Toilet Drumming
Lord Mayor's Show 2013
No, not drumming in tiled sanitary rooms, this is about inventive instruments in support of drummi…
A toilet theme is highly appropriate for the charity Beating Bowel Cancer, chosen by incoming Lord Mayor of London Fiona Woolf as one of four charities to participate in the annual Lord Mayor's Show 2013.
The Lord Mayor's Show is steeped in history and tradition: Its origins can be traced back to the 12th century, and the street parade has coloured London's streets every year for almost 500 years.
I was invited by a group of London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony Volunteer Performers to join an unusual float, and with the brief to recruit and organise experienced drummers drawn from the Pandemonium Drummers: four drummers for Taiko drumming on the float itself, and about two more to lead two groups of walking drummers.
Instrument Design
Part of the brief was to assess the instrument design for suitability and highlight issues for improvements.
Greeted by a Dalek at an office in Fitzrovia, the group of experienced drummers I organised met with the instrument designer to assess four prototypes of the "portaloos": standard tom-type drums fitted with a toilet seat and even a waste pipe connector for authenticity.
These drums would of course not be played with a standard percussion mallet, no, the beater of choice was a toilet brush with an attached door stopper for a good attack.
We experimented how best to carry, hold, and play the new instruments, which included attempts to bash the lid to vary the sound.
While some of our suggestions such as a better harness for increased comfort were not within the budget, we provided many tips for the instrument designer, who left with the task to quickly produce many more of these fun instruments - they sounded brilliant!
Rehearsal
A few days before the show, we were driven to a remote and cold industrial warehouse somewhere in the northern fringes of London to teach all signed-up volunteer drummers, many of whom without any drumming experience, the Beating-Bowel-Cancer-rhythms, which were only finalised during the rehearsal, based on the observed skills - co-ordinating drumming and walking is much more difficult than it sounds.
The rehearsal was also our first and only chance to try the Taiko drums and arrange our drum patterns on what turned out to be two giant, oversized, 3.5m high hanging loo rolls with embedded Taiko skins in the centre on either side, arranged on a full size trailer.
I considered myself lucky to be one of the four loo roll drummers, and it turned out that it was lucky indeed.
Lord Mayor's Show Procession
The drumming itself went very well; the Taiko drums supported the walking drummers for large parts, and at key points we burst into a Taiko solo with the adequate visual action on the float.
Unfortunately for me, my Taiko was at a rather uncomfortable height: standing upright, the vertical drum skin was hanging slightly below my breast bone, which made for an awkward arm positioning - during the solo parts, I therefore opted to kneel on one knee and drum with widely swinging arms over my shoulders.
My kneeling allowed for excellent dynamic control and it looked visually highly engaging, but the position was also very exhausting to maintain for almost two hours of performance time.
But the pain in the arms was easily offset by the fun of drumming on a highly unusual instrument in the Lord Mayor's Show procession, and by the knowledge of making a resounding contribution to raising bowel cancer awareness!
Visit the Beating Bowel Cancer website
Visit the Beating Bowel Cancer website