Details

Category: Museum

29

Dec

American Drum Museum

Written by George Lawrence

Dear fellow drummer,

Not So Modern Drummer is in the beginning phase of establishing a brick and mortar non profit American Drum Museum in Nashville. This facility will house exhibits, documentation, research, restoration and publication of all things pertaining to the history and present day development of the American drum set as well as associated drums and percussion of the American military, orchestras, theatres, radio, film, and television. The subsequent development of the drum set and modern percussion internationally will also be represented, as well as the most recent modern developments. We seek your help and advice.

There are many reasons for opening such a facility. It is a natural outgrowth of Not So Modern Drummer Magazine. It is a venue for gathering the vintage drum collecting community, giving it more structure and purpose, and a place to hang its hat permanently. It would be a natural repository for collections of historic drums that are now in private houses and museums and at the risk of being lost for lack of proper preservation. In Nashville it would also serve as a hub to serve and be served by the drum manufacturing and distribution industry there.

When I first acquired ownership of this magazine and took over the business and communication jobs associated with it in 2008, some of the first calls I had were from older collectors asking me where they could donate their collections. Their reasons for donating were all similar; they wanted these pieces of history they had collected and restored and loved and cared for, to be enjoyed by others. They didn’t want to give them to their children who didn’t appreciate them and they did not want to part them out on Ebay. They wanted their names on them in a legitimate institution for posterity. This turned on the museum light bulb in my head.

As soon as I started telling people about this idea the volunteers started coming out of the woodwork. Collector Gary Asher has offered loans from his massive collection and offered leads on finding a building. Collector Gary Forkum of Fork’s Drum Closet in Nashville has offered to loan pieces of his collection for the exhibits. Bart Elliot of DrummerCafe.Com has expressed serious interest. There are many more. We have had other offers of donations and loans but decided to hold off until we had some well advised policies and procedures in place.

On August 19 In Washington D.C., Joe Partridge and I met with museum consultant and developer Cissy Anklum of Museum Concepts www.museumconcepts.com to learn about funding, development and administration of such a museum. Cissy worked as curator for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Newseum, has developed other national music museums and is well connected with the Nashville museum community. We determined that our goals are feasible and doable. The basic plan is to acquire a donated building for the museum, which will house the permanent and rotation exhibits of artifacts, a reference library, a working drum building and restoration, a performance/educational hall with audio/video production for the drum industry, a gift shop and café, and the offices of NSMD. The Museum will have ticketed tours, host drumming events, and provide private and group instruction.

Our first steps in this process are

1. Applying for NEA and NEH grants and fund raising for production and televising of a “PBS quality” documentary film about the history of American percussion; Revolutionary and Civil War drums and drumming, The drum set and other percussion instruments and how they evolved in live theatre, phonograph recording, radio, movies and television as music changed from Sousa and orchestral music, through Dixieland jazz, Big Band Swing, Be Bop, Rock and Roll and fusion. This film will be the storyboard and soundtrack for our museum exhibits and segments of it will be used in different stations of the tour.
2. Renting a temporary warehouse and production facility in Nashville for storage and restoration of artifacts and reference material, as well as the offices of NSMD, the Famous Drum Company and other associated drumming businesses.
3. Forming a board of advisors from the vintage and modern drumming community and from the museum administrative and curating world.
4. Presenting a Drum Museum exhibit at the 2012 Southern Drum Show on Sept. 29 & 30.

Collection of an oral and video history from prominent drummers and drum builders. This has already been started. Arnie Lang is donating his collection of oral history recordings that he has been working on for years. NSMD hired Bill Ray, the last drummer to play with Ike Turner, to do a video interview with Charles Connor, the drummer of Little Richard and the Upsetters, documenting the beginnings of rock and roll drumming. Projects of this nature are scattered around and we want to give them a home and a wider audience.

We are asking for your participation and help. We need volunteers for the advisory board, researchers, eventually volunteers to work at the museum, patrons, and people experienced in fund raising. We also need donations of money, vintage instruments and other drum related vintage items, fixtures, supplies, and shop tools.

Communication of the advisory board will at first consist of email and convenient meetings at drum shows. We need credentialed experts and celebrities for the highest tier of this board, the list of advisors named in the grant process; published authors, experienced appraisers, major symphony orchestra players, recognized teachers and professors, etc. BUT we don’t need just names on a list. We need involvement, and a commitment to helping with the guidance, promotion and development of this museum from anyone who is qualified and has a sincere desire to participate. We want to get this right.

There is, of course, a lot more to this and many ideas are being batted around. A forum has been started on our website notsomoderndrummer.com to discuss the museum.

Yours sincerely,
George Lawrence, publisher of NSMD, co owner of Famous Drums, drummer for POCO, known instigator of wild schemes that are eventually accomplished. ☺