Ensemble Bash's World of Percussion No. 10

Karen Carpenter | Doumbek Frenzy | Beethoven's Nothing | Southern Percussion | Funky Grandma

Jul 11, 2025

Aaand… we’ve made it to 10.

10 episodes of Ensemble Bash’s World of Percussion, 50 snippets of percussive whimsy, and 10 bonus amuse-bouches of stuff from the hitty world.

Thank you if you’ve been part of our immense Odyssey so far, and welcome if you haven’t been.

(See the WoP Bonus for the only Odyssey joke we know)

It’s been immense.

And we’ve not even started to scratch the surface of the World of Percussion.

Never mind scratch the surface, we have not even started to T-Cut the bodywork or buff the bonnet of the buggy of Bash banging.

This month we have some quite remarkable drumming from a massive range of ages as well as a fascinating discussion of Beethoven’s scribbles and one of the oddest misunderstandings in classical music.

WoP#1

Karen Carpenter is best known as the honey-voiced songstress behind Carpenters classics ‘Please Mr Postman’, ‘Top of the World’ and ‘Goodbye to Love’ and a whole stream of easy listening ballads.

What’s lesser known is that in 1975, in a Playboy magazine poll to choose the best drummer of all time, Karen Carpenter scored higher than the mighty John Bonham.

Yes, that John Bonham.

Buddy Rich once said that Karen Carpenter was his favourite drummer.

In the late 60s, Ludwig only made custom snare drums for two drummers - Ringo Starr and Karen Carpenter.

Here she is, aged 18, drumming and singing on Your All American College Show with the Dick Carpenter trio.

And she’s better known as a singer.

Wow. Just wow.

WoP#2

This, dear reader, is astonishing.

How old is this kid? Nothing years old, frankly, but the colours and sounds he gets from this drum are baffling. And the speed is enough to make any basher envious.

He’s playing a doumbek, or darabouka (as ever, many alternative spellings are available).

It’s a drum that’s really only found in a fairly restricted part of the world, given how fabulous a drum it is, in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.

What he’s doing is made up of three basic sounds, that he’s varying with incredible subtlety and nuance.

The ‘doum’ is the deeper bass sound from hitting the head near the centre, with most of the hand catching the head.

‘Tek’ or ‘ka’ is played near the edge, to get a higher-pitched sound, which is almost all the left hand does, and ‘pa’ is hitting towards the centre but leaving the hand on for a moment to dampen the sound.

Right. That’s the lesson over.

Bless your life with 90 seconds of blistering rhythm.

And thank us later.

WoP#3

What’s that you say?

You want 15 minutes of expert research, a rabbit hole about nothing?

With added Beethoven and timpani?

You’re in luck.

Friend of Ensemble Bash Adrian Bending deep dives into why the final note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and why the notation involves both a tremolo and a trill.

(For our lovely readers who happen not to be timpanists, there’s a whole bunch of shenanigans around whether a roll should be written as a tremolo or a trill, and whether there’s actually any difference - but that’s a whole other video)

Amazing forensic research, fascinating throughout, and intriguing glimpses into the world of historically informed performance. Love it.

Ensemble Bash’s brush with historically informed percussion comes via the ever-compelling musical superstar John Cage.

Playing his masterpiece Third Construction, for example, means researching what he means by…

North West Indian rattle (wooden)
5 graduated tin cans (what kind of tin cans? What size? What metal did they use in 1941?)
teponaztli
Indo-Chinese rattle (wooden, with many separate chambers) - huh?!
cricket callers (split bamboo)

… and working out what you’re going to replace them with if you can’t source them.

WoP#4

And for information like that, we turn to our good friends at Southern Percussion.

The wonderful Katy Elman has been running Southern Percussion since 2008, and we sat down with her to ask about running the company, her musical inspiration, her dinner guests (we didn’t get far with that one…) and kazoos.

Of course.

Katy, how would you describe Southern Percussion?

We are a percussion shop run by a percussionist for percussionists. We pride ourselves on being able to give honest, professional advice on the products we sell. Plus, not only do we sell worldwide online, we also have a physical shop in Essex that is designed after the classic “treasure trove” music shops that I loved to visit growing up.

What made you want to start the company?

I didn’t actually start it… I ended up taking over by sheer luck and timing. Not many people will know that I actually have an autoimmune disease and that led to me having to take some time out of my first year at GSMD. At the same time, the original owner of Southern Percussion was looking to retire and wanted someone to take over the company. It was just a small shop, solely selling sheet music. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m not great at resting and doing nothing (even when I’m supposed to) so this seemed like the perfect project for me. I bought it and made it what it is today.

How huge must your premises be to store all your instruments?

Ha ha! Luckily, in Essex there is plenty of space! The shop is pretty big, but we also have two 45ft shipping containers next door that are full to the brim! If you ever visit, it seems like the craziest location. We’re not on the High Street, we are actually down what looks like a pretty secluded dirt track and we have a huge garden around us. Not the most conventional location, but it means you can test out those cymbals as loud as you like!

What’s the biggest / craziest order you’ve had to fulfil?

We have had our share of big instrument orders and slightly off the wall requests, but one order that sticks in my mind was an order going to China. There were over 700 different pieces of sheet music! As you can imagine, that took a while to sort out and the customs forms were nuts!

How good / confident / frequent a percussionist are you?

Errmmmm… not as good as I used to be! I still play and you will see me on the orchestral circuit every so often, but between 2 kids, 2 dogs, teaching Academy and SP I treasure my nights in!

What about the rest of your team?!

We’re only a small team and everyone plays some kind of music, if not specifically percussion. Our social media person is actually originally a saxophonist and she loves Jazz music so she’s been begging me to teach her the vibraphone. I will find the time somewhere!

What’s the strangest instrument you've had to source?

Ok, so we actually make marching kazoos which is probably a little weird for a percussion shop! There are a lot of Marching Jazz Bands in the UK and they couldn’t source the kazoos they used to use anywhere. I ended up getting my hands on an old broken one and found someone that could manufacture them for us.
We also hand make all the reeds in our shop which can make our days a bit crazy when we get an order for 1000!!

https://southernpercussion.com/product/sp-marching-kazoo-copper-lacquered-with-padded-gig-bag/

When have you had to give up on a request that you REALLY wanted to complete?

NEVER… I don’t give up!

You’re hosting a heavenly dinner party for your six favourite musicians - who’s coming to dinner? And who is definitely NOT invited?!

Honestly, I’m a massive foodie so I’m more worried about who’s cooking 😉

Who inspires you?

Michael Balter! He built an amazing company to be proud of, he is the loveliest man in the world and nothing ever came at the cost of his family. He made sure every mallet was worthy of having his name on, and that’s what I try to do at SP. Sell and recommend truthfully, with what is best for each individual customer, but also make sure I’m always around to see my little girls grow up.

Do you have any advice for composers who are asked to write for percussion?

When you have something in mind, speak to a percussionist and check that what you are after is actually physically possible. There are so many tech and synth pieces out there. Or even get on an instrument yourself and experiment.. you never know you might decide to stop composing and start learning!

What one piece of music could you not live without?

This is a really tough one. If I’m putting the radio on I’m a complete 80s cheesy pop kind of girl! (sorry.. not sorry!) But I would actually say Freddie the Fish by David Hext!! When I look back from when I started learning percussion and what’s led me through various music schools/college and Southern Percussion, it all started with this piece. It’s the first piece I really remember learning and performing. I think even to this day I could probably still play it from memory. It’s where it all began…

WoP#5

What we’re listening to

In WoP#2 in this post we featured possibly the youngest player we’ve ever posted, and we end this one with possibly the oldest.

We’re fascinated by the tambourine.

Possibly one of the most under-appreciated of all the percussion instruments, its use, especially in Italy, is as a driving rhythmic force, a hand-held drum kit.

The number of different playing styles is bewildering.

Here, for example, is a saltarella (or saltarello), played with the fingertips and thumb.

It’s a folk dance from Rome, and this video is absolutely delightful. Get your groove on, grandma…

The man sitting down is playing a zampogna, a type of bagpipe made from a goat.

The goat hide is taken off the animal in one piece, cured, and turned inside out.

They then tie it off just in front of the rear legs to make a massive balloon. They tie off one of the front legs and stuff an enormous chanter and blow pipe into the other.

We have questions, to be honest.

Like, who first saw a dead goat and thought ‘I know what I can do with that…’ and came up with a zampogna?

There are some strange people out there.

Thank goodness.

That does give us a chance, though, to revisit the time that Ensemble Bash shared the stage with a zampogna.

Here we were at the 2003 Notte Della Taranta festival with Stewart Copeland. The first minute of this track features a haunting duet between a Puglian singer and a zampogna.

It then explodes into last-song-of-the-set craziness, where you’ll see most of the tambourine players using the Puglian tamburello style, using the bass of the thumb and the side of the fingers.

We’ve tried it. It’s exhausting.