returning to the U.S. I joined a couple of bands that eventually fizzled into nothing.  But then my priorities changed.  I joined the workforce, settled down, got married to a wonderful woman, raised a beautiful daughter, and now we fast-forward to 2007 when all the right musicians came together and we formed “Circuit-33″!

Occasionally someone will ask me how long I’ve been playing drums. (Poor suckers!)

Little do they know that when they ask a question like that, I’m likely to bore them to tears with answers such as the following:

I didn’t have actual drums when I started playing at around 11 or 12 years of age.  Buying a real set was out of the question at the time.  So I made my own drum kit out of different sized coffee cans, and using a piece of wire I tied it all onto a small wooden chair.  I put a handful of nails in one can and called it the snare drum.  I cut the bottom out of one can and taped it to the top of another to make a deeper floor tom.

Apparently my grandfather, who died long before I was born, used to play the bass drum in a marching band.  My father still had the tarnished old cymbal that had been attached to that bass drum, so that became my one and only cymbal, attached to the back of the chair using a nail.  I remember holding paint brushes (by the bristle-end) to use as my drum sticks.  (We really were not that impoverished, although my saga implies otherwise.)

Sure!  Go ahead and laugh!  Get it out of your system.  But I was a kid on a without a budget, and had an overactive imagination.  There was junk available and I had nothing but time.    What can I say?  (It was the “perfect storm”.)  And besides, I just discovered that I am not alone in this.

There may have been a connection between me purchasing real drum sticks and the fact that I used to routinely break through the plastic coffee can lids I used as drum heads.  Since my parents selfishly  refused to drink coffee  at a pace consistent with my need for replacement drum heads, I was forced to patch the broken areas by melting pieces cut from other lids.  In the process I found that I could get different sounds by making some ‘heads’ thicker than others.

That was my first ‘drum kit’.  That is what I used to learn the basics of drumming on.   That’s where I learned to make basic crossover moves and associate different sounds to different sized drums, (or in my case, cans).  That lasted me until I was about 16 years old, at which time I managed to scrape together $150 for a cheap, used, 5-piece set, complete with some of the worst sounding cymbals I have ever broken.

It was at that point that I came to realize just how different playing a real set was:

1. These ‘real drums’ were tunable.  (What a concept!)
2. They were much louder.  (My parents rejoiced!)
3. They were much larger and therefore further away from each other, requiring me to move quicker in order to reach from one to another.
4. These drums provided more of a stick bounce which, in time, made  actual drum rolls possible.
5. Although they were junky, there were more cymbals to hit.  (The classic “More Cymbals, More Fun!” point of view.)
6. The biggest difference was that they required my feet to do something!  (I had no prior experience using pedals, except those attached to my bike.  Yikes!)

So just when I thought I could drum, reality set in, showing me in no uncertain terms that I was only using a mere half of my limbs, whilst real drummers ‘fired on all four cylinders’.   (It may have been at that lull in my self esteem that I discovered the blues . . .)

I mainly played along to records and tapes.  I guess my enjoyment for making music by drumming along to the music I loved, kept my interest in drumming alive and well, to the point that I stayed with it and saw my own gradual progress.  I’m not sure I would have had the same  enthusiasm  or sticktoitiveness in taking lessons if I felt I was being burdened by rigidly having to practice flams and paradiddles everyday instead of playing along to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida just for the fun of it.  On the other hand, seeing what truly great drummers (such as Dave Weckl) can do seemingly effortlessly, builds a strong case for the structured learning that comes only with years of drum lessons.

Would I recommend drum lessons for beginners?  Absolutely!  There is no substitute for professional training by those that already know what their doing.  And I’m sure that had I taken professional lessons I would have been greatly benefited.  But I loved playing drums and learning in my own way, and at my own pace.  So even though I never had lessons, all things considered, I think I do fairly well despite the fact that I’m self-taught.

Brad Kunz