Today myself and Ryan improved upon the development to our research proposal before the regular weekly meeting’s with Dave on Fridays.

Our main focus today was to focus upon narrowing down our target audience for the EP. Further research for the first track was undertaken, developing the rudimental elements which we want to incorporate throughout a lot of the  recorded snare drum sections within the marching snare style format. We also took a brief look at the approaches in which would be taken in regards to promoting each section of the EP as an individual art piece rather than a collective collaboration. We felt that taking this element into consideration, it would increase the overall target market for the EP. By attempting to use a range of radio outputs, we feel that this will be the biggest source of media promotion, drawing attention for listeners to check out all supporting online material. Key radio stations including 6 Music, and Resonance FM are well known for playing a vast array of experimental music. These stations will provide a large audience who are familiar with types of music regularly played on the stations, and we feel that some of the tracks on the EP could draw interest to their listeners.

Alongside Ryan, I have been looking into examples and ideas for inspiration in both performance elements of the pieces and further techniques and mixing styles used for specific genres of music. Some of the links below have provided vital inspiration for the progression in the writing process of each track.

Track 1: As this piece is focusing upon marching snare elements and similar jungle rhythms, I have been able to take ideas and inspiration from both Textual and visual analysis. My main inspiration for the first track of the EP has been that rudimental book from drumming icon Buddy Rich. This book contains a variety of drum rudiments and snare rolls in a musically written format which can be practiced and performed to a click track or to backing tracks of music. Coming from a sight reading background, I have been able to relate to some of the featured rudiments within the book and combine the use techniques including various types of paradiddles, flams and ghosted notes to use within my performance aspects and elements of the first track. This has further helped in practicing technique and could count as the part of the pre production process for the EP.

 

Video’s on YouTube including that of the Drum Marine Corp have shown examples of how some of the rudiments demonstrated in the Buddy Rich book are used in practical manner. One video in particular of the Swiss Drum Corps demonstrated many of these rudiments performed in a effective manner and further reflected similar elements in which myself and Ryan are hoping to achieve with the first piece.

 

(Top Secret Drum Corps – Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJVdnMAGIt8

 

Track 2:  With this piece focusing upon sampled sounds I have conducted research into both production elements of sampling and retriggering drum sounds, combined with the playing styles of many drummers associated around the popular genres. Programs including that of Drumagog 5 and Steven Slate Trigger offer the option to retrigger selected drum sounds with a variety of different velocity sensitive samples which can be manually programmed into an electronic triggered drum set. Software including these programs will prove crucial to use throughout the second track of the EP, enabling the freedom to create custom drum sets out of digitally manipulated sound effects and open the option for the use of loops, samples and sections of acapella vocals.

As we will be combining drumming elements of four popular genres of music, I have drawn inspiration and interest from a variety of popular drummers, covering a range of genres including that of R’nB, D’n’B, and Dubstep styled genres. These genres can often combine the use of speed throughout various sections whilst maintaining the relaxed groove of the song. Two of the main drummers I took inspiration from included that of famous zildjian artist Arron Spears, famously known for many of his performances with Usher.

 

Aaron Spears – (Caught Up) Live at the Modern Drummer Festival 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtbWVfcZyJc

 

A further inspiration included that of later Pendulum drummer KJ Sawka, who often performs both with the band and stages solo appearances utilizing the use of sampling and DJ software throughout his performances.

KJ Sawka – Live at the Dub Land Underground 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbmeEO4NgZE

 

Track 3: I began to look into areas of research for the third EP piece focusing around a more street cultured aspect of drumming. As this piece will be performance based leaving little to manipulation in editing, my main inspirations included that of focusing upon the popular drumming theatre group stomp and that of both American and Brazilian based street drummers. This helped to gain an insight into what different object we may be able to use to achieve particular percussive sounds within this section of the EP

Stomp Live (Part 1) – Brooms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ7aYQtIldg

The Stomp Musical Theatre Group

Street Drummers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_levPdO3zE – (Street Drummer with buckets for drums)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG1kgKJkf8c – (Best Street Bucket Drumming!)