Found some ancient recordings!

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 ;)
 
Interesting !

Boy it would be scary to hear a recording of my playing when I first started out..........

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At the time you think that you're killing it though. They're long gone but I remember hearing some tapes of my psychedelic j-teen band recorded on my dad's reel to reel (over something that he liked I'm sure) many years later. What a mess. Thankfully I'm sure none of it survived.
 
It is good medicine to look at your past from time to time to see how far that you have come.
Just as long as you retain your perspective on how far that it is that you have to go :)
 
But you can't judge then by now's standards! If you could play then the way you can play now, you'd have done it, wouldn't you?
 
Do you still have that Slingerland set?

Sadly, no. You know how it is when you're a kid. You're always looking at new stuff. My next kit after this one was still a Slingerland, though.

I realize that you have to go through this on the path to getting better, but I don't recall ever thinking I was "killin' it". It was just something I did around riding my bike, eating. And going to elementary school. But I recall playing solos as I got older in jr. High and high school and that must've been pretty horrid as well. I guess I should count myself as lucky getting to do all this stuff at such an early age as it just started my learning curve a bit earlier than most. I was definitely with no talent collecting building blocks that I keep stacking up to this day
 
Damn I was hoping to hear the ancient recordings. I have some from the 70's as well. Yea, they were bad, but at the time....it was so much fun.
 
Damn I was hoping to hear the ancient recordings. I have some from the 70's as well. Yea, they were bad, but at the time....it was so much fun.

Well, maybe I'll let them out - providing people asking post theirs as well, Larry ;) Mine can be used as a warning of how not to play!
 
What's that old saying? Something like:

I'm not who I want to be, I'm not who I'm going to be, but thankfully I'm not who I was.
 
Damn I was hoping to hear the ancient recordings. I have some from the 70's as well. Yea, they were bad, but at the time....it was so much fun.

Well, maybe I'll let them out - providing people asking post theirs as well, Larry ;) Mine can be used as a warning of how not to play!

Yeah... please both of you upload those yesteryear recordings on the forum :)

Not how to play? ... err, I don't think so Mo ... let us be the judge of that, eh?
 
ah the good old days. I had a Krut 18'' in the 70's I think it sounded pretty good. If I heard it now, I might not think so though. I'm so grateful for my mother's patience. I was self taught. The first several yrs. must have been terrible for her. She always told me how good I was though. What would we do with out loving mothers? The earliest recordings I have, are from 78 or 79 In many ways, I think I sound the same today. I guess I am who I am, and it comes out on the kit as well.
 
Let 'em out, Bo. I'll show you mine if you show me yours :)

I don't know about you, but I liked the energy and adventurousness of my old recordings. Certainly more than my neighbours would have done. There's one really early recording of an extended jam that was truly diabolical (and funny) that I haven't been able to find.
 
Yeah... please both of you upload those yesteryear recordings on the forum :)

Not how to play? ... err, I don't think so Mo ... let us be the judge of that, eh?

As soon as I figure out how to upload a cassette tape, I'll get right on that.
 
My take on this:

Me: I'd cut off my big toe if I could figure out how to do it

Nonny: This meat cleaver would do the trick!

But seriously, what a neat little gizmo! It's so cute!

Save the cleaver, Larry! It has instructions. I'm a thickhead when it comes to sussing out tech and thing gizmo is simple because it's designed to only do one thing. The instructions get you to download Audacity and tell you what to click. I've transferred many hours of old stuff from cassette to digital this way. Good to transfer them ASAP because the tape degrades.
 
On a different note, I found that my parents have some "ancient recordings" too. They have some 78rpm recordings of the old Jazz at the Phill, with original drum battles with Gene Kruppa, and others of the era!
 
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