The little guy was fortunate to receive a generous moneygram from his grand uncle and aunt in South Africa and it wasn’t too difficult to decide how to spend it. Part went into his savings account, and another went to an investment of a different kind: Calvin’s music.
When shopping for a young percussionist — for clearly that’s what our pot, pan, cutlery and recycle banging boy is into right now — there is only one stop in New York City. That locale is what I like to call music alley, just off Broadway on W48th Street. And on that street, we like Sam Ash.
This is like the epicentre of music. Divided among three stores now, theres the wood and wind store; the string store and… the percussion store. You can test out equipment (I highly recommend having a go on various drum sets); buy sheet music; or just gape in longing at the instruments (like the $6,000 Selmer Alto Sax like my dad used to have.)
Fortunately, when equipping a young percussionist, the price tags are much lower. We managed to get Calvin more than we bargained for — his all time favourite Rythmix egg shakers in both the traditional egg shape, as well as an elephant, giraffe and rhino shape (each opening up all kinds of different sounds, weights and outlines for chewing on), as well as the piece de resistance… a tom drum!
I hope our neighbours do not think they’ve been transported into tribal lands somewhere, now that low tone bongs are emanating from our apartment. But it’s well worth the beaming expression on our ‘musician’s’ face. This video shows a snippet of the fun, thoughnot the best of the drumming by far. He does actually use the drumsticks the right way around and bangs the drum! Thanks Grand Uncle S and Grand Aunt M!
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