As a percussionist, often you have to perform on an unusual instrument. Interesting “instruments” I’ve had to play over the years include: brake drums, trash cans, breaking bottles, thunder sheet, coffee cans, railroad spikes, pool tubing, anvil, air raid siren, water cooler bottles, taxi horns,…
It was the early 70’s and LA studio percussionist, Mark Stevens, needed a new sound for a recording project. He went into his workshop and what emerged was an instrument that changed the percussionist’s arsenal forever. The Mark Tree® bar chime was born, and wow,…
Aya Kaminaguchi is a wonderful young percussionist and was colleague of mine while I was on the Star Wars tour. I’m back in Boston, but Aya is still out on the road. She sent me a link to a wonderful blog about her triangle playing.…
This will be the 33rd consecutive year that Neil Grover will be playing the giant Boston Pops Fourth of July concert on the Esplanade. This year, the guest artist is country star Toby Keith. There will be quite a few Grover products heard, including a…
A high energy performer, multi-percussionist Mark Shelton utilizes a vast array of percussion sounds. Mark is very active in the “Percussion For Worship” movement. We had the pleasure of experiencing Mark’s work last year at PASIC, where he “facilitated” one of the late night hand…
While performing recently in Monterrey, Mexico, I had a chance to visit with Mike Tovar, owner of Mike’s Drum Shop. Mexico’s top percussionists shop at Mike’s and for good reason. Mike’s Drum Shop has an impressive selection of the finest mallets, ethnic percussion and concert…
Grover Pro has just released the new “Open-Tone” temple blocks. These high quality blocks are manufactured in eight graduated sizes. Two different sets are available, our “standard” set of five and our unique “bass” set of three. Each set is sold separately, so that if…
I leave today for a 10 week concert tour of North America with “Star Wars In Concert“. Some of you may remember that I did a short stint in the fall. This time around, I’ve signed up for all 10 weeks! Click on the link…
Today, Berklee Professor Dean Anderson brought a few of his top students to visit the Grover Pro factory. The students took the factory tour, which includes both Grover Pro and SilverFox production. They were amazed at the level of “hands-on” craftsmanship that goes into every…
We are picky about the quality of bamboo that we use for our TMB Series Timpani Mallets. VERY PICKY! We start with the highest quality bamboo available and then hand select only straight bamboo lengths that are consistent in diameter and have very few nodes.…
