“On March 25th a memorial concert for percussionist John Wyre was held at Toronto’s Music Gallery. John was a remarkable person and a unique artist who I feel honoured to have known since I was a young percussion student. He passed away on October 31 [2006] at the age of 65 in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

“For most of his adult life John, who was born in Philadelphia, lived in Toronto where he’d moved to assume the timpani chair of the TSO in 1966. He was a wonderful timpanist, who drew a warm, dark sound from the instrument. Seiji Ozawa prized his talents so highly that he enlisted him to perform with the Boston Symphony whenever he could.

“He played for the TSO for eleven years, and anyone that attended concerts in those days surely won’t have forgotten him: tall and slim, with a long, flowing beard and shoulder-length hair, he was a doppelganger for Jesus Christ himself. And many young percussionists, myself included, were followers.

“He was 1960s hip, and his downtown apartment, above a hairdresser on Yonge Street south of St.Clair, was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

“I remember the thrill I felt walking up the narrow staircase and into a room filled with exotic instruments: Balinese nipple gongs, assorted African and Chinese drums, cymbals of all shapes and sizes, and bells hanging everywhere. He collected flower pots too, which he’d suspended from the ceiling and would play with yarn mallets. He was in love with sound in its purist form.

“He also had brake drums (yes, the ones from cars; strike them and they produce a resonant “ping”) so I paid a visit to a wrecker for a set of my own. They were proudly displayed in my bedroom, and when I hit them with a mallet, bits of rust would spill onto the floor. I also collected some bells and picked up a dholak – a North Indian hand drum that I never learned to play.

“In 1971 John co-founded the renowned percussion group Nexus. Each member of this remarkable ensemble brought something unique to the whole, but I can’t help thinking that within John, more than anyone, rested its soul.

“In the early 1980s John began producing and directing a series of monumental World Drum festivals. He pulled together 250 drummers for Vancouver’s Expo ’86 – including tribal drummers from Africa and Indonesian gamelan orchestras. Rhombus Media documented the event in the film World Drums.

“He retired from Nexus in 2002 and, with his wife Jean Donelson, moved to St. John’s Newfoundland in order to focus on music composition. He had already distinguished himself as a composer, with his Connexus having been performed by the TSO as well as the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. I only saw him once after that, at a concert in Toronto. He’d written a book, his memoirs, which I bought and had him inscribe. I spoke to him briefly over the phone when I heard that he was struggling with cancer of the jaw. It came as a shock, though, when I heard that it had taken his life.

“The memorial concert brought together musicians that had been close to John. Several of his compositions were performed, as were pieces from Africa, Brazil, Georgia and the Middle East. An old interview was broadcast. Bill Cahn, of Nexus, and percussionist Sal Ferreras shared reminiscences. Though most that attended were personally touched by John’s passing, the tone was upbeat – a celebration of a profoundly rich and rewarding life. But when Nexus performed the final work, a traditional Zimbabwean piece called Tongues, I choked up a little.

“The lead instrument of the piece is the mbira, also known as a thumb piano. It’s mounted within a gourd topped with beads that buzz ever so lightly when the tongues of the instrument are plucked. The sound it creates is clear and gentle. The music itself has a haunting beauty; simple and direct, it has a lilt to it that produces a calming effect. It wasn’t until I began writing this piece that I looked up Tongues on Nexus Percussion, where I read: “In the Shona culture of Zimbabwe, the mbira is strongly associated with memories of departed ancestors and with the experience of remembering in general.”

“Mbira is also the name of the mystical music the instrument produces. John himself was a spiritual man, and I discovered that this was his favourite piece. Not surprisingly, I heard a lot of John in this music.

“He will be remembered by his colleagues and friends as a unique musical voice and a beautiful human being.”

Thank you, Stewart, for sharing your reminiscences with us.

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1853. George D. Klinehanse, The Manual of Instruction For Drummers, On An Improved Plan. Containing The Rudiments Of Drum — Beating; with rules for Common, Quick, and Compound Time: together with The Whole Of The Camp Duties Etc. prepared under the direction of the adjutant General of the United States Army, approved of by the commander-in-Chief And Adopted For The Use Of The Army Of The United States. 27 rudiments.

Until it was replaced by the Gardiner A. Strube Instructor in 1869, the Klinehanse manual was the only drum book officially approved for military duty by the U.S. Army.  The copy which I was allowed to photograph, resides in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. It contains 27 rudiments. The Poing Stroke appears below in the first measure of stave three and in The Rules To Be Observed By The Pupil, a brief one page introduction to his book, the author gives instructions for its use in the camp duty, to my knowledge the first and only such instructions regarding the Poing Stroke to appear in print.

Those Rules also direct the drummer to place the heel of the right foot into the hollow of the left foot, exactly opposite to Potter’s instructions (see Part 2.).  Klinehanse’s notation, left-hander above, right hand below and both on one stave is clear and reminiscent of The Young Drummers Assistant (see Part 1.) and Bruce and Emmett, Drummers and Fifer’s Guide, see below.

1853-George D. Klinehanse,Washington,DC.

According to US Department of Defense records, a George H. Klinehanse of Washington DC served in the Navy/Marine Corps during the Civil War in the United States (1861-65).  The Klinehanse family appears to have been large, moderately well to do and involved in their community. At least two Klinehanse men served as trustees on local boards of education.

1860. Swiss.¹ This notation is of interest to me because the bottom or more modern parts resemble in some respects the notation that concludes this article, a shorthand device now in use particularly in Connecticut, which I have come to call “The Code”,

1860 ca.- Swiss,with modern notation below.

1861. Keach, Burditt and Cassidy, The Army Drum And Fife Book containing Full Illustrations, the Reveille, the Tattoo the various calls and beats used in the service and a choice collection of music to which is added the buglers call book, containing all the infantry general calls and calls for skirmishers, used in the U.S. 18 rudiments.

This is the first book to appear with dual drum notation: that is, a separate space for the left and right hand and then below on another stave the same beat replicated in modern notation. Keach contains 18 rudiments, including the single stroke roll, an eight stroke roll, and a side Flamadidle, but no Poing Stroke.

In the Preface to the drum section, this appears, “Hitherto, books intended to give instruction in Drum beating, were almost useless, owing to the unintelligible manner or system of instruction. In the Modern School, the System of Professor Keach, (recommended by Edward Kendall², the greatest of Drummers as well as of Buglers), is used as being the best, imparting to the pupil, who faithfully adheres to the rules and practice, all that is needful to make a good Drummer.”

Modesty aside, Keach’s contribution to this book is one of the clearest expositions of the rudiments of drumming ever written.

1861-Keach, Burditt & Cassidy Boston, MA.

1861-1Keach, Burditt and Cassidy, Boston.

This page from Keach may convey a seriousness of purpose more than precise details for drumming technique, but to my knowledge it is the first attempt to illustrate grip and stance in a drum book. Notice the heel of the right foot against the heel of the left.

1862.  George. Barrett Bruce and Daniel Decatur Emmett,  The Drummers’ and Fifers’  Guide or Self  Instructor. 36 rudiments.

On page four appears Rudimental Principles, containing paragraphs devoted to putting on drum heads, holding the drum and holding drumsticks. Then follows instructions for the long roll and 35 other rudiments in left-hand right-hand notation, each on one stave as seen in the example below.  Bruce then repeats all the rudiments in modern notation.

Fred Johnson the founder of the Canadian rudimental drum organization  Canadian Associates  Drumming Rudimental Excellence (C.A.D.R.E.) and a distinguished teacher of many fine field drum players suggested some years ago that the reason Bruce and Emmett’s “Guide” was never officially adopted by the United States Army was because too many of the drum beatings and fife tunes were simply beyond the capabilities of the average military musician of the era.

True or not, the Guide is full of some of the most glorious music ever written for Fife and drum. The wedding of the two voices is beyond reproach and having played some of those tunes for over 50 years I can confidently say they will remain as meaningful to future generations as to those of the present and past.³

1862-Geo. Bruce & Dan. Emmett, Drummer's & Fifer's Guide, New Yor

1862. Col. H. C. Hart, New York. New and Improved Instructor for the Drum with Original Notation, Containing all calls of the camp and field, for Drum, Fife and Bugle. Signals of the Drum Major; Position and Duties of Drum Corps at Guard Mounting, Parades, Reviews and Escorts. 27 Rudiments

1862-Col. H. C. Hart, New York, NY. Ex.2.

1862-Col H. D. Hart, New York, NY. Ex.1.

I have looked through his book on numerous occasions and am always discouraged, probably because I have been thoroughly trained in traditional Western music notation and the idea of learning a new system is simply too daunting. Still, I’m impressed by Hart’s effort.⁴ Also, there is much information in this book to interest music and military historians which goes beyond the subject of these articles

1862, Elias Howe, Boston. United States Regulation Drum and Fife Instructor, for the use of the Army and Navy consisting of full rules and exercises, the duties of musicians on all occasions, Full Camp Duty, Signals, Calls, etc. also the complete bugle call for the infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Also the pay and emoluments of musicians, and of every grade in the Army or Navy to which is added Several Popular National and Patriotic Songs as Quartets. 24 Rudiments.

The notation and layout in Howe appear to be even clearer than Keach already discussed above.  As in Keach, the left-hand right-hand notation is also represented in the modern style on a separate stave below. Howe devotes two pages to the drum rudiments and army camp signals in the notation of 1812 which he calls the Old English style. (His examples appear to be copied after Klinehanse and the Young Drummer’s Assistant.) Howe’s book contains the largest library of fife tunes among the books under discussion. The drum Beatings for these tunes are not as interesting as those of George B. Bruce, but they are clear and playable.

1862-Elias Howe, Boston, MA.

1864. William Nevins, Chicago. Drum Major of Gen. McClellan’s⁵ Body Guard.

Army Regulations for Drum, Fife, And Bugle; being a complete manual for these instruments, giving all the calls for Camp and Field Duty, to which is added Suitable Music for each Instrument. 30 Rudiments including Poing Strokes: Hard, Middling Hard, Faint or Soft.

Compare this notation with Klinehanse, above.

1864-William Nevins, Chicago, IL.

1869, Gardiner A. Strube. By Authority. Strube’s Drum and Fife Instructor: Containing the Rudimental Principles of Drumbeating, Scale for the Fife, Rudiments of Music and a New and entirely Original System of expressing Hand to Hand Drumming^.6 The end The Full And Correct United states army Duty For Both Instruments. Composed and arranged in a simple and instructive manner. 25 Rudiments

Gardiner A. Strube was Drum-Major 12th Infantry, N. G. S. N. Y., Formerly Drummer in CO. A., 5th Regiment, N.Y. V., Duryea’s Zouaves

When the National Association of Rudimental Drummers (N. A R. D.) was founded in 1933 its members adopted the 25 Rudiments of Gardiner A. Strube with the addition of the Single Stroke Roll and then selected from them a group which they called the 13 essential rudiments. Some rudimental drummers today trace their lineage back to Strube whilst others declare fealty to Bruce via Ashworth.

As can be seen in the example below, Strube uses on one stave, the left-hand above, right hand below and the beginnings and endings of phrases in the middle (see The Young Drummer’s Assistant, Part 1.)

1869-Gardiner A. Strube, New York, N.Y,

I began writing these articles because I hoped to answer the question, “Why did military drummers continue to invent arcane and sometimes unintelligible drum notations after a viable system was already in use by composers and performers of Western art music?”

I believed one answer to have been vanity. The numerous drum books published in the United States during the first two decades of the 19th century, many of which boldly stated the superiority of their system and notation, assured me that vanity was indeed the raison d’être for some authors.

Another possible answer, really a guess based on hearsay, was that military drum teachers were looking for a quick and simple way of teaching the signals, calls and rudiments of drumming to young boys new to military service.  However, after studying the examples above and the books from which they are derived, I believe this to be untrue.

My original intention was to end these examples of snare drum notation with the Strube book of 1869 because I  believe the major issues of drum notation, at least in North America, had pretty well been resolved by the third quarter of the 19th century.

But midway through this third article, serendipity intervened. An e-mail from my friend Doug Kleinhans, former Hellcat drummer with the West Point Military Academy, drum corps instructor and composer of brilliantly quirky snare drum solos, sent me the first notation shown below.

A former student of his who had studied with the late great New England rudimental drummer Earl Sturtze, had sent Doug this manuscript. Doug thought the notation was called the “Connecticut Code” and that it was associated with the Lancraft Fife and Drum Corps.⁷ I contacted Lancraft’s Web master, fifer, restorer and publisher of historical fife and drum books, Edmund Boyle, sent him a sample notation and asked him what he knew about this “Code”. There ensued a correspondence with perhaps a half a dozen Lancraft members which in itself is a story.  I learned that perhaps only one drummer in Lancraft read music and this notation is a shorthand they use to learn their beats during all practices together and privately at home.

I was told that they can learn and memorize a their beatings faster using this shorthand than drummers who read music.  There are issues of phrasing and dynamics,etc. which are handled in detail, but teachers such as Earl Sturtze and Ken Mazur have it tested to the efficacy of this shorthand system and have only taken time to teach students how to read music when the student has demanded to be taught.

Here then is another answer to my question, albeit modern. The Lancraft drummers do not refer to this  as “The Code”, but depending on their teacher, they are all familiar with some short hand system.

2006-Thomas Sanders Medley, Snare drum in Lancraft shorthand.

2006-Thomas Sanders, Ken Masur shorthand version.

Thomas Sanders, Jay Tuomey, page 2., copied by Risto Skrikberg.

Footnotes to Part 3:

1. From a three CD set, Trommeln und Pfeifen in Basel, Ursprunge Entwicklung Perspektiven,CD181996.  BREO.  This is a history of Swiss drumming performed by some of Switzerland’s greatest drummers from old and modern manuscripts. A large, copiously illustrated booklet (In Swiss) accompanies the set.

2. Praise indeed.  Two compositions by Edward (Ned) Kendall  were chosen by George B. Bruce and Daniel D. Emmett for inclusion in their famous Drummers and Fifer’s Guide of 1862.  They appear on page 69, “Ancient and Hon. Artillery” and 70, “Ned Kendall’s”.

3. Concerning the “Downfall of Paris”, arguably Bruce and Emmett’s masterpiece, the legendary drummer, author, and drum maker Sanford A. “Gus” Moeller wrote, “it has always been the pride of the schooled drummers, not only to play it so it sounded correct, but also to beat it in the prescribed way. When drummers from different parts of the country get together and drum such beats as this with perfect uniformity they prove themselves worthy brethren.”

4. When I began working on Hart’s system, I was reminded of some of the contemporary Western art music compositions I had to learn during the 1960s, 70s and early 80s which required players to learn unique notations devised by the composer; this was all the rage among certain composers of the period. As a percussionist my task was doubly vaunting. I had many instruments to gather and arrange and I also had to learn a new notation, sometimes a different one for each piece on the concert!

5.  George B. McClellan (1826-85) was nicknamed  Little Mac or The Young  Napoleon by the troops under his command who usually thought highly of him, but after the Peninsula Campaign and the Battle of Antietam, he was sacked by Pres. Lincoln. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant called McClellan an enigma.

Even so, McClellan had powerful supporters and ran as a Democratic candidate in opposition to Lincoln in the 1864 presidential campaign, but was beaten decisively. During the last years of his career, he served as governor of New Jersey (1878- 86) and wrote a memoir defending his actions, many might say, inactions, during the Civil War.

Given McClellan’s great popularity and notoriety, it’s reasonable to assume that Nevins capitalized upon his position as Drum major in McClellan’s body guard, by having his book published during the 1864 presidential campaign and in Chicago, which was hosting the Democratic convention that year and was home to Nevins publisher, Root and Cady, one of the Union’s largest music publishers,

6. There are elements of Strube’s  notation that differ slightly from some of the other books examined for these three articles, but In my opinion they fall far short of being “a New and entirely Original System of expressing Hand to Hand Drumming.”

7. The Lancraft Fife and Drum Corps, now of Port Dover, CT.,  was founded in 1888 and named after an oyster man Ed Lancraft who befriended the core by providing them with uniforms and rehearsal space. Later on he purchased drums for them which were in the shape of oyster barrels and four while the Corps was known as the “Oyster Kegs”.

In 1970 the great Swiss drummer Alfons Grieder who had heard the corps while studying in the United States, invited Lancraft  to Switzerland and for his efforts Alfons was made an honorary member of the corps.

Lancraft has been blest with some of the greatest field drummers in North American history: Sanford A. ‘Gus’ Moeller not only played in the core, but made five drums for them in 1954 for $85 a piece!, Frank Arsenault, Earl Sturtze, Jay Tuomey (mentor to the Finnish rudimental pathfinder Risto Skrigsberg), “Buck” Soistman, Bill Reamer and his son Andrew Reamer- a drum line for the ages.

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The interior is almost entirely wood, designed for optimal acoustics. Audience members can sit on the inclined floor seating area, or in one of the hall’s four balconies.

The Performing Arts Center also features a beautiful sculpture by Kan Yasuda, seen in the photo below.

You can see more of Kan Yasuda’s exceptional works in Italy, Korea and other parts of Japan, by clicking here.

Another feature of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center that we know NEXUS will find of interest, is the Igrek Theatre Restaurant. Check out their mouth-watering and visually luscious presentation here, that also provides a few more glimpses of this beautiful arts center. (The entrance to the restaurant is on the upper level in the upper left corner of the above photo).

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The Canadian Brass “Stars & Stripes” CD has made its debut, and came out at a solid #10 on the Billboard Charts! You will remember that back in February, NEXUS members were busy with the Canadian Brass, recording the stirring arrangements of Howard Cable and Robin Engelman. Robin blogged about it here.  You can check out the excellent reviews of the recording - as well as an interview with Robin and Chuck Daellenbach of the CBrass - here. And if you click here you can watch a great high-definition video showing how the drums were set up at the recording session, and featuring Russell Hartenberger, Bob Becker, Robin Engelman and Ryan Scott performing. You can also read Robin’s notes about the music in his blog here. Enjoy!

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They will be performing their signature work From me flows what you call Time (by Toru Takemitsu - you can hear a sound byte of the piece here), and Holst’s The Planets, with the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra and the Kobe City Philharmonic Chorus under conductor and artistic director Yutaka Sado. The concerts will take place in the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Nishinomiya City, between Osaka and Kobe on Osaka Bay.

The Hyogo Performing Arts Center was opened in 2005 to mark the ten-year anniversary of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake which devastated Nishinomiya and the surrounding cities in the Hyogo Prefecture. The Kobe Port Tower, built in 1963 and designed to be earthquake-proof, survived the disaster, in which 6,400 hundred lives were lost. In the 10 years following the earthquake, the citizens rebuilt and revived the Hyogo area and it is now attractive and vigorous.  The Performing Arts Center and its grand opening became a symbol of that revival and a hub of artistic developments in the Hyogo area.

The PAC Orchestra is made up of brilliant young musicians selected through very competitive worldwide auditions. Half of the Orchestra is from overseas. Auditions are held in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Berlin, London, Vienna and Paris. There are also Japanese members who were studying or performing outside of Japan and decided to apply for auditions. Maestro Yutaka Sado is a charismatic conductor who was born in Kyoto, not far from Kobe/Osaka. He met Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood Music Festival in 1987, and in 1988, served as assistant to Bernstein and toured Europe with the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra.  (Click here for photos of NEXUS at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival a few years ago.)  Sado received first prize at the 39th International Conducting Competition in Besançon in 1989, and the first prize at the Leonard Bernstein International Competition in Jerusalem in 1995.  He assisted Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra in 1990 to inaugurate the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan where he has served as resident conductor and later as guest conductor.

NEXUS is looking forward to this! The instruments are being prepared for shipping as you read this, and the bags are being packed. Check back here for more on the Japan trip, next week.

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One afternoon (or evening?) we had some time to kill and as we sat around Robin’s desk we took turns creating doodles on the back sides of 3X5 cards.  It was actually a lot of fun as we tried to outdo one another with our images.

Recently, while cleaning out my desk I happened upon some of these 37-year-old cards and here are all 29 of them by Bill, Bob and Robin (except for the ones captioned, I don’t remember who did which.)  I hope all the lovers of fine art out there will appreciate the imagination, skill, and yes, hidden genius represented in these images.

Doodle by Bill

Robin's ?? drawing of Bob Becker

Doodle by Bill

Doodle by Bill

Doodle by Bill

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Performing with the  brilliant New York City based So Percussion group, NEXUS and So Percussion brought the audience to a standing ovation with dazzling performances of masterworks composed by Steve Reich, who performed with them. This was the 19th annual WoodstockBeat concert, held at the unusual Maverick Hall.

Steve Reich has been called by the New York Times, “our greatest living composer.” The concert began with Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” performed by NEXUS with Jason Treuting of So Percussion. Also on the program were “Nagoya Marimbas,” “Music for Mallets, Voices and Organ,” and “Clapping Music.” The program concluded with “Drumming” with the composer joining in the ensemble.  When Alan Rich of the So I’ve Heard website heard NEXUS and So Percussion perform Drumming with Steve Reich in California a couple years ago, he was moved to write: “I’ll donate 75 minutes of my lifetime to that piece anytime . . . furthermore, it got the all-star treatment: Nexus and So Percussion.”

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In the 1970s and 1980s Mitch was a frequent guest pops conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.  He always seemed to enjoy returning to his home town and visiting with his old friends in the orchestra and at his alma mater,  the Eastman School.

Mitch Miller had a gruff exterior, but once he trusted someone he allowed his soft side to emerge.  Once, after a few appearances with the RPO, Mitch even accepted our invitation for a quiet dinner at our home, away from the pressures of his pubic persona and the music business.  After all, Mitch - with his pre-hippie goatee - was at one time among the most recognizable faces in North America, mostly from his hugely successful NBC TV show, “Sing Along With Mitch” in the 1950s and 60s.

On the other hand, Mitch had also been very successful in the commercial side of the music business as the head of Artists and Repertoire at Columbia Records and as a best-selling Hi-Fi LP recording artist.

But most of those high-glitz days were over by the time he came to Rochester to conduct music of a more sophisticated type, as he likely sought to compliment his past commercial achievements with a more substantial repertoire at that point in his life.  He was a very good musician, and he conveyed a real sense of connection to the music he liked, especially the works of George Gershwin, with whom - as he regularly reminded the orchestra musicians - he had performed as a young oboist.

Ruth and I always got along musically with Mitch fantastically well.  We had quite a bit of fun in pops concerts performing “The Typewriter” by Leroy Anderson on tour.  Mitch seemed to appreciate our hamming-it-up, with me wearing a visor and dangling a long cigar from my mouth as I typed, while Ruth played the role of secretary, scribbling into a long notebook (toilet paper roll) and striking a desk bell in place of the typewriter carriage bell.  Success with “The Typewriter” eventually led to a number of performances of my arrangement of “Spike Jones Classics” which involved even more over-the-top shenanigans.

Mitch’s success in the music business gave him a deep interest in the inner-workings of the orchestra and the Eastman School, often to the dismay of the day-to-day staff.  He was not subtle in offering his opinions on just about any subject, especially if the subject was controversial, as with orchestra/management/board/faculty/administration relations.

The orchestra musicians probably remember Mitch most for his one-of-a-kind rehearsal commentary.  Once while rehearsing Handel’s “Water Music” as arranged by Sir Hamilton Harty, one of the orchestra musicians pointed out a strange harmony, to which Mitch responded, “never trust a hyphenated Englishman!”  (The orchestra howled with laughter.) He also liked overly exaggerated accents on certain offbeat notes; he would demand (not ask) that a phrase be played, “too-TAH-too-TAH- tooo.”  The musicians would always humor him in rehearsals and then play somewhat more conservatively in concerts.

Once in the 1980s, when NEXUS was on tour in Edmonton, Alberta, we discovered that Mitch was in town conducting the symphony, so John Wyre and I made it to a rehearsal, and I introduced John to Mitch.  After the rehearsal Mitch invited us to his dressing room, where John gave Mitch a Cuban cigar, and we sat for a while talking about musicians we knew in common - the music world is very small - and swapping old Eastman stories.

Mitch Miller came to Rochester about 10-years ago when the new Eastman School building on the west side of Gibbs Street was dedicated in his honor.  I was away with NEXUS, but Ruth recalls that even years after his last RPO appearance, he greeted her by name.  Neither of us ever saw him again.

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Reich Wodstock Beat 2010

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In 1988, Carolyn McMaster of the Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas interviewed Bob Becker. The article describes some of the most important roots of NEXUS. Here are some excerpts:

“In 1984 NEXUS played a memorable concert in Amsterdam - six nonstop hours of pure improvisation. Bob Becker remembers the event as an improvisational high point. The six hours were energizing rather than tiring. But then, the edge of improvisation is what NEXUS….is known for, even if they don’t do many such marathons….

“The percussionists first played together as an unofficial group at the Marlborough Music Festival. Pablo Casals was directing. ‘That was a great experience,’ recalled Bob Becker. ‘We wound up playing a lot on our own, and improvising as well.’ The classically trained percussionists were inspired by those first sessions, and NEXUS was born from the common desire to collect instruments and play them — spontaneously. ‘I think what’s important to our sound is the years we spent improvising,’ Becker said.

“The group wanted to take directions away from the classical or the traditional music, to be able to play the kinds of music that they found interesting. Becker, for example, is quite interested in the music of Northern India; Russ is enamored of the music of Africa from his work with African musicians. ‘NEXUS has been real important to us that way,’ Becker said. ‘We all have our own interests outside of the group and we bring them all to NEXUS.’

“John Cage is one of the group’s favorite composers, as well as Lou Harrison. Both wrote many works for percusion during the ’30s and ’40s. ‘It’s rare to find pieces of that clarity today, so we still play a lot of their music,’ Becker said. …Cage’s 1943 composition, Third Construction, is…full of interesting sounds, is complicated, yet accessible. It calls for odd instruments such as tom-toms, a donkey’s jawbone, lion’s roar, cricket caller and graduated tin cans. ….Becker commissioned Clos d’Audignac, a Bruce Mather piece which uses marimbas, vibraphone, chimes, gong, drum and cowbells called almglocken. ‘In my opinion, there’s a connection between drinking a fine wine and listening to one of Bruce’s pieces,’ Becker noted. ‘You have to wallow in it.’

“…..In 1984 NEXUS was touring with more than 30 flight cases filled with literally hundreds of instruments. Now, escalating transportation costs have forced them to scale back to 17 cases. ‘We’re always interested in repertoire that’s economical,’ Becker said. ‘And that’s a big issue with composers, because in the last 20 years or so, the tendency has been to write for more and more.’ ‘More and more’ means a player may have to shift gears from one set of instruments to another in one piece, playing several instruments during the course of a single composition called ‘multiple percussion setups.’ ‘It’s essentially learning a new instrument,’ he said. ‘You spend a lot of time learning it to play a new piece.’ Yet the cornucopia of percussion instruments makes NEXUS’ options nearly endless as well as a constant challenge, which is why Becker loves the medium. ‘Also, there’s a real physical experience there,’ he said. ‘I think audiences can identify with that. They can see how the sounds are being produced immediately.’

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