Hey Cillers, Martijn, all
Back from NYC yesterday and only now getting to read all the posts, y'all have been busy! :)
The article on the egg drum is not a review but a technical perspective. There were several independent and linked ideas on this drum around this time of its conception and the MKI is mostly the product of Dave Settles 'currach' shell (davydrums) and Rob Forkner's skin (Metloef). The MkII reflects more of my direct input and collaboration with Rob.
In that article I indicated that my 'theory' was to extend the upper portion of the drum to give a larger top end striking area and also that lowering the hand would have a multiplier bass effect because of the active skin area growing disproportionately in multiple directions, increasing efficiency of movement.
What the drum
actually provided was something that I had not expected and with which I was delighted. There is an obvious (to me) increase in the richness of the tone, not greater bass but better 'quality' or 'fullness' of tone. I had/have never heard anything like it.
The MkII, my current squeeze, arose from Rob implementing the comments that I had written at the end of that article and it's a killer. The balance between the thinner shell, thinner bearing edge, reduced taping and the thin
Lambeg skin make the drum come alive as a projectile unit as well as repeating that phenomenon of richness in the tone that I believe arises from the shape.
To a player who plays above the hand, it responds best with the point upward and toward the player's shoulder. Playing below the hand the point would need to be toward the bottom of the instrument. There are several orientations available and each gives a variation on the sound.
I have my own theories on what is happening here and I have been investigating these for several months. I have found a surprising correlation between the drum's vibration and certain anatomical features. These correlations have indicated possible future technical directions of exploration that I won't expand on for now. There may be a PhD in doing this kind of investigation properly, one never knows :).
The drum responds especially well to tonal control by hand pressure as well as sliding the hand and I suppose this does represent some of my original theory where there is a movement multiplier effect however there's much more going on than that in this drum. I have found it difficult now to go back to ordinary round drums.
It doesn't sound much different to a normal drum with the open skin, but it is the hand pressure that makes it come alive, the reason why it didn't work so well for Paul Phillips whose left hand technique was more delicate and very different from mine. It sounds as if Mike and I use our left hands something similarly and I'd expect him to get great results, I don't know about how you play Cillian so YMMV, I'll certainly help by passing on my own techniques to any egg beaters when the time comes.
It is definitely still an instrument in development but it is already a great drum, future versions will be tweaking this basic design in the search for 'optimum' although with the theory needing more research and being somewhat wooly for now there may be backward as well as forward steps, such is R&D!
I'll have the drum with me in Milwaukee and at any gigs & sessions that I am playing here in Ireland, I'll be happy to demonstrate and let any members have a bash - a drum in the hand is worth several thousand words if I may be allowed to mix my metaphors :)
Anyway, hope this is useful
Paul
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