Chris Preston and New Aquarius Online

“I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription… is more cowbell!”

Quotes from the SNL sketch starring Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken have leaked mercilessly into popular culture, but I’d gather that few ever consider the degree of truth in them. Little percussion instruments can often add the polish that turns a recording of a song into a great record.

Since this is my 100th post on the New Aquarius blog, I thought I’d do something special. Let’s listen together, shall we? Here are some of my favorite recordings on which I feel that percussion really makes the record.

(Since they are used to demonstrate my points, I believe the clips I provide here represent “fair use.” So don’t be coming at me like a copyright spider monkey. I don’t have a player installed on this server, so I hope whatever program you have on your system to play mp3 files also plays these.)

“She’s Gone” by Daryl Hall and John Oates – The intro has eighth notes of wood block on beat one of each measure, doubling the bass figure. To me, it represents the ticking clock in the quiet empty hours experienced by the singer since the woman in the lyric has left him. There even appears to be a mistake in the pattern, which is wonderfully human.

“D’Yer Mak’er” by Led Zeppelin -  Afuche cabasa is used to accent the stilted rhythm. Once you notice it, you’ll never hear the record the same way again. Led Zeppelin can’t do reggae, but they know how to fill up a weak beat. It’s on the upbeat of 2 and 4.

“Day By Day” from the Godspell Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Though the effect of percussion is apparent to some extent on the cast album, the movie soundtrack version of this tune uses percussion wonderfully to build intensity and then provide catharsis. I’ve played the Godspell bass book a number of times. This piece repeats the chorus over and over, but with added percussion every time though. First it’s quarter notes on tambourine on beats 2 and 4, then with straight sixteenths twice through, followed by the entrance at the next cycle of the entire drum set. This development always has an amazing emotional effect on me. My heart leaps every time I hear it, even though I’ve heard it literally thousands of times. This clip is from the movie itself, as I don’t have a copy of the soundtrack album handy.

“Make Me Smile” by Chicago – On this cut from Chicago II, the horn segment before the guitar solo (on the album version, not the chopped up single version) uses a similar cyclical building of percussion every time through, only instead of changing the pattern like in “Day By Day,” another instrument is added first. Initially, it’s tambourine on the left in sixteenths. The next time through, it sounds like maracas added on the right in quarters, held in one hand or used as one percussion instrument in both hands. The recording always sounds to me like the maracas are plastic instead of wood, which I personally might not have chosen to use, but work very well here. Notice how the maracas accelerate to sixteenths with the guitar solo.

“Never Been To Spain” by Elvis Presley – This rather obscure reference is from the 1972 album Elvis As Recorded Live at Madison Square Garden. This song was a hit for Three Dog Night, which was probably good enough for Elvis, but I thought the subtle use of percussion here warranted mention. The songs starts with a vocal, followed by a very sparse pulse-like arrangement that works more like a question and answer. On this particular recording, the first appearance of a castanet part appears in measure two, on the upbeat of beat two. It’s a very subtle but highly effective musical enforcement of the Spanish idea in the lyric. Just a sixteenth note triplet followed by another sixteenth on beat three. This pattern repeats on every other measure and disappears almost as soon as it appeared. Less is more.

“Mono Is King” by me! – This was the title track off my first record. The instrument I used was a ratchet, which is this V-shaped object that places slats of wood against a cog  that you turn with a crank to get the sound. Use of this instrument was more instinctive than by design. I just thought those rim whacks on the snare drum at the top of that ascending figure needed something else. Maybe it was my way of evoking a scratchy vaudevillian flavor to which the bounciness of the tune lent itself. It’s still my favorite part of the arrangement because of how well the effect works.

“Superstition” by Stevie Wonder – Many people are aware that ol’ Stevland played drums on this, but you may not have noticed the overdubs. Stevie must have thought hi-hat needed to do more for the feel, so he added another one. This is a lot harder to hear, but in this clip, the original hi-hat is on the right with the rest of the drum kit. The open hi-hat overdub appears about halfway through on the left. Now try to think of this record without it. It’s not all clavinet, you know?

“Walking On The Moon” by the Police – This record featured the now legendary Stewart Copeland hi-hat overdubs.  They execute the ethereal nature of the production to a T. It could never be performed this way live, because Copeland has only two hands, but the extra hi-hats really help get the point of tune across. Toss in some delay and you get polyrhythms for days! Despite it’s improbability in the real world ensemble, it was an ingenious arrangement decision, I think.

“Born To Run” by Bruce Springsteen – The E Street Band is so huge that it’s difficult to play anything in that band that someone else isn’t already playing. To add an amazing sparkle to the top of the arrangement, key melodic figures played on piano or guitar could also appear simultaneously a few octaves higher on glockenspiel. Glockenspiel works well to cut through the cacophony of marching bands, so why not an equally huge rock band? (I’ve used the trick myself. I played the bell chime melody on glock on “It’s Christmas (Let It Touch You).”)  On “Born To Run” and many other tracks, such as “Hungry Heart” and “Something In The Night,” glockenspiel makes the music sound nothing short of majestic to my ear. Live, the late Danny Federici would often play these parts on celeste, a keyboard instrument in which the keys activate hammers that strike high-pitched metal disks. Here’s a sample of all three tunes.

“Nowhere To Run” by Martha & the Vandellas – Speaking of running… On this record, a chain is actually used as a percussion instrument. Where? Check the upbeat of 3. Clinking away, it sounds like it’s rhythmically being dropped from hand to hand. Awesome.

“Living In Sin” by Gene Simmons – This song appears on the 1978 solo album, Gene Simmons. The tune starts a low pitched drumbeat. You can hear the drums resonating and it’s very fat. But the real motion of the figure is handled by sandpaper blocks, rubbing together in an eighth note pattern on the left. After the whole band comes in, they’re still there if you listen closely. Without this bit of percussion tastiness, the recording would have been very different.

That’s all I have for now. Can you think of any others? Get out your headphones and lay them on me. Until then, remember that your record isn’t truly finished until the percussion toys come out!

As we crest the mountain of Advent (that’s what they call the time before Christmas, if you’re Catholic) and go screaming headlong into the trough of Christmas, I felt it only fitting yesterday to take my family to the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. I’ve seen the show many times over the years. Some of the scenes remain the same, but they always add something new to keep it fresh, for lack of a better word.

Among my favorite parts of the Christmas show have always been the organists playing at the beginning. I have to get at one of those organs someday. It’s such a mess of sound in that huge room. I always enjoy how the organs rattle the walls but the guys playing them never seem to be working up a sweat. I was really close to the one on the right this year. From my seat, I couldn’t hear the other guy way over on the other side of the hall. I thought there’d be a monitor, but I didn’t see or hear one. It occurred to me for the first time what a bitch it must be to judge the delays in the sound and still make something sound like music. If the organists don’t use in-ear monitors to hear each other, they must be operating on instinct.

The most interesting change in the show this year was how the orchestra seemed to have moved almost exclusively to sampled percussion. As usual, at the start of the show, the orchestra floated up on one of the many hydraulic stage platforms. Immediately, I could see that the drums were what appeared to be the top-of-line Roland V-Drums, the TD-20KX. They retail for something like $5k. Oh to have a budget… Before I got heavily into synthesizers, I would have immediately deemed the V-Drums nonsense. Those days are gone for me though, and I must admit that they are nothing short of neato-torpedo. I used to be a real nazi for real instruments and all that, but since I can’t very easily bring a piano, a Hammond B-3, a Fender Rhodes and a Wurly to gigs, adopting synthesized versions of those instruments certainly got more music made, which is kind of the whole point. Therefore, I knocked off the “real only” rule. The way I see it, synthesized drums are no different than keyboard instruments. In an orchestra with limited space and volume control considerations, V-Drums seem to be a reasonable alternative to the eyesore of acoustic barrier panels and to the miking headaches. Try to put drums that close to a string section and see if it’s not a complete pain in the ass to get the sound right. I’ve played enough pits to know that volume is always an issue. With electronic drums, it’s a simple matter of pulling a fader and the drummer can play as hard as he likes. Though I’ve never played them, the V-Drums with mesh heads are supposed to provide a very realistic feel for the drummer.

All the synthesized stuff required that everyone in the orchestra be on in-ear monitors and I’m sure they could hear everything perfectly. Theoretically, that makes for a better musical performance.  However, I have to admit that I haven’t heard a cymbal sample that I thought was really great yet and as I listened to them yesterday, I recognized the deficiency immediately. It was also very strange not to hear the gentle bleed of cymbal crashes or snare drum coming from the direct vicinity of the orchestra and not just from the sound system. I always enjoyed that part of the experience in previous productions of the Christmas show. Very few people probably noticed it, but I always did.

The other percussionists had very elaborate controllers that I’d never even seen before. Many of them seemed to be circular and have trigger pads arranged like the tonal surfaces of a steel drum. To see these guys working mallets on these little rubber pads is kind of anticlimactic, but it helped fit what sounded like a very well-equipped orchestra into a very small space.

Whenever electronic percussion is used live, I usually notice one piece of the configuration that seems woefully out of place — one instrument that would seem to be a no-brainer for triggering a sample with a controller. On a Yes tour in the 90s, the band staged a reunion of most of the members that had been in the band over the years. Bill Bruford, whom I thought to be the more colorful of the Yes drummers, played electronic drums while Alan White played traditional traps. (Back in my nazi anti-synth days, I’d have been appalled by Bruford’s instrument choice.) When it came time to do “And You And I” off Close To The Edge, it was so odd after the bass entered to see Bruford reach into the middle of his electronic rig to strike a triangle with a microphone on it. Why go through all that trouble when everything else was “fake?” Yesterday, at the far edge of the platform with the orchestral percussionists, was a lone acoustic timpani with a Sennheiser 421 on it. All of the mallet instruments were done with samples and controllers, but here was another instrument that would only be used occasionally at most, sitting there with a big ol’ mic on it.

Why does it always seem to go like that? Is it because percussionists have a guilty conscience about going electronic? I can’t decide whether the holdover instrument is cool or just the percussionist’s way of coping with a pink elephant in the living room. Ten years ago, I might have felt differently, but now, I think it’s OK to detach. If you’re going electronic, just go for it. Whatever gets the music made. It’s always better than doing without it.

Usually when I’m doing a record, the percussion overdubs are one of the last things I do. I suppose I always waited until the end because minor percussion instruments are like spice. They dress up the arrangement just enough to make it sound complete. If you listen closely to your favorite records, I’m sure that you’ll find all kinds of little percussion goodies going on. I’m talking about things like tambourines, shakers, maracas, guiro, ratchet, vibraslap, claves, triangle… stuff like that.

The importance of these instruments is often underestimated. I underestimate it myself. See how I referred to them as “minor” percussion? Since I have a better sense of the tunes I’m working on now, and my voice hasn’t come back completely from my last gig (I pushed it because I was sick), I thought I’d tackle some percussion overdubs little earlier in the process than usual.

In my experience, percussion overdubs can only mean one thing…blisters. That’s right, blisters. My hands take a beating when I play these things, especially tambourine. Like many musical instruments, playing tambourine requires repetitive motion that I have to control very well. (Without question, it can make or break the groove.) However, it’s not an instrument that I can say that I ever practice. I only pick it up when I need it and within in an hour, I’m feeling the characteristic pinch under the skin on my hand. I keep telling myself that I have to tape the thing up, but I wonder if that would even help.

In this picture, my tambourine is the second from the left. See how CP (Cosmic Percussion) tries to help you out? They shape the wood into a handle of sorts so it’s easier to grip. My problem is that I have these huge paws and the narrower area is hard for me to hold and still control well. So I end up gripping the large part of the wood frame, over the bells, which dig into my hand something fierce. When the blisters start to form, I start playing harder and holding tighter. Before long, I’m accenting so hard with my other hand that I end up bruising my thumb. You haven’t lived until you’ve felt the hard wood of a headless tambourine whack against a bone. Ah yes, I go through this with every record. The suffering is like an old friend.

So the next time you hear someone downplaying tambourines and such, remind them that it’s very easy to play the instrument poorly and as a result, completely destroy the groove. It’s a big responsibility. When played well, I have known tambourines and other percussion toys to fix all kinds of arrangement problems as well as inject new excitement into a track. I blame television for making it look easy.