Why a blog?
For years, I’ve been a participant in open discussions about drums and drum-building, both online and with clients, other drummers, and other builders. I’ve also been an avid consumer of tips, guides, tricks, and reference from a myriad of sources – open eyes, open ears, and open mind being the first steps to becoming informed. And of course, as a builder, I’ve learned from a whole lot of experimenting, testing, and just plain figuring out.
But one of the things that’s always bugged me is that there’s at least as much misinformation out there as there is good factual knowledge. Sometimes it’s from people putting forth their best guesses but presenting their case as certainty; it’s not hard, particularly online, to sound authoritative whether conveying truth or fiction. A lot of the time, it’s from people who know practices and processes from other specialties, but are misapplying them to drums. And then, there’s a whole lot of statements that are simply somebody else’s opinions being passed along, over and over again, without any actual test of their accuracy. Welcome to the age of the Internet.
So I see this as an opportunity to talk about drum design, building, and usage without so much clutter and confusion. One of the main reasons I love making drums the way I do is that it’s a constant learning process – I like being a constant student of my craft. It helps support my belief that my best work is always the next build. What I want to talk about in these articles is information that I’ve gathered, evaluated, bounced against conflicting approaches, tested out, and integrated into the Carolina Drumworks build process. What I want to talk about is the relationship between the design of a drum and how it feels and sounds when you play it. What I want to talk about is not just the details, but also about how they work together for the best result.
And I want to talk about drums as musical instruments, not as construction projects. I see an awful lot of drum builders showing off drum shells – finished, unfinished, with edges, without edges, whatever. And some of them are really impressive. They’re not, however, musical instruments, any more than a guitar neck is a guitar or a dashboard is a car.
So here’s where we start: It’s not just woodworking. I say that a lot. IT’S NOT JUST WOODWORKING.
It’s about sound. It’s about music. It’s about giving a performer the very best tool for reproducing their creativity – getting what’s in their head into the audience’s ears as purely and exactly as possible.
And, with that foundation, we’re off and running.
