Hey there,

Today we started a new contest, which is called FACES OF PERCUSSION that gives you the chance to appear in the 2009 MEINL BOOK OF PERCUSSION.

We are looking for people who love to play percussion - just send us a picture of yourself expressing your musical personality. The photo can be taken anywhere. There's only one restriction: You should not be playing an instrument in the picture, because we believe that with your love for music, your musical personality will shine through and be self-evident.

The coolest pictures will win new Meinl Percussion instruments.

Take part in FACES OF PERCUSSION ;-)

Keep on photographing

meinlpercussion.com/facesofpercussion

Armin

We proudly announce that Arnold F. Riedhammer finally joined the Meinl percussion family.

Mr. Riedhammer is the principal percussionist of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

His other passion belongs to Blechschaden - a group well on its way to cult status...

In the field of pop and rock music, he has recorded and toured with: The Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury and Queen, Liza Minelli, Liberace, Chris de Burgh, Donna Summer, Randy Crawford, Henri Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmar Bernstein, Lawrence Rosenthal, etc.

Bill Saragosa visited me the other day to work out new ideas.

I got already the first prototypes on my desk and they look very promising.

It's fascinating what happens when you put this man in a workshop... he hammers and welds and swears and finally comes up with this crazy toys (SPARK SHAKERS, TRIL, BOWL) that sound like not from this world... I love it :-)

Besides his excellent work, Bill's also a very funny and nice guy to spend time with.

Thanks Bill - I always enjoy your visits...

Mario

hi folks,

let me introduce you another argentinean percussionist i have met at facebook the last days.

his name is pablo bendayan from buenos aires working as a “center manager of shopping centers, renting places, marketing and so.” and he is studying percussion 4 times a week at a huge school only for percussion together with 400 other percussionists.

400 ? that’s the point where i stopped and had to take a deep breath … wow - i thought – germany seems to be a less developed country in the percussion world - what a shame!

but now i was curious to learn more about him, this school and the people who are playing percussion there. in the following a short summary of quotes, of what pablo has told me:

“the school has nearly 400 students just percussion, but different styles like candombe, rumba, samba, pagoda, and south american batucada ( most like brazilian). the school’s director is daniel buira, former drums player of a famous argentinean band called “los piojos”. daniel buira was studying in several places: cuba, brasil , uruguay and argentina. this school promotes percussion in several forms, allowing even people with no economical chance to study, through free courses (in case someone cant afford it).”pablo also wanted me to mention two of the percussion teachers: noelia ledesma and veronica martinez. don’t know if these two teachers are some very special persons / percussionists. ask him if you want to at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=647509373 ;-)

if you want to know a little bit more about the percussion school, please follow this link: www.chilinga.com.ar.

pablo also told me, that he has uploaded several videos on www.youtube.com, search la chilinga. with this entry i've posted two of them: "festival de la percusion mar del plata" and "la chilinga 08". thank you pablo for all the info you have sent and for the great videos you have made. lets keep on staying in touch!

all the best

helge

hi folks,

we told you already our focus went on to facebook, contact other percussionists around the world …

today i want to introduce you salvador morrone from argentina, who is being very active on facebook, looking – like we do - for percussion interested people, etc…

he is doing a very interesting and sometimes funny blog about african percussion especially djembe, but you have to be able to speak spanish. for those of you who are interested in, this is the link you have to follow: continente.wordpress.com

”my blog is an attempt to spread the djembe, african percussion and african culture. my master is abdoulaye badiane, from casamance senegal, he studied in guinea, mali, burkina and also casamance.” salvador told me. “feel free to coment any subject on my blog”. if you got anything to ask him directly of course you can contact him on facebook too: www.facebook.com/profile.php

more info about interesting percussion groups or percussionists and websites will follow. so stay tuned and keep on drumming ;-)

all the best

helge

Hi people,

I want to introduce you to our handsome new trainees - Jacqueline and Jenny.

They will work at Meinl cymbals & percussion for a few weeks to get an insight into the world of employment :) We try to teach them as much as possible and give them a lot of advices which they may need in their personal and work related career.

It's very interesting for me to hear some ideas and opinions seen from their angle, which is very important for me, because many percussionist out there are females, too... so this is a big help for me as well.

Jacqueline: "To work at Meinl percussion is really a lot of fun for me. Not only the work you get to do... also the information about all these instruments. Everyone is very kindly and nice. I think I learned more about percussion instruments than in my whole school music lessons".

Jenny: "It's a lot of fun to work with these people! Everybody is very pleasant and funny in his own way. My job is to keep the websites (myspace/facebook) always up to date. What I like most, is the possibility to take a look behind the scenes. They showed me in the cymbals apartment every process step from a raw disk to a final cymbal. I am very happy to work here for a while".

Hi all the Team!

Here are a little resume of the Concert in Trinidad Tobago with ANDY NARELL and TRINIDAD ALL STARS, MARK WALKER & JACQUES SCHWARZ-BART.

HOPE YOU LOVE IT!

ABRAZOS

have you heard about facebook ? i'm sure you did ...
since a few days my focus went on to facebook and what's going on there and so i signed in. really impressive how many percussionists you can find there, just having smalltalk about  whatever you want to blabber. just a few days - and i've got some interesting notes, wishes, questions, etc. from percussion players all over the world. but how can this be something interesting to you all ? well - next week i will start to picture some of these guys and percussion groups / schools / drum circles here in this percussion blog, making them more prominent here and on facebook.

You all are welcome to join us on facebook, post your percussion info, videos, pictures ... on
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=533423482 or on
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11513894395

Hope to meet you there, enjoy playing and have a great time ...

all the best. Armin

During my last weeks trip I also visited Meinl USA L.C. in Nashville, TN.

It was good seeing these guys again, even though I couldn't stay long. Adam took some time and showed me a little bit around. It was my first time at our US distribution center, so it was quite interesting for me. Mitch also took me to Fork's Drum Closet - a great music dealer in Nashville who has a wide choice of Meinl percussion instruments. Very nice...

After that I flew straight to Atlanta, GA where I've met Dave Strohauer and his kind crew at Earthshaking Music. They have already such a decent weather over there (it was snowing when I left Germany!!!) I got really jealous...

Dave is a complete samba expert. He lives the samba! We talked about many great ideas and we perused our current samba line. It was very interesting and absolutely inspiring - thanks Dave!

In the evening I had the chance to join a rehearsal of Daves samba group, which was big fun! First I disgraced myself with an A-Go-Go Bell... if that wasn't enough, Dave put me on the leading role with a Repinique... since I sucked here even more, he made me play the Caixa. Well, I'm a drummer - so I rocked on the Caixa, at least... I had a blast :)

Thanks to Gordon from Earthshaking Music and everybody else for taking your time, sharing ideas, and being so supportive - I really appreciate it!

Take good care

Mario

Hi everybody!

I hope you’re doing alright these days… last weekend I’ve been in Mendham, New Jersey where I participated at NAFDA – North American Frame Drum Association.

It was a great event full of spirits and awesome frame drum players. The festival took place in a big chapel somewhere out in the woods... it was a nice ambience and everybody felt totally comfortable.

I want to thank N. Scott Robinson and Glen Fittin for this wonderful and inspiring event. I had such a great time during my stay and I've learned a lot about this beautiful drums and special playing techniques!

Javier Villar Morales was there too - checking out the workshops and having a good time.

I got really amazed by the passion everybody brought in... Trust me – if you'll ever got the chance checking out frame drums for a while, you’ll never give it up again… it's just too much fun!

So, after all – I’m glad that I’ve been there and I really appreciate all the kind conversations.

We will work on new ideas now and I’m sure we’ll come up with some great frame drums in 2009… so stay tuned.

ta ka di mi doum :-)

Mario