The Beat Goes On
Frame drums
YOU’D THINK that a solid hour spent listening mostly to an assortment of simple frame drums would try most concertgoers’ patience. But that’s hardly the case when percussionist extraordinaire Danny Mallon is at work. He appeared Monday before last, in his patented “Drums through the Ages” program – which I’ve heard several times in years past, both at the College and during Piccolo Spoleto. While the essentials of these lecture/performance programs have remained the same all along, each new edition is a bit different.
As he told us from the stage, many global cultures have their own brands of frame drum: essentially a short wooden cylinder, wider than long, open at one end, with some sort of skin or membrane stretched over the other. They vary widely in size, design and sonic characteristics. The ones we heard include the North African Tar, the Arabic tambourine (Riq), the larger Daff, and the Irish Bodhran.
Until you hear him for yourself, you simply can’t imagine the veritable symphony of sounds that Mallon gets out of these seemingly primitive percussion instruments. No mere repetitive thumping here. The kinds of sound vary tremendously, according to where the drum is struck: the center or the edges (even the rim). The relative strength of each stroke, of course, alters the volume. And entirely different sonorities are produced according to which part of the hand strikes the drum: fingernails, fingertips, or the flats of the fingers or hand. He can produce “swishing” effects, and even a sort of “cooing” sound by drawing a moistened fingerpad across the drum’s membrane. Add intricate rhythms and time signatures to all this sonic variety, and the solo frame drum suddenly becomes a fascinating and complex instrument.
To add a melodic dimension to his show (you can’t play tunes on most drums), Mallon shared with us another of his many esoteric skills: Mongolian throat-singing. It’s really wild — and weird! While vocalizing a single pitch, Mallon – by altering the positions of his mouth, palate and tongue – further produces a sequence of higher overtones that he can manipulate into a scale, intervals (mostly thirds) or even a real tune, drifting eerily above the underlying foundation pitch. Check out the above artist link – where you can hear him at it! Another interesting vocal effect was his occasional use of rhythmic chanting as he played.
And he went well beyond just the frame drum in his final piece, working the main noisemakers (drums, shakers and “devil-catchers”) with his hands while tapping a woodblock with a drumstick attached to one foot and shaking a maracas-type rattle with the other. Presto, a one-man percussion band, with some intermittent throat-singing and chanting spicing things up. How the man can do so many things at once – and make quality music while he’s at it – is beyond me!
Reprinted from Eargasms • April 13, 2009
