PAS Magazines: the First 50 Years by Lauren Vogel Weiss
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PAS Magazines: The First 50 Years By Lauren Vogel Weiss ne of the most important Percussion Ensemble. In the short space of PERCUSSIONIST aspects of PAS is commu- less than two years interest has grown to the The first “official publication of the Percus- nication. In today’s world point that copies of the newsletter are being sive Arts Society” was Percussionist, a small, of Internet, social media, sent to professional percussionists and edu- six-by-nine inch volume published in May and tweets, people take for cators throughout the country and to many 1963. The red cover featured a single mal- Ogranted the instant communication so readily overseas locations…. let and the issue was 22 pages. Donald G. available. But fifty years ago, there were no “Percussive Notes is meant to be a means of Canedy, the de-facto President (and Execu- computers and long-distance phone calls were not only reporting news and activities of in- tive Secretary) of the fledging organization, expensive, so one of the best forms of com- terest in the field of percussion but to provide served as the magazine’s first editor. Other munication was the written word, in the form a medium for the expression of divergent members of the editorial board were Rey M. of magazines and newsletters. opinions as to the state of and the purposes of Longyear, Al Payson, and soon-to-be-Presi- In the burgeoning world of percussion percussion performance and teaching both at dent Gordon Peters. education, the only way that percussionists a student and professional level.” Canedy, who was teaching at Southern across the country could share ideas—other By December 1964 (Vol. 3, No. 2), there Illinois University at the time, remembers than occasional meetings—was by mail. And was a written thank you to the companies how that first issue came to be. “Remo Belli one of the first sources of this information that underwrote the newsletter: Amrawco, sent me a check for $140 and asked me to do was a small local newsletter called Percussive Musser, Zildjian, Camco, Gretsch, and Ev- whatever I could for PAS, whenever I could. Notes, published not by PAS but by James L. ans. The following year, Slingerland and Rog- That bought our first red pamphlet. And that Moore. A percussionist in the Indianapolis ers were added to the list in the then 16-page was the beginning of everything permanent Symphony and adjunct professor at Butler newsletter. about the society.” University, Moore published the first issue of Four people were added as Regular Con- The first issue contained articles about Notes in February 1963. tributing Editors in February 1965 (Vol. 4, drum rudiments, keyboard mallet instru- Subtitled “items of interest about per- No. 3): Thomas Akins, Owen Clark, Jerry ments, dance drumming (i.e., drumset), a cussion from the Indianapolis Percussion Kent, and Richard D. Paul. And by the next Q&A column, and even a list—including ad- Ensemble,” Vol. 1, No. 1 was five typed year, the subscription rate had doubled to dresses—of the first 70 members of PAS. pages. It included news about the ensemble $2.00. By this time, Moore had moved to In 1966, after producing nine issues of (Moore, Richard Paul, and Erwin Mueller), Columbus, Ohio where he served as percus- Percussionist, Canedy left SIU for a position information about the Indiana State High sion instructor at Ohio State University and with CBS Musical Instruments, which had School Solo and Ensemble contest, people in as Principal Percussionist with the Columbus recently acquired Fender Guitars and Rogers percussion, and reviews of three publications. Symphony Orchestra. Drums. He turned over the editor’s duties Moore also included an article about the ma- But the Percussive Arts Society was not to Neal Fluegel, who served in that capacity rimba, “Instrument of Singing Wood.” mentioned in Notes until June 1967. So how until 1979. Fluegel was joined by Assistant “I think the idea for the newsletter came was PAS communicating with its members? Editors James L. Moore (who was still pro- during one of the Symphony’s bus ducing Notes) and Al Payson, and in rides to one of our jump-out concerts,” 1972 by Jacqueline Meyer. Moore remembers. “We were promot- Contents of Percussionist in its early ing ourselves, but we had good inten- years included a wide variety of ar- tions, too. We started out mailing to ticles and news—even the minutes of a relatively small number of people PAS Board of Directors meetings. we knew in the field—some of our Articles featured a mix of topics, former teachers and colleagues.” from military drumming to key- In the second issue, Moore be- boards, from timpani to percussion gan the list of concert programs ensembles. There were also regu- that ran for decades, and the lar columns and reviews of new third issue featured a tongue-in- publications. Surprisingly, there cheek letter to the editor from “a was no advertising! The closest drummer’s wife.” Annual sub- thing to an ad was the list of all scriptions cost $1.00. the companies who joined and As stated in the June 1964 supported PAS, divided into issue (Vol. 2, No. 4), “Percus- categories: Manufacturers, Dis- sive Notes began on a very local tributors, Instrument Dealers basis in conjunction with the (which became Instruments activities of the Indianapolis Specialists/Dealers), and Pub- percussive noTes 12 MAY 2011 lishers—now known as Sustaining Members. The editorial staff was expanded in the The last page of each issue was a membership Spring of 1974 to include Larry Vanland- application. ingham as Review Editor, Ronald Keezer as Percussionist was originally published quar- Features Editor, and Jacqueline Meyer as terly and listed page numbers cumulatively. Advertising Manager. Linda Pimental was Each issue averaged about 30 pages, so No. 2 added as an Assistant to the Editor in the Fall of each volume would start with page 31 (or of 1979, shortly before Moore ended his ten- whatever was appropriate), with each volume ure as Editor. running about 120–150 pages. The last issue In Fall 1975, Percussionist began to publish of each volume included an index of all the three issues a year instead of the previous articles that had appeared in that year’s is- four. Each volume had more pages, so the to- sues. tal size for the year remained about the same (160 pages). The Winter 1978 issue (Vol. PERCUSSIVE NOTES 15, No. 2) was the last time that the Board In June 1967 (Vol. 5, No. 4), Percussive minutes were printed in this publication. Notes announced that beginning with the first When F. Michael Combs took over Fall 1967–68 issue, Percussive Notes would be- as Editor of Percussionist in the spring of come an official publication of the Percussive 1979 and Notes a year later, he brought a Arts Society. “The PAS Percussionist will con- new look to each periodical. The cover tinue to publish articles and research studies of Percussionist Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring/ of importance to all in the percussion field, Summer 1979) featured a black-and-white and Percussive Notes will continue to keep all picture of a drumset player, which high- members informed on current news, trends, lighted one of the articles inside: “A History recent programs, and happenings of inter- of Jazz Drumming” by Thomas Shultz. est. Both publications will be available only This issue also showcased a major change in to members of the Percussive Arts Society. the publication: instead of a variety of articles Members will receive during each school year and other information about PAS, each four issues of the PAS Percussionist and three volume would focus on one issues of Percussive Notes, plus all other an- topic with fewer, nouncements and information sent out by the longer Society.” features; Dues increased to $5.00 for regular mem- this one bers and $2.50 for students. The first full- had three page ads appeared in Notes in late 1968 (the research 38-page Vol. 7, No. 1). The first four advertis- articles, each ers were Zildjian, Remo, Drums Unlimited, one more than and Rogers, who ran a four-page ad for their 20 pages in new timpani. length. Edition. This was done to Each cover of the publications was a differ- In 1981 it was secure a better mailing rate ent color—shades of red, yellow, green, blue. announced that from the U.S. Postal Ser- The 8½ x 11 inch Notes featured drawings or Percussionist would vice, which required four photographs on the cover. The smaller Percus- be re-named Per- annual issues of the same sionist was a different solid color showing the cussive Notes Research publication for second- PAS logo. class rates. At that time, PAS was publishing three annual issues of each publication. But it was soon announced that Notes would be published four times per year and Research Edition twice. At first, the dual title of Percussive Notes Research Edition/Percussionist appeared on each issue. The March 1982 cover (Vol. 19, No. 2) was the last one to carry the title Percussionist. (And if you’re wondering why the volume numbers of the two periodicals don’t match, Percussionist began publication after Notes, so there was no Volume 20 of Percussionist, al- lowing the two volume numbers to be in sync and comply with postal regulations.) As the name evolved into Percussive Notes Research Edition, so did the physical look of the magazine. Expanded from the six-by-nine inch size, it was now seven-by-ten inches, with an all white cover.