Once considered a boy’s only club, more and more women are taking up the drums as an instrument of choice – such as Lucy Landymore* (above) who performs Frank Zappa’s “The Black Page Drum Solo”, as well as Heather Thomas (below) who also performs “The Black Page #1” with the Central Washington University Percussion Ensemble. It bodes very well for equality of the sexes behind the drums.
*BBC Young Musician of the Year 2010
Interesting to hear the piece played at this slow tempo (the two Heather vids). It works though.
I teach music to kids, sometimes very young ones, and my impression is that little girls often like drums just as much as the boys do – in fact just about ALL very young kids seem to like drums. What’s not to like about banging on stuff with sticks?! Things get a little more genderized later, but I believe quite a bit less so than in the past. When I was a 8-10 year old kid (40 years ago), middle school girls played flute and clarinet and boys played trumpet, percussion and trombone, and there was very little overlap (I played French Horn, which seemed to be ambisexual for some reason). Not so much that way now, which is cool, because the former way is so arbitrary and boring. I do think a distinction has to be made between playing instruments as a quasi-social activity in a middle school band, and kids who seriously study an instrument. I went to a conservatory-type school for High School (in the US, ages roughly 14-18) 30 years ago, and there were female percussionists and trumpeters then, but they were serious students, like Heather and Lucy.
Glad Ruth U. was serious also….
This is one of the most intelligent and musical performances of The Black Page I have ever heard (and I have heard many). Even got a lot of eyebrows to it. I have heard it about 25 times now, and I have enjoyed it very much every time.
Lucy Landmore is very talented and I will keep searching for other of her performances.
I posted my comment from the frontpage and didn’t realise that were other perfomances too. My comment was directed at Lucy Landmores version.
Heather Thomas is also very gifted, but Lucy wind The Black Page Medal.
Time after time I get surprised on the main structure of The Black Page – it’s simply repeating the whole thing again, so the piece is two same, equal parts following each other (I’m not talking about BP no.1 and no.2).
Do we know any piece from any time of the music history with a structure like this? Or is it only surprising to me?
I don’t know about musical history (no, I don’t!), but Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is famous as the play where “nothing happens twice”. The two acts are very similar, and a possible parallell to the Black Page.
On a micro-level there’s something similar happening in Beefheart’s music – so often the guitar parts are played twice before the next section, which is then played twice, and so on. It’s a way of carving the stark statement into the listener’s mind, I guess.
[quote post=”4513″]Time after time I get surprised on the main structure of The Black Page – it’s simply repeating the whole thing again, so the piece is two same, equal parts following each other (I’m not talking about BP no.1 and no.2).[/quote]
It’s interesting to hear a piece this linear (non repeating) repeated/varied three times en toto, evolving each time (or ‘devolving’, although I like the supposedly ‘disco’ version a lot).
BTW, not an original observation I’m sure, but it should be said somewhere that, on Black Page 3, what Frank calls a ‘cheap little disco-type vamp’ is of course nothing of the kind. That is not a disco groove at all, cheap or otherwise.
[quote comment=”22071″]It’s interesting to hear a piece this linear (non repeating) repeated/varied three times en toto, evolving each time.[/quote]
Yes but my main note is that in nr1. it is NOT evolving at all by repetition, but the drummer plays the very SAME thing twice. Its 1:38 at Lucy Landymore – that’s where she starts the whole thing AGAIN. That is what is interesting and surpising to me.
[quote post=”4513″]the drummer plays the very SAME thing twice. [/quote]
It’s not quite the same thing, is it? It’s like a partial repeat with a coda I think. Nice catch, though, Balint. It does start over, but goes somewhere else. I never noticed that before!
[quote comment=”22143″]It’s not quite the same thing, is it?[/quote]
Yes, it is – mostly. 🙂 The last few seconds are different – if I’m correct. The very same parst are as follows (Lucy’s version):
0:39 – beginning – 1:38
0:49 – snare thing – 1:48
1:00 – slow beats – 1:58
1:15 – quick toms – 2:14
1:19 – “melody” – 2:18
and this is where – i think – a bit change happens, at
It would be fun to check how BP nr 2 uses this repeat and works it with the melody.
[quote post=”4513″]It would be fun to check how BP nr 2 uses this repeat and works it with the melody.[/quote]
Yes it would! One of these days…
Ever since I read your comment, Balint, I’ve been obsessing about this – running various versions through my mind. I’ve taken some VERY long showers lately, the drool hitting the floor along with the water, as I stare off into the imaginary distance ‘listening’. My wife thinks I go into a catatonic state in the shower now. I sort of do…
The melody fools you – the melody changes when the two rhythms are the same – it sounds completely different melodically the ‘second’ time. You don’t notice that the rhythm is the same. In fact, I never noticed that the rhythm was the same even in the drum solo!