Just some technical jargon for you to enjoy!

Hello everyone:

So here are a few technical terms for percussion that I think are interesting and not many people think about:

1) Grip - This term refers to how we hold the stick/mallet. Though it seems like a simple concept (with the whole "you just hold a stick and hit the thing" thought process), it is actually extremely advanced. I have been a percussionist for over 10 years, and I am still today working on the technical aspects of my grip. It is the direct link to being able to communicate and control everything you play, no matter how difficult/easy/quiet/loud/fast/slow it it. Percussionists do not just hold the stick.

2) Closed versus Open Rolls - This refers to how percussionists execute rolls (our version of sustained notes) when playing them. There are traditional open rolls, meaning that for every wrist/arm motion the stick hits the drum twice, and closed rolls which means the stick hits the drum three or more times for every wrist/arm motion. This is more commonly known as a buzz roll (a term that I think is a misnomer and encourages bad technique). Skillful percussionists work to control the amount of bounces per stroke, manipulating the roll to be produced with a consistent number of bounces.

3) Microshifting - This is more of an advanced concept. If you look at a picture of a marimba or any other mallet instrument with a "graduated" bar system, you will notice that notes at the lower end of the instrument are wider than those at the top. As you move through the entire range of the instrument, you will have to slightly change the distance between your mallets to compensate for that slight change in bar size. For example, if I play two notes on an instrument, and move to the same two notes an octave up, I will have to ever so slightly change the distance between the two mallets, or I would risk playing the wrong notes. This gets significantly more complicated once using four mallets. It gets even more complicated when you realize every marimba company has different bar sizes, so you have to constantly be aware of how they differ, and how you can compensate for those changes. This is one of the many reasons why percussionists try to practice on whatever instrument they will perform on.

Whenever I am speaking with someone, and they ask me what I do for a living, I make sure to respond that I am a percussionist. 95% of the time, the person I am speaking with responds with, "Oh, so you are a drummer! I love the drums man!..." There are stigmas tied to the word "drummer" in the percussion community. There is nothing wrong with people that drum; I have a ton of respect for so many people that actually play drums for a living, but there is something inherently disrespectful when you spend your life perfecting the art of percussion, and someone just refers to you as a drummer. Not only is it disrespectful, but the misconception is often annoying as well. I recently was a groomsman in my cousin's wedding, and her new husband's brother-in-law found out I was a "drummer", so he proceeded to talk to me about hair metal drumming for the next three days...

I do not want to come off as conceited when I say this. If someone ever calls me a drummer, I will just laugh, tell them that I do play the drums, as well as other instruments. I just felt that this is a good forum, specifically since the question was posed, to discuss the abhorrence that many percussionists feel when we are referred to as "drummers" rather than "percussionists".