Bang a gong drum? Play Emil Richard’s one-of-kind Stone Marimba? Have your music performed by fantastic Los Angeles percussionists? Count me in.
It was called the Experimental Composer/Percussion Workshop hosted by L.A. Percussion Rentals which highlighted some of the unique tuned percussion instruments that they have there, including some from Emil Richard’s personal collection. The invited composers brought in music and the percussionists Abby Savell, Robert Slack, and Dan Savell did the sight reading and performing. The ‘experimental’ part was that they switched up the instruments they played, creating new combinations of timbre and sound. The instruments included a glass marimba, tuned woodblocks, tenor steel pan, tuned cowbells, boo bams, a bass marimba, and my favorite, Emil Richard’s stone marimba.
It was great to hear real human beings playing some of my music, and I also got to meet some talented composers and arrangers and hear their music too. Here’s a shot of Dan Savell and Robert Slack among the mountains of percussion:
Having the percussion bug that I have, I was in awe of all the instruments, and could easily spend weeks in there. There was one hang drum in the place, so I managed to play a bit of it and posted a short video.
By far one of the most impressive instruments they have is a 60″ tunable gong drum by Remo that generates instant earthquakes:
A group shot from the night (Christian Davis, Abby Savell, Edward Trybek, Caleb Blood, Craig Marks, Dan Savell, Jon Mattox, Christopher Farrell and Robert Slack)
visit L.A. Percussion Rentals