Reflections on The Grinch

This year would have been my fifth year of playing the national tour of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but 2020 had other plans! It’s been bittersweet to be in NYC right now instead of freezing my butt of in Milwaukee or watching live music til the sun comes up in New Orleans, but on the other hand, I got to spend Thanksgiving with my wife for the first time EVER and we will get to celebrate Christmas from our own apartment.

Still, I miss the escapades that come with touring. I miss the thrill that comes with the curtain rising 8+ times a week and the antics that take place with my orchestra mates after every show. I miss the feeling I get when grandparents point out all the instruments in the pit to their grandkids before the show. I miss the theatre.

Though I know this show inside and out, I’ve never actually seen it, except for the occasional times when I can see above the lip of the stage, and even then, I’m playing so much during the show itself that I can only watch 2 or 3 scenes. Therefore, I am SO EXCITED that tonight I get to watch this musical on television, starring Matthew Morrison as the Grinch himself. I have so many questions — can an unsuspecting worldwide audience handle ‘Whatchamho?’ Will ‘Shopping’ be cut? What exactly happens on stage during ‘Down the Mountain’ that everyone raves about while I’m trying to not drop a stick? Will the quartet nail the harmonies in ‘Now is the Time?’ How many times will I cry? I can’t wait to tune in to NBC tonight to find out!

Here are a few of my favorite drum moments from the 2018 tour. Enjoy!

Quintuplets

I’ve been thinking about quintuplets, or fives, a lot in my practicing lately. I’ve been trying to implement them in my fusion playing as well as the hip hop feel best described as Dilla beats.

In my experience, 5 and 7 note groupings tend to get overlooked by teachers when they are working with student musicians. This was certainly the case for me. For many, 5s and 7s are unusual, exotic, and difficult to master. I believe if we start teaching students about these groupings at a young age, they will come as naturally as 8th and 16th notes.

What I’ve also noticed is that there seems to be no universal way of counting quintuplets in western music. In fact, everyone who responded to a deeply unscientific poll I posed on Instagram yesterday had a different answer for how the count fives. Many people use different syllable words such as ‘serendipity’ and 'hippopotamus.’ For some reason I was taught ‘homosexual’ for 5s and ‘homosexuality’ for 7s, which is obviously extremely problematic! Fellow percussionist Jeremy Yaddaw provided me with a few 5-syllable phrases, including ‘back to stick control’ and get me out of here,’ which I found particularly amusing. A few people also suggested counting 12,123 or 123,12 depending on how the phrase is grouped.

I find myself using a combination of methods for counting 5s. Sometimes I’ll use a 5-syllable word, sometimes I may just count to 5, sometimes I may just concentrate on ending on the correct hand at the correct time. I’m curious how YOU count 5s. Please comment below!

Video: Badger Strut

I’m nursing a bit of a foot injury at the moment so I’m just going to blast away on some snare drum for the time being.

The Badger Strut by Jay Collins is a short rudimental piece suggested to me by John Tafoya when I was studying with him at the University of Maryland. I found it while going through some snare music earlier and decided to whip it up.

It starts out as a pretty typical rudimental piece exploring some paradiddle patterns before triplets and various types of rolls emerge. The second half of the piece is a true chop buster, featuring sextuplets comprised of accented singles filled in by double strokes.

I have no idea the publication history of this piece, but what I have is two pages with a pencilled in roadmap and dynamic markings from Tafoya. I tried my best to decipher his writing and incorporate it for this purpose!

Home Recordings

It’s a mess! This is a picture I took after doing some recording at my studio space in Brooklyn yesterday and was an accurate depiction of my brain at that moment!

I’m currently tracking percussion for a very excellent song cycle that requires a lot of different instruments and sounds. I was able to do some of it in my apartment (shakers, triangle, etc…) but for the louder instruments (cymbals, snare, cajon) I found myself dragging my instruments and recording accoutrements around the block to my space, and let me tell ya, with very little gigs over the last seven months, the schlepp is real! Additionally, I have to get to my space early with hopes that no one on my floor is blasting heavy metal that would interfere with my audio captures. Yesterday morning, there were two drummers playing on my floor, but thankfully it was faint enough that the mics didn’t pick anything.

To be honest, I enjoy the work and the final product, but it is all very stressful! Musicians of the internet, I’m wondering: How are you dealing with being a musician, audio engineer, and studio assistant all simultaneously in the current climate? What are your tips for staying sane and not wanting to scream into a pillow during your home recording sessions?

Served Up Live

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ashley Baier (@ay_bear) on Oct 15, 2020 at 6:39am PDT

Last night I joined Brass Queens for a performance of Served Up held at Culture Lab LIC. It was the first time I’ve performed on an actual stage since March! It felt wonderful to play with a group of women for a group of women.

Moonrise Gala

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ashley Baier (@ay_bear) on Oct 1, 2020 at 5:32pm PDT

Last night, I joined Brass Queens for a performance at the Green-Wood Cemetery here in Brooklyn. Turns out that "Brooklyn's first public park by default” is the perfect place for a socially-distant event! It was actually my first time at this historic cemetery, which features the highest point in Brooklyn and contains the remains of luminaries including Leonard Bernstein and Elliott Carter. We were stationed at the crest of the Artemisia path and I had quite the view from the throne!

Drum Nostalgia

I brought a bunch of keepsake items back to New York with me from my last trip to my hometown in Maryland. Going through them has been a trip! In addition to goofy pictures, report cards, and childhood artwork, there were a few musical-related items that I thought would be cool to share here.

My First Real Drum Set

Though my first drum set was a kids Noble & Cooley kit out of a Penny’s catalogue, my first real drum set was this 90s era Pearl Export kit my that my parents surprised me with. This thing has been a workhorse, and in fact, I still occasionally use the bass drum, floor tom, and some of the hardware to this day. Unfortunately, I still can’t get the sound of these B8 Pro cymbals out of my head. I can tell the above shot is from my Mr. Bungle’s Shotgun days by the black heads.

Here’s the same kit with a slightly different setup This was taken during my first run of a musical: The Music Man with Apple Alley Players in West Virginia.

Here’s she is with yet another set up. I don’t recall this particular tom setup, and I’m sure it didn’t last for very long. This picture is from a gig with Simple 4 on the last day of high school. I wish there was a better shot of our homemade tie dye banner that’s hanging on the truck. Yes, our high school was adjacent to a cemetery.

The Gretsch Kit

Christmas day 2006. My parents once again hook it up with a new kit! This time, a Gretsch Catalina Bop kit. The small size of this kit was especially beneficial when I moved to NYC and had to schlep gear around. It got a lot of use, but I sold it last year to a young lady drummer in order to make room for my Yamaha kit.

Recital Programs

And finally, I came across my recital programs from the University of Maryland. I remain very proud of both of these programs and had a blast putting them together. And wow, I used to play A LOT of mallets.

On Practicing

The author before a gig in Eugene, OR, 2011.

When COVID hit, in addition to my worries about my family, my health, and the world, I was also super bummed about the upcoming work (and money) I was going to miss — subbing on an off-broadway musical, a new recording session, a production of The Addams Family, a few cabaret shows, etc… But quickly I realized, “my god! I can practice for the sake of practicing for the first time… ever?”

Then my rehearsal space shut down by order of the state and suddenly I was forced to practice in my apartment with pads and low volume cymbals. I developed a healthy routine the first few weeks but slowly it began to deteriorate with thoughts of “will I ever be able to hit actual drums again?”

Thankfully, my rehearsal building re-opened and I moved into a new studio within it. Again, the first few weeks were amazing — I’m hitting drums again! I feel so productive! Music completes me! Then a new reality set in — What’s the point of practicing when there’s no work? What’s the point of making music when there aren’t other people to make music with?

I’m writing this blog to let you know that if you are feeling this way, dear reader, you are not alone. I’m also writing it to keep myself accountable. I've been playing drums for almost THIRTY YEARS but the motivation and drive to improve comes and goes.

It’s been almost 5 months of NYC being in some sort of lockdown and the two main things I’ve realized in terms of music making is that 1) I love playing with and for other people and 2) my relationship with practicing ebbs and flows. It always has and it always will.

Here’s what a typical practice session is looking like for me, the solo drummer. I’m trying my best to use all the different parts of my brain and body with the help of these books and methods:

1. Warm up - Stick Control

If I recall correctly, I didn’t really get into this book until grad school, but it has become a part of my everyday warm up routine. Lately I have been focusing on getting my strokes even, whether it be singles, doubles, triples, or the occasional fours when switching from one line to the next. Playing through the first page at the beginning of my practice session offers exceptional insight on how my body is feeling on that particular day. Maybe I took a few days off and am feeling rusty. Maybe I pick up the sticks and everything is just working. No matter what, this is a great way to get the blood flowing and the muscles moving.

2. Snare drum exercises

For me, it all comes back to snare drum. It’s the first instrument I started playing and my favorite of the lot. I spent a lot of my time studying orchestral playing, but I have a deep affinity for rudimental styles and believe it’s better for my chops than anything else. Lately, I have been playing 10 of Wilcoxon’s rudimental solos each day.

I play each etude as follows:

1) As written

2) Adding quarter notes on the bass drum

3) Bass drum playing the same accents as the snare drum

4) Bass drum playing an ostinato pattern

3. Speed

Whether you use it in a practical setting or not, most drummers have some desire to develop speed around the kit. Now that my hands are warm and my feet are starting to move, it’s time to pick up the pace with some technical exercises. Every 3 years or so I go through a drum and bass phase, which I mostly attribute to my love of STS9.

Johnny Rabb’s book is a detailed look into the style and I’ve been trying to go through a section each day. The key here is to stay relaxed at these brisk tempos. For me, it helps to think of 2 and 4 backbeats as actually being on the “ands.” This makes it easier to switch back and forth into halftime feels as well.

4. Feel

Now that I’m feeling nice and agile, it’s time to focus on what usually serves me best on a gig: feel. Billy Martin (of Medeski Martin & Wood fame) has one of the most organic grooves I’ve ever heard and his book on claves is certainly the most in depth I’ve ever seen. I’ve worked out of this book on and off for the last 15 years, but it hasn’t been until now that I’ve focused on competently playing every page: Can I play each system at any tempo, dynamic, or orchestration? Can I play it straight, swung, and in between? Can I use these patterns in the context of metric modulation? It took me a long time to feel comfortable reading his non-standard system of notation but it has been worth the effort: I’m hearing and playing music in a new light.

5. Just Play

At this point, I’ve gone crosseyed from reading music. I’m warmed up but my brain is mush and I just want to PLAY. I will save my thoughts on Spotify’s unjust treatment of musicians for another blog, but the ability to have access to nearly all recorded music at your fingertips at command has been a godsend for learning music. I no longer have to download music to my phone or computer, rip CDs, or spend hours finding recordings at the library. It’s all just there in one place.

Sometimes I will go to my liked songs playlists and play along with favorite tracks but lately I’ve been exploring my release radar section to blindly play through new music on the spot. Sometimes I’ll try to play verbatim what’s happening with the drums. Other times I’ll add my own voice. Most importantly, I’ll try to apply some of the concepts I’ve been working on that day to a real musical context. This is my favorite way to wind down a practice session and experience the joy that is making music. For me, that’s what it’s all about.

If you’ve come this far, I hope you’ve found this post useful. It can be hard as hell to get to the practice room or take your instrument out of the case but once you finally start playing, I sure hope you remember why it is you do what you do. Happy music-making!

What Else Can We Do?

Gosh, it sure feels good to see all of my Hundred Days family in one place. What a joy to sing this song with you all. Here’s a bit about this video from The Bengsons themselves:

Video: Stars and Stripes Forever

Here’s a nice version of Stars and Stripes Forever that I was asked to participate in as a Mannes alum. It was great to see a lot of faces pop up that I haven’t seen in awhile! I recorded snare drum, bass drum, and crash cymbals played on hi-hats while my colleague Christine Chen played snare, cymbals, and glock. Enjoy!