The French and American rolls have the same number of strokes and are not the same rudiment. This one is hard to hear and impossible to fix by practicing harder.

He’s starting percussion. The photo I sent him was mostly a rubber pad, and that was the point.

I have played bass pan at Panorama in Brooklyn and at the World Steel Band Festival in Port of Spain. Neither is on any track toward the job I have.

Dolly Parton played snare in a marching band forty-five minutes from my office, then spent the rest of her life paying for other people’s.

Somebody built a balloon marching band member in the lobby, and of all the instruments in the building they handed him the punchline.

Percussion is the only section of the orchestra that had to argue its way in. That turns out to be useful.