Wahoo!!! Today one of my schools surprised me in the nicest way possible. Head of Music & Performing Arts, Jenny W, told me, on my arrival, ‘There are some boxes you might want to see’.
I knew what this meant. We had a Drumathon fundraiser event s while back. Actually it was what feels like ages ago now. So far back I can’t remember exactly when! A big thanks to all the staff, pupils and parents who helped us with that, as that’s what’s lead to this.
I’ve included pictures of both the former or ‘before’ kit, as well as the present or ‘after’ state of affairs. If I was a savvy YouTuber I might’ve made an ‘unboxing’ video. I suppose this a ‘slow’ version of that?
The old school drum kit – actually there are several; but this is the one I teach on – has more than done it’s duty. The current incarnation, which was preceded by a slightly better mostly Pearl Export kit, is mainly not so great CB drums, with the old Export snare, a Leedy floor tom, plus an assortment of cymbals and hardware.
The schools’ several drum kits, all partial and all none too hot, share one thing in common; they sport plain monochrome wraps. The new Tama Imperialstar , by contrast, has a gorgeous and rich Coffee Teak veneer, in a lovely high gloss finish.
The school’s tired old kits all have ancient and very weathered drum heads. Whilst the new Tama kit has shiny new heads, it has to be admitted they aren’t the best feature of the kit. Hopefully we’ll re-skin this kit with coated ambassadors, and maybe get a CS-dot on the snare? (The kick is fine as is.)
The ancient Frankenstein kits that the school’s soldiered on with have certainly served the school well. But now they’re all way too tired, and long past the point of simply being sad and decrepit, belonging, frankly, to ‘useless scrap’ territory! This shiny new Imperialstar should add a bit of bling and zing to proceedings.
So anyway, I moved the boxes from the office to the current ‘drum room’ (also the school’s music tech suite), and started the unboxing and assembly process. Some of the kids, who were off on a school music trip today, helped me un-box everything before the left. Shame I didn’t get any pics of that. But schools are funny about teachers photographing students nowadays.
Opening boxes of new stuff is always fun! I can totally see why unboxing videos have become a thing.
The drum sizes are as follows: 22” x 16” kick; 14” x 5” snare; 10” x 7” and 12” x 8” rack toms, and a 16” x 15” floor tom. The cymbals are HCS Bronze: 14” hi-hats, 16” crash and 20” ride. They’re not top end cymbals. But they both look and sound better than anything we had previously.
Although the music trip kids left after the unboxing, I still managed to get a decent chunk assembled before my first pupil, Dan, showed up for his lesson. Fortunately he was happy to spend that lesson helping me finish putting the kit together.
The snare and rack toms arrived assembled. The kick and floor tom needed putting together. Once everything was assembled – with a pillow in the bass drum giving instant satisfaction – it was time to start tweaking the tuning.
I’m really chuffed the school went with the brand/line and finish I suggested. I’m wondering did I also suggest these specific sizes? The kit consists of rather fusion-esque smaller tom sizes, which, with the supplied heads, give a pretty high pitched sound.
Whenever one has a new kit, it takes a while to tweak it, and get it bedded in. Today that took the form of some tom tuning, tightening up the snare, and getting the toms properly aligned relative to each other.
I think the aesthetics of this kit, it’s physical allure, are actually very important. A sexy kit makes friends easily. People want to play it, and that makes teaching a little more fun, and quite a bit easier.
So, all in all, how totally terrific! Aren’t we lucky to have such a lovely new kit?