Rescuing Performance from the Demo: Co-Designing Drum Gesture Mappings with a Percussionist

Integrating all those elements, looks hard watching back! The sustain on one, hats playing eights, keeping it shuffle, the off snares, cool kick trigger sound, cool sustain tom triggered sound and then top it off with shepherd’s scale fun, I think it works musically and shows off a real hands on immersive approach that can be harnessed when making music.

Immediacy on the synth sounds and then ups the ante with the switch. The fact that that is possible really allows for impact and variation to happen in sync, which from a musical perspective is important to be able to do. The sustain with the stick on the floor tom, clearly rocks as an idea! Full on Beat It vibes too here.

I like the fact we can put any four notes on different parts of the kit (skins, rims) and can sustain them with a literal stroke. I’m unsure however, if it becomes a little gimmicky at this point. It definitely has something but at the same time I’m not wholly convinced. It could be that the vibraphone is a percussion instrument and that I ended up neither playing the drums or the vibraphone in a way that I would if playing them as separate entities in duo. Something the synth and drum combination doesn’t suffer because I think coming from different sound worlds they compliment each other more readily in synchronisation than a plinky plonky percussion piece. It’d be interesting to do the very same playing but with synth sounds and I reckon it’d be more fulfilling musically.

Good fun this one and very much understand the title! Again, all the different elements combining to produce a genuinely workable piece of music. This time having a delayed sample to set the tempo and keep to it, also using it as both sonic and rhythmic layer. Again promoting the idea that music is very interwoven with multiple layers, rhythm, soundscapes, stabs, sustained notes, chords, single notes in sequence, throw in there the actual drums and it’s working. Even with a long sustained note, it is more musical when there’s a modulation however subtle, so the floor tom picking up on the stroke/rubbing/brushing is super.

This one has an intricacy similar to Gnarly, trying to make the melody happen on the offs from the rim of the snare drum. Makes me think of Street Fighter or Mortal Combat but maybe that’s showing my age but it could also be an LA Car Chase! I think having that brush and stick, delving into potential elements is in play again but differently in that both arms interplay is creating the rolling along feel while having a brush without sustained synth note attached brings it back into the percussion realm, similar to a guero scrape on beat one in a latin piece.

Made me smile first of all! So crush rolls as an after-touch idea, where on certain synths if you press the keys down more, it creates a swell akin to a Leslie Rotary speaker being ramped up on a Hammond organ. Very cool that the software recognises the press down of crush rolls in order to make that happen and then for extra cheekiness adding an e-bell/e-conga sound on the first rack tom rim is simply fun!

Looper! I remember this being tricky but that we got there in the end! As it stands there’s still a fragility to it. We couldn’t play one of the notes at the same time as launching the loop (did we try?) and of course without a click it means feeling to keep it super solid and less flash just in case I slipped out of the cycle once clicking it in/out again. That said! I think this could really be developed further and add quite a lot more to the whole idea with extra layers of musicality available. The main problem then is how many elements at any one time is feasible and without disrupting natural flow but I guess that’s also a common question since recorded music began! If you could combine the loop idea to some of the more evidently rocking and rolling pieces, maybe even adding a sustained synth as a pad, creating multiple layers without it getting too confusing as to how to switch certain ones off at different points, I’d say there would be something in it. One problem with looping however, does the layering element become boring? Now thinking back, I think we discussed this and felt the limitation of where we got to was in the end a plus but I can’t quite remember, if that’s true, then I’d say for solidity finding a way to bring in a click could go some way to solving the issue as it becomes the anchor for the drummer to then play around and be more expressive. Could it link to Tempo Follower in Ableton for example? Either way, it’s pretty cool, I just think there’s more to be had!

Again the ability to create variation is key and this time shown by utilising the brush; in using that more textured sound created by brushing the coated skin, we have both the synth having a pulse as well as a percussive overlay similar to what a cabasa might add to a cool latin tune for example, just slightly different. The fact we can use different tools to trigger the synth is a big plus. In music the way you ‘attack’ for want of a kinder word, is integral to the overall feel of a piece.

Playing around 3 sustained notes/chords on the rack tom and using the crush rolls on the snare to create sustained notes even if fluttery/modulating but when more defined and singular they become notes within an arpeggio sequence as well as on the rim. My feeling here is we achieved the same thing and better in a couple of the other tunes but still it’s doing something!

Sweet! Modulation using the brush and floor tom, how the rhythm gets baked in to the sound is important and also a nod to a harmonium, you can imagine modulating its intensity by how strongly you’d pump the air in, or the potential for staccato stab/sustain, here this is possible whilst also adding a synth depth cycle akin to a flanger, which is pretty trippy and hence why we made this particular tune. Again shows how the style of an instrument is often informative in the creation of music but then in combination with how it is used. I think what we’ve managed and what one of the aims at the start was to find this interaction/intersection as really the core to music making and this one in a sense shows it off more.