Atlantic Indoor Association

February 2011 

Rudimental players now eligible to play in a “junior” drum corps and independent indoors were born in the 1990s. YouTube as phenomenon came into existence only in 2005. Many players are loathe to reminisce about the earlier drumlines, the earlier drumming. Many write them off as rudimentally and visually basic. My copy of Pratt screams "history" rather than "hot beats". Of course rudimental drumming’s military roots are unquestioned. And everyone recognizes the priority of today’s snare books on dynamic expression, hybrid rudiments and spicy rhythms.

Internet search engine results are always a source of curiosity and excitement. While I was perusing the web for literature on percussion orchestration, Google delivered up a piece I was immediately drawn to on account of its year of publication. 

The way drummers think of the percussion family is inevitably going to be different from the way composers approach this most unique section of the orchestra. So it was that a book which explained all our beloved musical domain – for the composer – in 1914 but then revised in 1935 – the same year that George Lawrence Stone’s classic Stick Control for the Snare Drummer first came off the presses, in a similar language – might peak the interest of a former snare drummer.

It took me a couple pages to recognize what Cecil Forsyth called the ‘Side-Drum’ as in fact snare drum. Writing a treatise for composers first during the Progressive Era and then the throes of the New Deal era we all learn about in U.S. History, Forsyth uses the writing style of the day. You know it when you read it. Dividing the percussion family into the ‘autophonic’ and ‘membrane’, he makes a further distinction between ‘musical’ and ‘unmusical’ percussion instruments. He points to the differentiating features between them as differences in elasticity of the struck surface, the definite or indefinite pitch they produce, the regular or irregular vibrations they release.

Fr. Tambour (militaire) or Caisse Claire; It. Tamburo militare; Ger. Kleins Trommel.

This, the smallest orchestral drum, is cylindrical in shape. The “shell” is made of brass. At each of the shell is a parchment “head,” that is to say, a circular sheet of prepared sheep-skin. The parchment “heads” are lapped over small hoops, which are themselves pressed down and held in place by means of larger hoops. An arrangement of brass rods and screws or of cords and leathers keeps the “heads” taut. That upper head – that on which the player beats – is called the “batter head”; the lower, the “snare-head.”

Underneath the snare-head – that is to say, at a distance of two parchments and a layer of air from the place where the drum-sticks hit the batter-head – are the snares. These are thin pieces, or a single long thing piece, of catgut, not unlike a rough Violin-string. They are stretched to and fro across the snare-head, from a nut on the one side to a screw-hook on the other. The number of snares varies according to the player’s taste. They may be only two or three, or as many as a dozen. It is found, however, that the most brilliant effect is to be obtained with a fairly large number of snares. However many are used, it is essential that they should be screwed tight down into close contact with the snare-head.

Two sticks are used. These are made of hard wood, with a small olive-shaped knob at the end. When the player attacks the batter-head its vibrations set up waves in the air which is contained in the shell. These waves are communicated to the snare-head, and so to the snares themselves. The immediate effect is to alter the character of the air-waves and to double the number of the vibrations. The explanation of this “doubling” seems to be that the snare continually impinge on the parchment, and so set up a constant series of “point of nodal contact.” In this way this pitch of the snared drum appears to be about an octave higher than that of the same instrument when unsnared. The student should note that it is on these snares that the peculiar quality and brilliance of the Side-Drum depend.

Side-drum playing is an art in itself, and a very difficult art to acquire. It differs from all other Percussion Instruments in that its technique is founded not on a single stroke, but on double alternate strokes with each hand. Thus, in the “long-roll” or “Daddy-Mammy,” the player strikes the batter-head not Left-Right-Left-Right, but LL-RR-LL-RR. In each pair of strokes the latter becomes, by incessant practice, a sort of controlled rebound stroke.

In addition to the roll there are two other strokes commonly used on the Side-Drum. These are (1) the flam, (2) the drag.

The flam consists merely of two notes in this rhythm. When the first note is on the accented beat of the music it is called an open flam. When the second note is on the accented beat is called a closed flam.

The drag is a series of two, three, four, five, or six strokes fused into a sort of instantaneous roll, and preceding an accented note.

The Paradiddle is not really a rhythm, as is often supposed, but a method of arranging the strokes of a rhythm so as to secure an alternate left-handed and right-handed attack on successive principal beats. Thus, if the following simple rhythm [eighth notes] occurred in one single bar only of a side-drum part, the player would probably perform it [LRLRLRLR]. But if the eight-quaver rhythm were persistent through many bars he would probably play it as a paradiddle, so that the attack of any two successive bars would read thus [LRLLRLRR]. In this way he would keep his attention on the alternation of left and right, and so secure a stronger rhythmic impulse.

The quality of the side-drum is hard, dry, and bright, with something “perky,” obstinate, and combative about it. In the theatre it has been in continual use since the time of Meyerbeer and Rossini. The opportunities for its employment in concert-music are fewer. In pieces where some strong characterization is wanted, or where it is desired to call up by association the ideas of war, or of the bustle of military preparation, its use may be appropriate. But even here, unless is merely intended to keep up a sort of frenzied excitement, the composer must remember that when once he has “shot his bolt” with it there is nothing left to be done. Like almost all the other percussion instruments its principal effect is its entry.

In writing Side-Drum parts, remember

1. That you will always have a tendency to write too few, not too many notes.
2. That the genius of the instrument is totally opposed to single detached notes. In fact, they should never be written.
3. That the drag and the flam are only technical ways of accenting effectively a single beat.
4. That practically any rhythmic combinations which you can think can be made intelligible on the instrument.
5. That the long-roll continued either for a few beats or for many bars is equally effective p or f, but that its crescendo cannot be spread out over so many bars as that of the Kettle-Drums.
6. That, in orchestral work at any rate, the composer should write out in full the notes which he wants played. In military bands this is matter partly of tradition, partly of the Drum-major’s discretion.