Boston based percussionist Andrew Jones was recently gigging in New Orleans with Ronnie Spector, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the lead singer of the Ronettes. Andrew was using Grover
Model T2/GS German Silver tambourine. "I took the new tambourine to New Orleans this weekend and it was a hit. All the musicians were asking about it", Andrew recently told us.
Andrew joins the ranks of studio greats Jack Ashford (Motown), Craig Kampf (LA), Rich Redmond (Nashville), Alan Estes (LA studios) and others who appreciate the great musical sonorities produced by our tambourines.
In 1967, Mark Stevens invented the Mark Tree® bar chime, which has become an important member of the percussion batterie. Mark has been one of the busiest and most recorded percussionists in the LA studio scene for over 4 decades !
Our Spectrasound™ Mark Tree bar chimes are now shipping to select percussion retailers! Remember, Spectrasound bar chimes are the ONLY bar chimes good enough to be called Mark Tree bar chimes! Check our "Find A Dealer" feature to locate a Grover Pro dealer near you.
As a percussionist, often you have to perform on an unusual instrument. Interesting "instruments" I've had to play over the years include: brake drums, trash cans, breaking bottles, thunder sheet, coffee cans, railroad spikes, pool tubing, anvil, air raid siren, water cooler bottles, taxi horns, klaxon horn, all types of whistles, the inside of a grand piano, prayer stones, temple bells, tubaphone, church bells, etc., etc.
Last week, I was at Tanglewood playing with the Boston Symphony. Amongst other instruments, I got the chance to play a very large hammer (hitting a wooden box) in Berg's "Three Pieces For Orchestra". Everyone was careful not to upset me...I wonder why?
Aya Kaminaguchi is a wonderful young percussionist and was colleague of mine while I was on the Star Wars tour. I'm back in Boston, but Aya is still out on the road. She sent me a link to a wonderful blog about her triangle playing. Go to the link and be sure to sit through about 30 seconds of video footage. Then you'll see Aya on the big screen and hear the crowd go wild !
FWIW- Aya uses a Grover TR-9 Super-Overtone triangle.
A high energy performer, multi-percussionist Mark Shelton utilizes a vast array of percussion sounds. Mark is very active in the "Percussion For Worship" movement. We had the pleasure of experiencing Mark's work last year at PASIC, where he "facilitated" one of the late night hand drum jam sessions. Mark had the room of 100+ percussionists rockin' late into the night! We're surprised the hotel management didn't shut us down..
In his arsenal, Mark uses a number of Grover products (check out the Grover Super-Overtone triangles in the photo). For more information about Mark and his varied activities go to: www.marksheltonmusic.com.
