How to Play the Cymbals

I was asked to sit in with The Suburban Symphony for an upcoming concert. I am a percussionist--if we use the term loosely—and I've been playing with them for several years. If you go to the website, listen to the excerpts, and hear various crashes, clangs, booms and tinkles, that's likely me. Tinkle, by the way, refers to triangle sounds and not, erm, the other thing.

Wednesday I went to a rehearsal as a last minute sub for a guy named Joe Adato. Joe, for those who don't know, is retired from the Cleveland Orchestra. He plays all percussion but his main job there was cymbalist. (I'm not sure cymbalist is a word but I'm using it anyway. Makes me think of Efrem Zimbalist Jr, or his daughter, Stephanie. I liked Stephanie.). He has the most amazing collection of cymbals, some of which I've had the opportunity to play. There really is a difference.

He came on Wednesday to assist me in learning the part. It turned into a lesson. I hear you laughing. Cymbal lessons. Ha! Anyone can play cymbals.. Even a monkey.

Yes, that is exactly what I look like when I play the cymbals, except I'm in better focus.

Cymbal playing is thirsty work so this is what I look like after

So anyway, Joe gave me some tips, and some really excellent advice, but I learned more from the things he didn't say.

I had set up my stand with my music and had placed some mallets on the stand in front of the music. It's a very inconvenient arrangement, which I would never do for a performance, but which I felt would be okay for this rehearsal since the page turn came in the middle of about 30 measures of rest. The plan was to start counting the rests, remove the mallets, turn the page, replace the mallets and continue counting. No problem—it was rehearsal.

"Where are your mallets?" Joe said.

I pointed. "Right here."

He found a chair, borrowed a towel, and made a mallet stand for me, while I stood there and tried to think of a way to make myself look not stupid.

"You can't have your mallets on your stand like that." he said.

Lesson1: Treat every rehearsal like a performance.

When I'm asked to play, my normal routine is to get a copy of the music, download a version from iTunes., and work on it.  The more difficult or exposed or important my part is, the more time I spend on it until I feel I know the music. I play the CD in my car over and over until I can sing along. It usually works out, but I don't really "know" the music. Since for this I was a last minute replacement I hadn't had a chance to prepare, but I was assured it was easy enough.

Partway through Shostakovich's 5^th symphony, Joe wanted to demonstrate for me. All along he'd been humming the melodies and counter melodies and using his hands to cue in the various parts, as a conductor would do, and many of us know the music well enough to do some of that. But not well enough to play it without music. When he took the cymbals I pointed to the page, as if to advise him where we were.

"I know where we are." And he proceeded to play to the end without the music. Perfectly. Beautifully. He confessed to one bad crash but on a scale of 1 to ten it was probably an 8.75.

Lesson 2: Know the music so you can play the music.

I have no illusions that I could ever learn classical pieces as well as someone who has been doing it for decades, but it reiterates something I learned from a wonderful trumpeter named Doc Levy. Doc always said, "Don't play the notes, play the music." Joe didn't need the notes because he didn't play them.

If at any time in my life I'd ever taken a moment to dream I could have been a professional musician, all I have to do is look at how good actual professional musicians are and I know the gap is too wide. I was born with some talent and I had parents who spent a lot of money on lessons, but I wasn't born with 'it.'  'It' is the combination of talent and desire necessary to rise to the top in a crowded and competitive field. "It' is a gift and it was not given to me.

But I'm good in my own way, for the things I am happy doing. I play with people I like and who like me, and we make other people happy by giving them live music. It's my small way to make the world a little better, one cymbal crash at a time. And I'm okay with that.