Frugal Friday

Today marks the first installment of a weekly post I will call "Frugal Friday."  Each Friday I will post a helpful and cheap tip that you may not know about.  I will first start out my telling you what kind of drum equipment it pertains to and what materials you will need.  I will either post detailed photos or a video so that you will know exactly how to execute these fixes.  Today's helpful tip involves something almost all drummers overlook, but has devastating results when ignored.  The good news is that today's installment will cost you absolutely no money.

I am going to address the the problem of replacing center-hole protectors (sleeves) that come preinstalled on cymbal stands.  These are great little pieces of of plastic that protect our expensive investments.  That is... until they wear out.  Until now, you have had two choices.  Either let the cymbal stand wear away at your cymbal or pay the hefty price at the music store for replacements.  You actually already have little pieces of plastic like this in your house, they are called pen caps!'

The best ones to use are caps from Bic Pens.  The only thing that you will have to do is cut of the tip of the cap and remove the strip on the bottom that helps secure the pen when it's in you pocket.  There you have it, you just made a new replacement cymbal sleeve from a pen cap.  When you are done it should look and fit on your cymbal stand like the one in this photo.

I hope this first tip was helpful to everyone.  Let me know what you think in the comments section, and tell me if there are any other pesky issues that you have been trying to attack.  Be sure to check bad next Frugal Friday, where I will address installing an alternative bass drum impact pad.  Have a great Frugal Friday!

Photo of the Day

I chose this photo to talk about because it conveys isolation to me.  There used to be places like this on Earth that were completely cut off from society and technology.  You can now make phone calls or surf the internet from anywhere with a Smartphone.  This is only twenty years after the first cell phone that was the size of a brick.  So while the shack in this photo appears to be isolated, it is only that way if we choose.  However, take for consideration that in North America alone nearly eighty percent of the population has Internet access.

In a way, I chose to isolate myself from the conventional methods of repairing and buying new things when they break.  Striving to be that other twenty percent was my goal, and in return it brought fourth incredible ingenuity.  Sitting on an island with only the materials I've brought with me is more appealing than being handed the tools required.  Or in my case, having to overpay and purchase them.  It’s much easier to develop a mentality that there is no other option when taking a DIY approach.  You have to put yourself in a zone and stay there, since it can be very tempting to give in to the convenience of store bought materials.  This is method helped in part by making me think outside the box and be creative.  I’ve always believed that it’s these tight situations that breed innovation.  I am looking forward to sharing my ideas with everyone in my future posts.  Stay tuned!

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Welcome

I'm here to address the age-old problem of being a musician: The fact that we make virtually no money, but have to buy and maintain very expensive equipment.  This is a problem for virtually all start-up musicians, and drummers are easily burdened by it the most.  While I will not be able to help you buy a new drum kit, I can share with you the cheap alternative to laying down your hard earned cash when it comes to repairing it.  After over 10 years of playing and gigging out, I have found numerous solutions for to problems that require materials that you as a drummer already own.  Many of these repair materials you think need to be purchased at a big box store can simply be extracted or produced by you!

I have an extreme interest in this topic because after playing as many gigs as I have, you start to get irritated with the amount of money it is takes to simply continue what you love.  An on-going joke among my fellow musician friends is “what is the first thing you think about after your last song?”  The answer is “what broke.”  Slowly I began to find easy ways to fix minor things, and felt that other drummers could benefit from my findings as well.  I hope to build a community within this blog that is very interactive.  This will be a place for readers to bring their ideas to the web as well, all in the name of saving a buck!


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