Crafting a unique sound
Skilled artisans in St. John’s are making custom drum kits by hand
Custom drum makers are a rare breed, often working in isolation, and sometimes even unaware of others’ presence.
Such is the case in St. John’s, which is home to at least two custom drum makers, both of whom create beautiful pieces of functional art that sound as good as they look.
Stephen Little, an engineer, has been making drums since 2009 out of his home workshop and said he walks the line between hobby and side business.
“While it’s not a big hobby in Newfoundland, on a global scale there are a few people doing it,” he said.
“There aren’t a lot of people, but there’s definitely some real advocates for handmade drums.”
Little explains his work process, and how pieces of wood become an instrument.
In front of him on his workbench sits a stack of neatly piled boards, cut and ready to be glued to make the shell of a drum kit he’s working on.
Blue sheets separate the work area from his jam space, where an extensive drum kit sits in the corner, surrounding the first snare drum Little built.
He’s been a drummer since he was in his teens, and later got inter- ested in woodworking. It’s a story he shares with drum-builder Peter Stanbridge. Both were players first, with woodworking then drum-building coming later.
For Little, being a musician is what separates him from other woodworkers, and he acknowledges that making hollow circles out of wood is something most competent woodworkers could likely do.
Turning those hoops into exquisite-sounding percussion instruments is where the musicianship comes in, said Little.
“I’d find it hard to believe there’s anybody building drums who doesn’t play drums,” he said.
Peter Stanbridge earned a university degree in music, with the drum as his chosen instrument. He’s been making custom, full-wood drums for more than 10 years out of his St. John’s workshop.
He’s well respected among professional drummers and been called the “Stradivarius of drum makers” by drummer Todd Sucherman of Styx.
Using carefully selected woods and construction methods, both Little and Stanbridge create custom instruments to achieve a sound and feel tailored to each individual customer.
Yes, different drum kits and snare drums sound different, and yes, even the untrained ear can hear the difference.
But what is it that separates a good-sounding drum from a bad one?
Sitting in his office at the Quidi Vidi Village Plantation, where he is the craft facilitator, Stanbridge quotes musician Elvis Costello, who himself has attributed the quote to Martin Mull.
“Talking about music,” he says, “is like dancing about architecture.”
Using words usually reserved for colour, or the weather, he explains the sounds of wood as warm or bright. He says he came to learn the sounds of each wood through research, experimentation and a good deal of trial and error.
“Depending on the wood, you can really tailor the sound of the instrument to the player, based on whether you’re going for a bright sound. … If you’re in a rock band you might want a brighter, higherpitched, higher-volume, so you would go to a harder wood. (It) would generally deliver that.”
Stanbridge uses a variety of solid woods for his drums in a process called segmented construction, resulting in an interlocked pattern of finger-jointed woods that sounds different from mass-produced plywood drums.
“Make no mistake, there are absolutely fantastic-sounding plywood drums,” he said, “but I think that what our drums offer, or what any solid wood drum offers, is just there’s more character, there’s more musicality in the voice, you have a richer range of overtones.”
When it comes to character, Stanbridge has found great material, and a great back story, in the ancient kauri wood he used to build a custom kit now owned by a St. John’s-area professional drummer.
The wood comes from the peat bogs of New Zealand, where it has been buried for 50,000 years. The massive trees were carbon dated to determine their age, and the wood has an almost luminous quality.
“They had been growing for more than 2,000 years before the last ice age, then fell in these bogs, and farmers started digging them up about 100 years ago and burning them,” said Stanbridge.
It’s the oldest timber in the world, and Stanbridge has built about 25 snare drums out of it in the last five years. But this was the first kit he’s done, and as far as he knows, it’s the only drum kit in the world built from this wood.
In a richly forested province, and with so many types of wood readily available, why did he seek out this wood from the bottom of a bog halfway around the world?
“Because it’s a really cool back story. When I built the first one, I had no idea how it would sound,” he said, explaining that the wood was technically a hard wood, but was so soft he could score it with his fingernail.
So he built one, then played it, knowing it would look good but unsure of how it would sound.
“Fortunately, it’s a really lovely sounding wood. This is the first chance I’ve gotten to hear it in a toms and floor toms and bass drum sound and everybody’s saying it’s warm but punchy, so it’s all of that.”
The kit — a snare, floor tom, two toms, and a bass drum — cost more than a store-bought kit, and it was worth every penny, said Simon, the proud new owner.
“I went into it because Pete gave me that great back story,” he said, explaining that as far as he and Stanbridge are aware, this is the only ancient kauri kit in existence.
In fact, he’s so protective of his new drums that he didn’t really want his full name published, and said the kit likely won’t leave the recording studio.
He’s had it for two weeks now, and, like Costello, has trouble finding words to describe how pleased he is with it.
“I can’t say enough good things about it. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard,” he said.
As for Stanbridge, he’s in the uncommon position of creating a boutique product so exclusive he doesn’t play his own drums.
“I play one of my own snare drums but I can’t afford one of my own kits,” he said, with a bit of a laugh.
A custom-made Stanbridge snare drum starts around $1,000, and the Empyrean snare drum is just over $5,000.
“So actually I play a fibreglass kit from a guy in Vancouver, Paul Mason. He’s got these fibreglass drums which just sound amazing, and I’ve always been a fan of them.”
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Peter Stanbridge, quoting Elvis Costello’s echo of a Martin Mull maxim