I mentioned in my previous post that ‘I thought I’d improvise’ because Abhinav was going ahead with teaching more and more patterns and I only had my practice drum pad and a table for practice at home … and as I said not enough pocket power to buy a full drum kit … this really set me thinking …
I had a pair of drum sticks and I was using the practice drum pad as a substitute for the snare drum … and a table surface for the hi-hat cymbals … and kept time with my right foot for the bass drum … after 3 weeks this was going nowhere … I kept missing the bass beats …
Abhinav suggested that I buy a cowbell to substitute for the hi-hat cymbals … it is not very expensive, he said … he had one and he showed me … and it is anyway better than hitting a table … this brewed in my mind for some time … I checked in one shop in Secunderabad, confident that I’d get it there … they hemmed and hawed for a while and then said they didn’t have it and could I come tomorrow … what the hell … all spirits went down … it was already late in the evening and I didn’t have the time to explore other shops …
The next day, after college, I went to Musee Musicals, Begumpet, Secunderabad, and asked for a cowbell … they had it in two sizes … I bought the bigger one … the drum kits on display there looked fabulous and tempting … hold on, I told myself … I made some general enquiries, as I didn’t want to leave so soon … I asked about the bass drum pedal … would they sell it separately? Yes, they said … price? … they told me that and I found it was manageable, but not on the same day …
So, I bought the cowbell and wondered where I was going to fit it … can’t keep it resting on the table … it has to have a tripod kind of stand … suddenly, a bulb glowed … oh yes, that score-sheet stand that I got along with the guitar stand as a combo offer!! Yes, I could put that score-sheet stand to better use now … I was impatient to reach home and see if this worked … and tried to remember where I had stowed that stand and mentally searched lofts and cupboards …
Fortunately, I did not have to search too much … I remembered where I had kept it ‘safely’ … I took it out, freed the tripod of its score-sheet tray, and screwed the cowbell in to that metal pipe … and voila, I now had my substitute for the hi-hat cymbals … no hitting the tables anymore!!
As I practiced with the new combo, the bass drum pedal kept going in and out of my mind … couldn’t ignore it … if I could get that, I can really move on properly with my practice … and moreover, I had seen it and it wouldn’t leave me now … and the next day, I was back again at the same place and bought the pedal …
Now that I had the pedal, what do I do what that … I didn’t have a drum … but I had a really big cardboard box, which was propped against the wall and which we used as a newspaper and magazine stand … so the cardboard box became my bass drum …
ha ha ha … and now I had something for the snare drum, the hi-hat cymbals, and the bass drum ... this combo was my basic drum kit for a couple of weeks … and this is how it looked ...
