5th January: Drums

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: twelve drummers drumming - and all the rest - but for today, here are some things you might not know about drums.

1. Drums are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, musical instruments known to man. Drums from Neolithic times have been found, which could date back as far as 5500BC. These drums were made from alligator skins and are thought to have been used in Shamanic rituals.
2. Humans aren't the only animals to use the principle of drumming. Macaque monkeys drum objects in a rhythmic way to show social dominance. We've all seen gorillas beating their chests. Even rodents such as kangaroo rats have been known to drum their paws on the ground.
3. Making music isn't the only use for drums. In Africa, talking drums have been used for centuries to communicate over vast distances. These drums are shaped like hourglasses and built so that the pitch can be adjusted so that the drumming mimics the patterns of human speech. Sri Lanka has also used drums to communicate for over 2500 years. They have also been, and still are, used in shamanic and spiritual rituals.
4. The sound a drum makes is determined by several factors. These include the shape and construction of the shell of the drum - the larger the diameter of the shell, the lower the pitch, and the deeper a drum shell is, the louder the volume. The other main factor is the drum head, or the membrane stretched across the top of the drum. What the drum head is made from and how tightly it is stretched will affect the sound produced.
5. Drumming is good for you. Drumming burns more calories in half hour session than cycling, weight lifting and hiking, and it also lowers the level of stress hormones in the body. It's also good for the brain. Psychologists studying the effects of steady rhythms on people's brains found that students exposed to rhythm therapy improved their grades, and further, that this kind of therapy had a similar effect to Ritalin and was helpful to children with ADD. Researchers in Stockholm also found a link between the ability to keep a steady beat and intelligence and problem solving.
6. Drums are part of the percussion class of instruments, and within that category, instruments such as drums which produce sound through a vibrating membrane are called membranophones. Other percussion instruments such as bells and triangles, which produce sound because the whole thing vibrates, are called idiophones.
7. In 1909, the Ludwig Drum Company marketed the first bass drum foot pedal. The drum kit as we know it, however, didn't come along until the 1930s. Before that, a band would need more than one person to play the drums. The average drum kit has 5 pieces – the bass drum, snare drum, two toms, and a floor tom, and it may also have several cymbals. Not every drum kit is average. There is one, built by Dr. Mark Temperato which has 813 pieces. It took him 36 years to build it; it takes four people 15 hours to assemble it and to hit every individual piece takes an hour. However, it could be even bigger by now, since Dr Temperato's goal is to create a thousand piece drum kit.
8. The first electronic drum was created by Graeme Edge, drummer of The Moody Blues, in the early 1970s. They were popular during the 1980s and it looked as if they might replace acoustic drums completely - but it turned out that most drummers find the acoustic sets more satisfying to play.
9. Some drum related Guinness Records, according to the Guinness web site at time of writing. The largest drum in the world is a traditional Korean "CheonGo" drum which measures 5.54 m (18 ft 2 in) in diameter is 5.96 m (19 ft 6 in) tall and weighs 7 tonnes (15,432 lb 5.76 oz). I couldn't find any references for the smallest. The record for the longest drum roll by an individual was set by Jayson Brinklet, from Dagenham, Essex in May 2015. He drummed for 12 hours, five minutes and five seconds; but this is where the idea that drumming is good for you falls down - he had to stop in the end because his wrist completely seized up. The longest drumming marathon lasted 133 hours and 3 minutes. This was achieved by Carlos Santos in Castelo Branco, Portugal, in November 2014. The most drumbeats in a minute using drumsticks is 2,109, by Siddharth Nagarajan from India, in February 2017. Col Hatchman, the drummer with a band called Dirty Skanks holds the record for the loudest drumming - 137.2 decibels during a show. Only 2.8 decibels less than the recognised pain threshold where his audience would have been required to wear ear protection.
10. One of the first professional female drummers and one of the most famous is a woman called Viola Smith. As of 2016, she was still performing at the age of 104.

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Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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