Texas Big Beat on Oct 21st
2007-10-26 by Stephanie
Hey, wow! What a day! We had 438 drummers show up. It was LOUD, I'll tell you! That night, I went to bed, and I could still feel bass drums reverberating through my body until I feel asleep. Anyway, we didn't break the world record, but we now have a state record to break next time. And we raised $36,000 for Cherish Our Children International. We unloaded drums by the hundreds in the morning, and we spent much of the morning talking to people, looking at each other's drum sets, and playing on them. Because I'm in an apartment, currently going through a technique revamp, it was a treat to play on my drum set with normal drum heads on instead of the special "no-noise" drum heads. These heads affect the feel you have when you play on them, and to my surprise, it didn't really change much the way I play off the drum heads. We had a long wait until everyone got set up. We had everyone from 2-3 years old on up playing! The event started at 3 PM. Prizes were awarded to those who raised the most money in the previous 2-3 months, and other things went on. During the charity portion of the event, people would "cheer" by playing on the drum sets until the announcers raised their hands to stop, and then those in the front of the entire group would raise their arms to indicate likewise, followed by those behind them, and so on. It was like a wave of sound moving from one end to the other. Really neat! We didn't start playing until shortly before 5 PM because we were still waiting on more drummers to show up. Finally, we had to go ahead with the numbers we had. It was an interesting experience, because sound and distance serves to trick the mind into playing out of time. You can't really rely on listening to the person next to you, so you have to sync up with the time originator. I was really lost, as people were playing out of time with the conductor, and even the stage band didn't sync up with the conductor sometimes. I ended up picking one of the drummers on the main stage I could see and locking with him. At times, we were completely out of sync with the stage drummers, so I raised my arm in the air in time so that the others could see where they needed to be. You can see my photos at www.deafdrummer.org/pic-link.html and scroll down near the bottom. There are a LOT more photos and two videos at Rod Ryan's The Buzz 94.5 web site - http://rodryan.thebuzz.com/pages/drum.html There will be at least one more announcement, the release of the DVD of this event, which is reported to be two hours long when completed. Thanks! -- Stephanie Ellison www.deafdrummer.org The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness - Nikos Kazantzakis 1883-1957, Greek Writer "You have the right to remain helpless. Should you choose to waive this right, anything you do may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an assailant. If you cannot find one for yourself, the court will release one for you." --Steve Munden (from Cooper's Commentaries)