Bo Eder
Platinum Member
I'm always telling music students to buy some kind of recorder so they can record themselves whenever they do anything. It's the only honest way of determining how you really sound and you can look back on it as a record of improvement as you get older.
Well, I acquired an old reel-to-reel tape deck to listen to some ancient tapes I found at my mom's house (haven't been listened to since 1978 - since that's when my dad's original deck was stolen when the house was burglarized while we were on vacation in Hawaii), and tonight I made a shocking discovery when I found a snippet of ME playing my drums circa 1975-77.
I remember the kit well: it was an ancient Slingerland kit in gold sparkle: 14x24 bass drum with a 9x13 matching tom, and I remember using the 5x14 matching snare as an extra tom tom. All three drums were single-headed. I had some imported Japanese snare drum in sky blue pearl (5x14). The only nice things on the kit were the 14" New Beat hi hats, and a Ludwig Speed King pedal. My one cymbal at the time was a 14" KRUT cymbal (absolutely lousy). Evidently just having one cymbal and hats started in my formative days
It was quite a freak-out listening to myself as a child. I was already an emotional mess listening to things dad recorded over 40 years ago (he passed away in 2012) and cataloging it - I might make a "favorites" recording for mom - but I'm not sure she wants to re-live any of that, either. But my playing was horrid. The drums did sound like drums, and that KRUT cymbal sounded like a bad gongy splash cymbal. I'm assuming recording myself was my idea since I can hear myself doing a mic check ("testing 1, 2") before I started to play. My voice was much higher then!
Everything was fast, snare drum rudiments were incredibly sloppy, no real time to speak of. My God what I put my parents through when I was a kid! And the whole neighborhood could hear it!
No, I will not be playing this for anybody anytime soon. I just wanted to put out what happened to me today. The good news is I can say I've improved so much since then. On the other hand, over the next ensuing 40 years, I better have!
I guess I'm glad I didn't grow up in the selfie-internet generation. My formative years are NOT on display for all to see
Well, I acquired an old reel-to-reel tape deck to listen to some ancient tapes I found at my mom's house (haven't been listened to since 1978 - since that's when my dad's original deck was stolen when the house was burglarized while we were on vacation in Hawaii), and tonight I made a shocking discovery when I found a snippet of ME playing my drums circa 1975-77.
I remember the kit well: it was an ancient Slingerland kit in gold sparkle: 14x24 bass drum with a 9x13 matching tom, and I remember using the 5x14 matching snare as an extra tom tom. All three drums were single-headed. I had some imported Japanese snare drum in sky blue pearl (5x14). The only nice things on the kit were the 14" New Beat hi hats, and a Ludwig Speed King pedal. My one cymbal at the time was a 14" KRUT cymbal (absolutely lousy). Evidently just having one cymbal and hats started in my formative days
It was quite a freak-out listening to myself as a child. I was already an emotional mess listening to things dad recorded over 40 years ago (he passed away in 2012) and cataloging it - I might make a "favorites" recording for mom - but I'm not sure she wants to re-live any of that, either. But my playing was horrid. The drums did sound like drums, and that KRUT cymbal sounded like a bad gongy splash cymbal. I'm assuming recording myself was my idea since I can hear myself doing a mic check ("testing 1, 2") before I started to play. My voice was much higher then!
Everything was fast, snare drum rudiments were incredibly sloppy, no real time to speak of. My God what I put my parents through when I was a kid! And the whole neighborhood could hear it!
No, I will not be playing this for anybody anytime soon. I just wanted to put out what happened to me today. The good news is I can say I've improved so much since then. On the other hand, over the next ensuing 40 years, I better have!
I guess I'm glad I didn't grow up in the selfie-internet generation. My formative years are NOT on display for all to see