This excitement lasted
exactly for two days … now, I only got to hear the dhub dhub sound of the cardboard box (my
substitute for the bass drum) and the dull thuds of drum sticks on a rubber pad
(my substitute for the snare drum) … it was not very satisfying … what could I
do to enhance the sounds of my version of the snare drum and the bass drum, so
that I could hear actual sounds of drums or something thereabouts … and the
solution has to be inexpensive …
I was also not too pleased
with how the cowbell was fixed … it sat just on the edge of the bent rod I was
worried that it might just slip off and fall …
So, anyway, another light
flashed in my head … it might be tricky … but in case what I had in mind didn’t
work out, the things I was going to purchase would have other uses … and since
I knew these were not going to be expensive, I felt I should go ahead and then
see what happens …
I was supposed to pick up
Mamoon from school and I asked Raju to come half an hour early, so that I could
take a detour … go to Music Cabin, Secunderabad, first and then go on to her
school … I had done my homework and more or less knew what I wanted and also
knew that it would work … I was actually keyed up … for some reason, there was
some delay in the shop and I was getting a bit annoyed … then I asked them if
they had what I wanted … and yes, they did … and I bought these two simple khanjira-s or tambourines …
All right … the red one is 8
inches in diameter and I wanted to use that in place of a snare drum … I had
taken the measurement of the surface of the practice drum pad and I wanted this
khanjira to sit on the practice drum pad like this …
And the yellow one … the
bigger one, is 12 inches in diamater … I wanted to use this as a substitute for
the bass drum … I could arrange the bass pedal in front of it and thump this
khanjira instead of the cardboard box … but this would still be propped against
the cardboard box … I soon discovered that the yellow khanjira required some
sort of stand, as it couldn’t stand propped against the cardboard box for long
… some sort of a box, which would hold it or at least a part of it … I rummaged
around in the loft among lots of empty cardboard boxes and found one which fit
the bill … and I put this contraption together and pushed it against the bigger
box and pushed the pedal in front …
and lo and behold … I had my
bass drum … and this is how it looks … ha ha ha … very good, ya … you are a
genius, ya … arre burbak, rulaoge kya …
This was a big relief … I
could hear real drum beats now … and this set up could articulate the beat
patterns in a much better manner than before …
There was this problem with
the cowbell still unresolved … I wanted a sort of rod or pipe similar in
thickness or diameter to the metal pipe on which now rested the cymbal … I checked
in the hardware store at the top of our lane … I had carried the metal pipe
(around 1 ½ feet in length) in my bag and showed it to him and asked for
something similar … he is used to my strange queries for odds and ends … he
smiled and said he didn’t have such a thing with him, but asked me to check in
‘plywood’ stores … the area around Nacharam and HMT Nagar has a number of such
hardware and plywood shops … I wore out my sandals a bit climbing up and down
these shops … at least 10 shops … one of these plywood shops had a sort of rod
which was very long … around 4 feet in length … and was smaller in diameter
than the pipe I had with me … I was not very convinced … I checked other shops
… zilch … that long rod was the only option now …
I waited for a couple of
days more and then unable to bear the tension, I went out in the evening and
bought that rod … and on inspecting closely I discovered that the rod had these
threads all through its length and at mid-point there was a nut wound around
the rod … I then realized that this rod was made for some kind of fastening
jobs … I didn’t venture to ask, maybe I should have … and maybe I will when I
pass that way again … anyway, this was a sort of blessing … I asked the chap to
give me two nuts as well … he threw in two nut gratis … two nuts for one nut!!
I hurried home …
first thing I did was to remove the cowbell from the bent rod, and then removed
the bent rod from the tripod … I put the pipe back into its parent tripod, and
inserted the threaded rod into the other tripod … fortunately, the base tube was
hollow till the bottom and the threaded rod could go through almost till the
end … around a foot and a half stuck out and I threaded a nut, then placed the
cymbal, and then threaded another nut on top of the cymbal … great … just like
I wanted...
and my drum kit now looks
like this … cool, na ... the floor tom is missing though … but, I will figure
out something …
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