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When you first bought your home theater audio system, you thought it was “the bomb.” The satellite speakers, the subwoofer, all those cool knobs and dials-you felt like the coolest kid on the block. Yet over the past year or so, you’ve begun to find certain flaws in what you once adored. Perhaps the sound from your satellite speakers seems a bit tinny. Or maybe you’ve begun to find your bass somewhat distorted or uneven. Or maybe you’ve just outgrown your original system and want something, well, louder! Fear not, my audiophile friend. There are lots of options available for individuals such as yourself that will allow you to upgrade your system without starting from scratch.

Let’s start with the area that is usually thought of last. When was the last time you took a good look at your cables? If you’re anything like most audio system owners, you haven’t examined them since you first plugged them in. Take a gander and if they’re of the skinny variety that usually comes free with the system, you’ve found your starting point. Upgrade to higher-end cables and you’ll notice a significant improvement in the quality of your sound. It’s ridiculously easy to find such cables and you’ll find them to be well worth the expenditure.

Moving out from behind the television, observe your speakers and ask yourself a very simple question: do they match? An unmatched set of speakers, even speakers of higher quality, can produce a similarly unmatched or unsynchronized sound. Even if you don’t have a lot of extra cash to spend, consider upgrading to a mid-range set of match speakers; even this level of upgrade will improve the cohesiveness of your system’s sound. If you already own a home theater audio system, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that there are speakers out there for every pocketbook. Just remember, if you’re going to the trouble of replacing your speakers to begin with, you may as well get the highest quality product you can afford. Your aural sensibilities will be grateful.

But maybe you don’t want to improve the quality of your system so much as its decibel output. If brutally loud volume is your goal and your current system just doesn’t cut it, you may simply need more power. In that case, a separate power amplifier may solve your problem, but first you need to establish that your system can accept such an addition. Look at your owners manual or, if you’re a tactile learner, at the back panel of the system. If it has a set of preamp out jacks for the left, right, center, left surround and right surround channels, you’re in luck.

There are plenty of power amps out there designed for domestic use. While they can come with as low as 20 watt delivery, if your purpose is to pump up the volume of your audio system, you’re probably going to go for a 100-200 watt per channel model. See if your owners manual has anything to say on the subject and don’t afraid to ask questions of the nice people at the electronics store. Then prepare to enjoy your newly improved home theater audio system.

They say that disco is dead, I say it has been reinvented. Saturday night fever may not be high on the agenda, but all that is disco is back on the club scene and the folks are funking it up in a multi decade mash-up. The eclectic taste of the I pod generation covers everything from James Brown to Britney Spears, with a liberal dose of Debbie Harry and Liberty X. The rules are out of the window, like the veritable rock n roll TV leaving a 5th floor hotel room.

One of the oddest reinventions of the new disco generation is the introduction of headphones in the club. I’ve also heard a rumour that this has been happening at festivals across the country. To combat noise complaints and yet keep the little pixies dancing all night long, wireless headphones are being used as part of the PA system. I can’t quite comprehend how odd it would be to walk in to a dance tent or nightclub, with thousands of people quietly raving. It is a surreal notion, and one that requires a bit of contemplation. Surely its failure would lie in all those folks singing along. What is going to keep them quiet? Sure, it’s not going to be anywhere near as loud as a 35k rig, but it’s going to be a cacophony of wailing cat noises and people still screaming at their mate asking if they want a pint.

The quality of such a system can’t be up to much either. One of the greatest things about going to a really loud rave is the feeling of the bass travelling through your body. Standing in front of the speakers and feeling the air moving with the sound waves, rumbling through, from your toes to your nose. That experience is not going to happen from a pair of headphones. Maybe they have air blasting speaker simulation systems and an earthquake machine or something. Ah, as long as the music is good, the people will dance.

I’m more of a trad disco girl myself, a bit of Jackson 5 or the Bee Gees; a dance floor that is lit up like Manhattan with a liberal injection of dry ice and the obligatory disco ball keep me a happy little dancing bunny. Although I really don’t want to take part in the weird wireless disco vibe, I’m ready to make a move toward the new days of disco. I was miffed enough as it was when CD decks took over from vinyl, and all my DJ friends were up in arms at bedroom DJ’s making up disks and just ’sticking them on’. The move from vinyl to CD seemed to somehow be cheating at being a DJ as far as the professionals were concerned. I thought it gave other people a chance to play their music, and is surely less painful than carting a flight case of vinyl around the place!

However, the iPod disco babies have another trick up their sleeve, a DJ-less club night. The new style disco nights consists of anyone in the club plugging in their iPod for 3 songs, any songs, and cutting out the mix master altogether. Hang the DJ or what! This is not a good move; the jockey of discdom provides a seasoned and reasoned entertainment service. As a selector of tunes, the DJ seamlessly spins one tune into another, judging the mood of the crowd and dancing them into a crescendo. A spotty Herbert with iPod can’t match that, but an old bloke called DJ Derek can. I was fortunate enough o watch his set at a festival recently and there he was, 75 years old, with his iPod plugged in to the PA and he has the whole crowd grooving to the funkiest tunes this side of the 70s. Goes to show that a good workman doesn’t have to blame his tools - Hail DJ Derek and the return of the Disco Days!

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Drums have been a part of Korean culture for approximately two thousand years. Paintings from the period of the Three Kingdoms of Korea (57 BCE - 668 CE) still exist that depict drums being used to accompany dancers. Although only two types of barrel drum, or “buk” in Korean, are depicted in those paintings, modern Korean culture boasts over a dozed different types of drums of varying construction, size and sound. In ancient Korea, the drum transcended social barriers and was used by peasants, religious figures and nobility alike. Today, the Korean drum has withstood the test of time and is as omnipresent within the culture as ever.

In Korea, there are two types of undecorated buk used in traditional folk music. The sori-buk, which is used to accompany pansori music, has a tacked head, while the pungmul-buk has a laced head and accompanies pungmul. While pansori music and its drums feature satires and love stories, pungmul music has its roots in the collective labor of farming culture, although today it is also used in political protests. The sori-buk is played with both an open hand and a drumstick simultaneously, while the pungmul-buk is with only a single stick. Both types of music and the drums that go with them can be seen in cultural festivals in modern Korea.

The folk music of Korea, which makes such thorough use of drums, is quite varied. However, its songs are generally simple and bright, although those of certain regions are more complex than those of others. Folk music is still popular in Korea today, posing a striking contrast to the classical court music, which has nearly died out. Today, it can usually only be heard through performances associated with government-sponsored organizations.

Another prominent type of drum in Korea is the janggu, sometimes called seyogo. This instrument, like the talking drum of Africa, is shaped like an hourglass and had heads on both sides. These heads produce sounds of different pitch, although unlike those of its African cousin, once the drum is made, these pitches cannot be altered. When the two sides and pitches are played simultaneously, it can often represent a harmony between opposing or different forces, such as man and woman. This instrument, like the buk, has existed in Korea for at least two thousand years. Historical records indicate that it was used both in the field, like the pungmul-buk, as well as in the royal court of ancient Korea. This variety of use is in keeping with the instrument’s flexible nature and potential for complex rhythm. The janggu can be played with sticks, bare hands or both at once.

As previously mentioned, there is a wide variety of drums in traditional Korean music, far beyond the buk and the janggu. The galgo for example, is similar in shape to the janggu, having two heads and mimicking an hourglass, but it is played with two sticks and its heads are thinner. There are also many different kinds of buk, ranging from the jingo, the largest of the barrel drums, to the yonggo, which has a dragon painted on its shell and is commonly used in traditional Korean military music, to the sakgo, a long barrel drum suspended from a wooden frame.

Sheet music began as musical notations written on clay tablets by ancient Babylonians. It was used by the ancient Greeks, survived the Dark Ages, and became an important musical force during the Renaissance Period. With the advent of the printing press, printed sheet music affected the music industry in ways unimaginable by past generations. Yes, the history of sheet music is a long one, at least four thousand years, and it has been a story of evolution and growing dissemination. Yet if all those ancient musicians could see the form that sheet music has taken today, they would find it impossible to fathom. In modern times, sheet music has, like most other forms of communication, joined the digital age.

Beginning in the end of the 20th century, there was a great deal of interest in representing sheet music in a computer-readable format, as well as downloadable files. Software that can “read” scanned sheet music, called music optical character recognition (music OCR), has existed since 1991. Needless to say, this software created a completely new manner of dissemination for sheet music which, in this format, was referred to as virtual sheet music.

Further progress was made in 1998 when virtual sheet music became digital sheet music. The difference between the two is that digital sheet music, for the first time, allows copyrighted sheet music to be purchased via the internet. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, digital sheet music files can be manipulated and altered as their virtual and hardcopy counterparts never could. Such an attribute makes digital sheet music ideal for instrument changes, transposition, and even musical instrument digital interface, or “midi,” playback. Digital sheet music is the musical notation of the 21st century.

The popularity of digital sheet music has revitalized the sheet music industry, which has been languishing since the invention of the phonograph. Digital sheet music has even made inroads into professional orchestras, which are perhaps one of the most traditional remaining arenas of printed sheet music. In 1999, an electronic system for the coordination of orchestral music was invented by Harry Connick, Jr. This system uses a device with a screen to display the musicians’ sheet music. The advantages of not having to use traditional sheet music during a performance, when the rustle of paper can be very distracting, are easy to see. Other musicians and software engineers continue to experiment with the digital display of sheet music.

Digital sheet music has made musical notation available on a scale the likes of which its creators could never have dreamed. It is the future of sheet music, and no where is this more apparent than with the Mutopia project. Mutopia is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content digital sheet music, which is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright. Although there are only about 1400 pieces of music available at present, this project is makes it easy to imagine that there will come a time in the foreseeable future when digital music libraries will be very, very extensive indeed.

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In the digital and electronic age of the 21st century, we are surrounded by devices that can sometimes hide their true purposes beneath a veneer of hard plastic and shiny chrome. The Kitchenaid mixer, for example. When I was growing up, it was a plain white machine with a bowl. Today, it is available in what seems like hundreds of colors, some of them with names like “Gloss Cinnamon,” “Sugar Plum” and my personal favorite, “Wasabi.” It can utilize dozens of different accessories, from can openers to ravioli makers. This counter appliance has become less of a cooking convenience and more of an adornment for modern kitchen. Like so many human inventions, it has drifted so far from its original incarnation as to be almost unrecognizable.

The same thing has happened in the music industry. Some of the flashy electric guitars of today are far cries from the original, and much more humble, wooden acoustic guitar. Similarly, the modern drum set, with its lustrous surfaces and manufactured aura, is almost unrecognizable as kin to the drums of ancient civilizations. However, and perhaps fortunately, something about a basic hand drum is innately appealing to humans. This theory is supported by the fact that in spite of all the more modern versions available, many people the world over still play hand drums.

A hand drum is simply any type of drum played with the bare hand rather than a stick or other type of beater. There are many different types of hand drums: they hale from Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Internationally, the frame drum is the most common style of hand drum. It consists of a shallow, cylindrical shell with a head at one of the open ends. This is the oldest type of skin drum and one of the most ancient types of musical instruments. Instances of it may be found in many different cultures around the world. Examples include the tonbak of Persia, the tamborim of Brazil, the Bodhran of Ireland and the kanjira of India. The frame is usually made of bent wood that has been joined together, and the drum head is traditionally made of animal skin, although today man-made materials are also used.

Of course, some of the most famous hand drums are the congas and bongos used in the music of Latin America. Thanks to the popularity of music like salsa, these instruments have become known the world over. Both bongos and congas are essentially frame drums; traditionally made of wood and animal skin (although man-made materials such as fiberglass are often used in modern times), they have only a single head. However, while bongos are small in size, congas are tall and narrow, typically nearly three feet tall, making them much larger than most frame drums. Also, the construction of their bodies is like that of a barrel, with multiple strips of wood rather than a shell of a single piece.

In the study of ancient cultures, frame drums are held to have associations with both religion and entertainment. They varied in size and sometimes had metal rings or plates incorporated into the design; a tambourine is an example of such a drum. It is worth noting that the names of some frame drums from various cultures strongly resemble each other, making it likely that the instrument was invented in a single location and spread out from that point.

If I had been alive during the Bronze Age (2000 - 700 BCE), I seriously doubt that it would have occurred to me to use the skin of an alligator to make a drum. In fact, I believe I would have avoided going anywhere near alligators altogether. Fortunately for the Chinese culture, the ancient Chinese obviously did not share my fears. The earliest known drums in China date from four to six thousand years ago, around the time of the Shang Dynasty (c.1600 - c.1100 BCE) and they were made of clay and (you guessed it) alligator skin. Thanks to those very early innovators, China has a long and proud tradition of utilizing drums and other percussion instruments in its native music.

Chinese drums have come a long way since those first instruments of the Shang Dynasty. They have been incorporated into a variety of societal facets over the centuries, including religion, farming, warfare and of course, entertainment. In China, the color red has always been associated with power and luck, and accordingly red drums have been used as both a symbol and bringer of power to rulers and armies. Such instruments are still used in ceremonies such as weddings and other festivities.

China is generally credited with bringing drums to the nations of Korea and Japan. The famous Japanese taiko drums, for example, are thought to be the result of very early Chinese influence. The same can be said of the Korean galgo and the Japanese kakko, both of which are hourglass-shaped drums thought to be descended from the Chinese jiegu. Interestingly, although this drum is no longer used in China, its relatives can still be seen and heard in both Korea and Japan.

In modern China, drums are commonly used in more secular performances, often to striking effect. At no time has this been more apparent than at the recent Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, which featured countless synchronized drummers in an amazing feat of percussion and artistic performance. No one who watched that ceremony could doubt the importance of drums in Chinese culture.

If one attends the performance of a modern Chinese orchestra, drums are bound to be in evidence. The paigu is a set of seven small, tuned drums, and it is often used in professional musical groups. Other percussion instruments, including drums of all pitches and sizes, are also common. Another place to see and hear traditional drums in China is at a lion dance, a form of traditional dance during which performers dress as lions and mimic the animals’ movements. Such dances can be performed in the northern or southern fashion, the former being the traditional imperial style, the latter purely for entertainment. Both types, however, utilize drum music during the performance. The lion dance also has close associations with the martial art of kung fu, which means that drums are also often used during martial arts performances as well. The drum music at any of these performances is powerful and vital, in accordance with the dancers’ and artists’ movements.

When I hear the term “drumstick,” I visualize precisely that-a stick that is used to strike a drum (unless, of course, I’m hungry, in which case I go another direction altogether). Simple, right? Wrong. A drumstick, or more accurately, a percussion mallet, is any object used to strike a drum or other percussion instrument in order to produce sound. This means that the category of percussion mallets includes items like beaters and brushes as well as the ubiquitous drumstick. Of course, it is fortunate for us that so many different types of mallets do exist, as they make possible the amazing variety of sounds that can be produced from a simple drum.

The basic drumstick, which is usually about 0.5 inches in diameter and 16 inches long, is recognizable to almost everyone. While they do vary in length and material, the shape is usually standard enough that there can be no doubt about the item’s name. All drumsticks can be divided into four basic segments: the tip, which is used to beat the drum; the shoulder, which tapers out from the tip to the shaft; the shaft, which is of a regular diameter running from the bottom of the shoulder to the butt; and the butt, or the rounded portion at the bottom of the stick. Major producers of drumsticks include Vic Firth, Malletech, Vater, Regal Tip, Zildjian, Pro-Mark and Ahead among others.

Within the category of drumsticks, there is a subcategory specifically for those used with snare drums. Snare drumsticks are usually made of wood, often hickory, oak or hard maple, but they can also be of aluminum, fiberglass, nylon, acrylic, plastic or carbon fiber. While the tip of a drumstick is traditionally made of the same material as the shoulder, shaft and butt, snare drumsticks sometimes have nylon tips, which prevent fast wearing and produce a brighter sound on cymbals. It should be noted that snare drumsticks may be specifically designed for particular types of performances. Those intended for orchestral playing are often smaller in diameter or balanced farther toward the tip, which allows for fine control and soft dynamics. But snare drumsticks designed for drums in marching bands are usually thick and weighty in order to create as loud a sound as possible.

A mallet is also a sort of stick, but it is comprised of a head connected to a thinner shaft. The head may be wrapped or unwrapped depending on its intended use. Unwrapped mallets are usually used on instruments made of more durable material, whereas wrapped mallets are used on softer instruments. The heads can be wrapped in a variety of materials, including nylon, acrylic and yarn. Not surprisingly, different mallets produce different sounds and timbres.

Finally, a brush is a set of bristles shaped like a fan and connected to a handle. The bristles are can be metal or plastic, the handle various materials including wood, aluminum and rubber. Brushes are most often seen in jazz or blues music performances. Thanks to their construction, brushes add texture and create sounds not achievable with a stick or a mallet.

More and more often these days, an instrument originally designed for one purpose or musical genre will be adopted for and adapted to a completely different area. This has been the fate of the resonator guitar, which was originally designed to be louder than a conventional acoustic guitar in order to ensure that the instrument could be heard above the horns and percussion instruments in dance orchestras. The resonator guitar, however, is possessed of a very distinct and original sound, and because of that, it has been adopted and integrated into the musical genres of bluegrass, country and blues music.

The resonator guitar, or resophonic guitar as it is occasionally called, is an acoustic guitar that uses one or more metal cones (resonators) instead of the traditional wooden soundboard. These instruments can be divided into two subcategories, these being square-necked guitars and round-necked guitars. The former are designed to be played like a lap steel guitar (with a slide), while the latter can be played as either a conventional classical guitar or as a steel guitar. In addition to this division, there are also three main types of resonator designs: the “tricone,” the single inverted cone, and the spider-less single cone.

The original resonator guitar was developed during the early 20th century and in 1927, the first instruments were manufactured under the brand name National. These guitars were of the tricone variety, which means that they had three conical resonators joined by a T-shaped piece of aluminum called a “spider” that supported the bridge. A year later, one of the founding members of National split and began his own label, Dobro. That company released a competing resonator guitar that featured a single resonator under a distinctive circular perforated metal cover plate. The bridge rested at the center of this plate on an eight-legged aluminum spider. Finally, National countered with its own take on the single resonator model. This instrument used a wooden “biscuit” at the cone apex to support the bridge, rather than the traditional spider.

This quick succession of instrument innovations occurred over the course of about five years. At the end of that time, in 1932, the owners of Dobro gained control of National and formed the National Dobro Corporation. However, with the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941, all production of resonator guitars by the company ceased for a time. Since the end of World War II, the Dobro label has passed through various hands, all of which have used it to produce resonator guitars. Dobro is currently the possession of the Gibson Guitar Company. Today, common terminology uses Dobro to refer to an instrument with an inverted cone, while National generally means an instrument with a non-inverted cone.

As mentioned, bluegrass, country and blues are the usual territory of the resonator guitar. The first generally utilizes square-necked Dobro guitars, while the latter two favor round-necked National instruments. Because both styles of guitar may be played as a lap steel guitar, this is the most common position used by artists. However, round-necked guitars may be played in the traditional guitar position.

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Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, keyboards, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio.

Most musical instruments today, and indeed, throughout history, have been a kind of luxury. Used for entertainment or perhaps in certain religious ceremonies, they have nevertheless been something that humans could, if necessary, do without. Of course, there are those who claim they would die without music, and I would be among the first to expound upon the importance of music to the human spirit and psyche. Still, music is, in its simplest definition, an extravagance, something created for pure enjoyment. Yet there is at least one musical instrument that has historically been used for another purpose. The drum, with its resounding notes and relative ease of use, has been used as a means of long-distance communication for thousands of years.

There is evidence that many different ancient cultures used drums to communicate over long distances. These cultures often existed in forested or isolated areas, which made the use of aural communication a logical solution. The people of ancient Sri Lanka, for example, were using drums to communicate between the state and the community 2500 years ago. Various Native American tribes used both pressure and slit drums to send messages between individual camps. Even Europe had its own drum for communication, the “Txalaparta,” which was used in a part of Spain called the Basque Country. But the most famous of all drums used for communication are the talking drums of West Africa.

The West African talking drum has its roots in the ancient Ghana Empire, which existed from approximately 750-1076 CE and was located in modern southeastern Mauritania, western Mali and eastern Senegal. This instrument is a pressure drum with an hourglass shape and drum heads on both ends. The body is wood and the heads are made from hide, fish skin or other membranes. Leather cords run the length of the drum’s body and are wrapped around the hoops framing both heads. These cords are the key to the talking drum, as they are the source of its pitch modulation. When the drummer tightens his arm around the drum, thereby squeezing the cords, the heads tighten and the instrument’s pitch is altered. It was this characteristic that allowed the ancient tribes of Africa to send such complex messages over long distances.

When the Europeans first began to explore the jungles of Africa, they were continually surprised to find that the tribes had been forewarned of their presence. Due to the Atlantic slave trade that flourished between the 16th and 19th centuries, talking drums made their way to the Americas. They were, not surprisingly, banned for a time when slave owners realized that the slaves were using the instruments to communicate between plantations. This ban, fortunately, has gone the way of the Atlantic slave trade, and today talking drums are valued both for the ancient civilizations they represent and their unique musical capabilities.

In modern Africa, the talking drum is very popular in various kinds of music. It is used in both Mbalax, the national popular dance music of Senegal and Gambia, and Fuji, a popular musical genre in Nigeria, as well as other kinds of music in other countries.

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Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, keyboards, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio.

The first time I went to see Lenny Kravitz in concert, I had difficulty taking my eyes off the drummer, Cindy Blackman. Or more specifically, off her amazing set of biceps. That woman took the term “ripped” to a whole new level. Don’t get me wrong, Lenny rocked the house and he’s one of my favorite stars. But nothing he did during that show outshone the sheer power and passion with which that woman pounded out her drum solo. It seemed to go on forever and my arms hurt just watching her, but Ms. Blackman only seemed to become more energetic as she lashed out at the instruments surrounding her. The drum solo-undeniably one of the most memorable parts of any concert.

The modern standard drum set has been around since the 1930s. However, for the first thirty years or so of their existence, drum sets and the men and women who played them were consigned to the background. They were a key component of any band, of course; where else was the beat going to come from? But it was not until rock and roll took center stage in American culture that drummers really began to receive their own stage time. During the 1960s and 1970s, the rock genre witnessed the debut of a steady stream of songs that featured a new aspect-the drum solo.

A drum solo is, as the name implies, an instrumental solo played on a drum kit. The solo may be planned or improvised and of any length short of being the main performance. In rock and roll, the cradle of the drum solo, these mini-performances are unique in two respects. One, they are, traditionally, always unaccompanied. This poses a striking contrast to the solos of other instruments, which can be accompanied or unaccompanied. And two, they are usually free form in that they adhere to no discernable tempo, style or structure related to the songs they accompany.

After rock introduced the world to drum solos, other genres began to incorporate them into their repertoires. Modern jazz, for example, certainly makes use of the drum solo. However, jazz drum solos are a bit of a different breed, mainly in that they tend to adhere to the tempo and form of the song they accompany and in that other instruments may be played simultaneously. Similarly, the drum corps of modern marching bands use drum solos to allow the mobile individuals to change positions on the field without having to play their own instruments. This is very different from the original drum solos of the 1960s, but it certainly constitutes a certain kind of drum solo.

There have been innumerable songs written that include drum solos, and some of these solos have been so good that their songs have survived the test of time. “Wipe Out,” for example, was first released in 1962, but every person in the United States today knows the tune. Come on, sing it with me, you know you know the words! Na na na na na na na na na…

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Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, keyboards, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio.