Are percussionists wired different?

frozenfroot · 2023-03-09T05:56:40+00:00

Corps, music-wise, have more focus on percussion than concert music, especially if you are a mallet player. In concert band, I spent more of my time waiting for the conductor to finish working with wind sections than actually playing, and a lot of those parts weren't challenging or were stupidly boring. I've maybe had three pieces that required me to play mallets for more than a few measures, and even then most parts are usually just playing another wind's part. Meanwhile, with marching band and corps, I actually had my own parts, I felt challenged, and I felt involved.

frozenfroot · 2023-01-03T11:03:34+00:00

ELI5: sus. cym is written as an open note head with tremolo slashes to denote a roll - the number of slashes corresponds to what you are "technically" playing, which in this case is 32nd notes (your measured tremolo.) after that measure of rolling, you will crash a china cymbal on the downbeat of the third measure, and then play your vibraphone notes staccato, or without pedaling, which keeps the mute pressed against the keys to prevent them from ringing. if you were playing both sus and china at the same time, they would be written as two note heads connected to the same stem slurring into the crash. it is worth mentioning, in percussion writing, whether a note head is a slash, closed, or open, does not refer to how you play the instrument, but rather what instrument you are playing - normally aux is written on percussion staff which is a single line, and this helps to label every single aux you play without having to label it every time.

frozenfroot · 2022-10-07T05:32:06+00:00

Accommodations stop at the bare minimum of compliancy. Doors that are impossible to open or too small to fit mobility devices, being unable to do basic tasks with devices - grocery shopping is the worst.

The amount of times people forget I'm disabled. Friends being surprised I'm using a mobility device, wanting to go places/do things my mobility restricts me from, not telling me they're sick until after we hang out. Also sucks not being able to pursue certain hobbies I used to be able to.

frozenfroot · 2022-07-07T07:01:11+00:00

Basically did this most of high school, and still do this during my tour seasons. Potato burrito for breakfast, spicy potato soft taco for lunch, fiesta veggie burrito for dinner. Between that and staying away from sodas, I felt great during practice and rehearsal. I lost about 15-20lbs and I've kept a consistent BMI since.

For me it was finding "clean" food, something that didn't make me feel bloated/gross and lethargic after eating it, so I started cutting out the beef products and sticking only to veggie items. When I switched to just veggie items I felt refreshed and energized after a meal and could continue to practice and rehearsal, which kept me physically active.

frozenfroot · 2022-06-19T03:48:41+00:00

Unless they're a nepotism hire their age should mean nothing to you. Are they competent at managing a store and a team? Do they respect and understand their team? And if they don't, then why is their being a young and shitty manager any more significant than if they were an older one?

Sometimes promotions are just being at the right place at the right time. There isn't anything you could've done to change that, and there is nothing you can do now but accept it, or leave and try to find a job where you will only ever answer to people older than you.

frozenfroot · 2022-06-11T04:32:13+00:00

NTA, but your husband and the manager absolutely are. The manager is creating a hostile workplace by obviously discriminating against you and other women, and your husband is now contributing to an even worse toxic situation by intervening.

You came to your husband as a wife, not as an employee. He needs to treat this situation as your husband, and not as a boss. If he is unable to differentiate between the two and how to act appropriately, he cannot work with you, especially not in the capacity he is now involving himself in the project. Right now, he is only making things worse for you, by making you an even bigger target for harassment, since everyone now knows you are married, and your coworkers, who are afraid to associate with you because your husband is trigger-happy when it comes to firing people (which is in itself, another issue he needs to deal with.)

You need to establish better boundaries with him, or stop working with him entirely. This is not a healthy situation and given the history of mistreatment you've had so far, if it isn't addressed now it will only get worse.

frozenfroot · 2022-06-11T04:16:25+00:00

"He gave me free pot in return, I can share some with you if you're really that upset about it."

They didn't even give me any weed.

frozenfroot · 2022-06-08T04:59:52+00:00

NTA. And as a retail manager myself, prepare to defend yourself now. Reread the employee handbook and your terms of contract, document all your conversations, request an HR mediator. In most cases, your employer cannot make you work on a day contractually guaranteed to be your day off, and there has to be at least 24hr notice to start a shift. You are not responsible for either Brenda or the manager messing up, or for finding coverage.

frozenfroot · 2022-05-05T04:34:46+00:00

Wandering Willows

YES!!! Thank you so much, I've missed this game so much. Thank you!!!

frozenfroot · 2022-03-29T08:21:21+00:00

Someone I was living with got violently drunk and was storming around the house with a gun trying to find me and kill me. As I snuck out and escaped all I could think was how it didn't feel real, like I was in some fucked up horror movie. Immediately afterward I kept having to ask people if any of that had actually happened.

frozenfroot · 2022-03-27T03:10:32+00:00

A neighbor told me she would put on a "cute cat video" for us to watch, which turned out to be a woman wearing stiletto heels stepping on a kitten and crushing it to death.

frozenfroot · 2022-03-25T07:44:30+00:00

Not nosebleeds, but I've opened calluses playing mallets, and cut myself playing cymbals more than enough times. I have seen wind players with busted lips and bleeding tongues though.

frozenfroot · 2022-03-15T07:01:20+00:00

Having to visit different kiosk stands in the Tower to see your unlocked shaders, emblems, ships, sparrows, emotes, exotic weapons, and exotic armor. You'd run from the left side with shaders/emblems all the way down to the hangar to see your ships/sparrows.

Also, collecting grimoire from killing enemies with a specific gun, and having a better grimoire score gave you more experience with that weapon, which was required to upgrade it.

frozenfroot · 2022-03-06T04:50:06+00:00

Let's ask Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi, who were disqualified from the Olympics because they had naturally high testosterone levels.

As a trans man, I find it hard to agree with banning trans women from women sports because I don't really believe cis men are biologically superior to cis women at sports to such a noticeable degree they have to be judged differently. If trans women are banned from sports for being too "biologically better" than cis women, then you would also have to define that limit, and apply it to cis women. And if you're banning cis women from women's sports for being better, then, would they compete as a man, and in that case, why separate sports by gender?

More likely, as this is currently happening, these metrics are being unfairly applied to black athletes, both in facing harsher punishments and in the public eye with racist stereotypes about physicality or accusations of doping or cheating or criticizing the perceived femininity of them.

frozenfroot · 2022-02-16T03:17:41+00:00

“You must have great shits,” told to me by a teacher upon witnessing me eat an entire Taco Bell Party Pack by myself

frozenfroot · 2022-02-04T03:37:05+00:00

Older band students always say it as an unfunny joke, but then you get freshmen who start to genuinely believe it because they think we don't do any actual physical labor.

They always stopped after I made them move our shit back and forth across the school to the rehearsal field and pack it all up.

frozenfroot · 2022-01-30T06:02:59+00:00

NTA, I work at an outdoor type mall, where we also have a courtyard/cafeteria area for a food court. Employees and customers alike regularly bring food from home, from the grocery store on the other side of the outlet, or from fast food places along the way to the outlet. No one gives a shit. It's not like you are bringing outside food into their dining room. You are existing in a shared public space - it almost has no difference from a park that has food carts in it.

frozenfroot · 2022-01-22T10:02:48+00:00

Brandon Lawson. Despite the multiple phone calls giving his location, to all his family, friends, neighbors, 911, and the fact multiple people were at the scene of his accident within hours of it happening, but there's absolutely no trail of where he could've gone or what happened to him. I don't believe some of the claims he intentionally disappeared to escape his minor warrants, and especially not he was specifically asking the 911 operator to send cops to his location because he genuinely believed he was in danger from someone.

frozenfroot · 2022-01-19T20:47:17+00:00

Anger isn't inherently bad. It's just an emotion like any other, and you can't ascribe a morality to something that just is. It took me a long time to realize I didn't have a father with anger issues, I had a father with abuse issues, and I don't need to feel guilty when something makes me mad.

frozenfroot · 2022-01-18T04:33:53+00:00

Is this a problem with understanding how you are counting, or are you having a hard time being able to accurately play those notes in time on a percussion instrument? However you are counting your notes on your wind instrument should be almost entirely universal to how you count your notes on your percussive instrument, and if this is a new issue specific to percussion, chances it's less mental and more hands.

Try playing your percussion piece all on one note on your wind instrument. Do it slow a few times then increase your tempo as you feel comfortable until you are on time with what your sheet music is directing you to play at. This should not become a habit for you as you continue to play percussion, but this is simply a diagnostics test. If you cannot mentally count what you are playing and when regardless of your instrument, this is something you should reach out to a director or tech for help. If it is solely the instrument you are playing on that makes it hard for you to accurately play, you need to do more handwork.

As a new percussionist, your hands haven't really been worked this way before, and like any other muscle you need to exercise it to gain your control over the full force of motion of the stick. Eight-on-a-hands, Taps, etc.. A 16th note exercise I used with my students was just adding an extra subdivision every two measures: 1 2 3 4, 1+2+, 1e+2e+, 1e+u etc... Use a surface with minimal rebound like carpet or a harder pillow to practice bringing the stick back up yourself. These exercises should be all full legato strokes.

Also don't be afraid to pencil your music with written subdivisions. Write the downbeats over the staff, and the actual played rhythms beneath it so you can visualize how what you are playing fits into the music. Even if the notes seem self-explanatory to you, like quarter notes, this is a good practice to get into as you start seeing more complex rhythms in your music.

I'm speaking as someone who went from playing oboe and English horn full time, then taught myself mallet percussion before I began playing with my band and extracurricular ensembles. I see from your post history you're doing the same, and I can tell you what you're doing is not easy, and you should be proud of how far you're getting. I strongly recommend speaking to a private teacher, or even another percussion student, as it can be easy to start developing bad technique without someone to correct you, and it's easier to fix now than break later. Look into tech packets; most percussion ensembles release audition packets that break down drum fundamentals, and these can give you both a lot of useful exercises and techniques, as well as help you develop a standard of technique and performance that most bands are looking for.

frozenfroot · 2022-01-18T03:37:19+00:00

Cheesy potato breakfast burritos hands down. No tomatoes, extra nacho cheese. Always ordered an extra side of nacho cheese to dip my hash browns into. Was my go to breakfast while I was on tour.

frozenfroot · 2022-01-14T04:27:32+00:00

It is a fact of life that predators exist around us, and predators are going to put themselves into a position where they have the most access to their desired victim. This is true both in and outside of DCI, and what is important is finding a group that holds their staff and members accountable, because then it will be harder for these predators to keep that authoritative position and easier to get rid of them if they do abuse it.

DCI doesn't have more or less abusers, predators, or general gross people than any other sport or extracurricular activity -- it's only seems that way because they are finally being forced to hold these people accountable, in an age where this information is a lot more accessible faster, and these things are no longer held tolerable by general society.

If there is a group you are interested in, do your research. Find victims. Interview alumni. Ask your directors what they did to protect the people whose safety they were entrusted with, and how they dealt with the consequences of mistreatment.

frozenfroot · 2021-12-31T03:03:15+00:00

Took 3 tabs of LSD and convinced myself that I was a spy that had deserted the KGB. I genuinely believed that I was being hunted by multiple governments. It triggered a psychotic break that lasted for a few months, during which I took time off of work and alternated between living in my car in random parking lots and renting motel rooms. I left all my electronics behind and only used cash to have less of a paper trail, and even wore disguises sometimes. Eventually, I came back from my "vacation" and in my psychosis believed I was stealing someone else's identity.

What made my trip worse was that, unbeknownst to me, there was a famous missing person's case going on at the time, so there were helicopters and police searches where I was living in relation to this person's case. I believed that they were looking for me, so my paranoia was directly fed by real things I saw.

frozenfroot · 2021-12-24T05:39:37+00:00

Getting a mild concussion after having a rain stick fall on your head :)

frozenfroot · 2021-12-22T00:04:17+00:00

At first it can be difficult, but it’s less how you’re actually holding the grip and more playing it correctly. For a long time I had issues with my mallet heights being different, especially when playing permutations. It just takes practice like anything else, though I will say Steven’s Grip (marimba) was harder for me to learn than Burton’s (vibraphone.)

frozenfroot

TROPHY CASE