Rebecca Kite is the author of a definitive biography of the world-famous Japanese marimba virtuoso, Keiko Abe – a work of scholarship that includes an exhaustively researched history of the concert marimba, accompanied by an illustrative music CD.

Kite's biography cum marimba history has been translated into Japanese, and will be translated into Spanish and published by the University of the Arts and Sciences in Chiapas, Mexico in 2013. A Chinese translation is planned, as well.

Kite was the first marimba teacher to record pieces traditionally played by beginning marimba students -- and so, for the first time, students could have the instructional benefit of hearing how these pieces ought to sound. On Kite's Prism recording, she played "Yellow After the Rain," the most popular marimba piece for beginners worldwide. She has created additional groundbreaking teaching materials, as well.

Kite holds several patents for innovative timpani designs that enable greater ease in moving the pedal, while improving the drum's overall sound. Early in Kite's musical career, she studied with such stars of the percussion world as Cloyd Duff, timpanist of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1942-1981, and George Gaber, Chair of the Percussion Department at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana from 1960 to 1985. Much later in her continuing musical education, she studied with Keiko Abe, the
internationally known marimba virtuoso.

R.I.P.

Tower of Power bassist and fingerstyle funk master Rocco Prestia has died at the age of 69.

Prestia had been battling various illnesses since 2001 – in 2014, he underwent a “lifesaving” kidney transplant.

Tower of Power bandleader Emilio Castillo confirmed the news on the band’s official Facebook page, writing: “Our dear "Rocco" passed away last night, peacefully with his family by his side at a hospice in Las Vegas.

“As a bass player he was totally unique and as a person he was one of a kind. He fought a long fight over the last 20 years and now he's with the Lord and heaven is his home. -Article

Gig Alerts

Coachella 2020 was supposed to take place in April 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Festival organizers pushed the event back to October 2020 but quickly rescheduled to April 2021. Now it’s looking like organizers may be eying an October 2021 date for Coachella. -Article

Educational Spotlight

PASIC 2020 is happening this November 13th & 14th, virtually. You can REGISTER HERE.

PAS (Percussive Arts Society) is hosting a solo percussion competition with CASH PRIZES!!!

Requirements

Entrants must be 18 - 30 years old on or before June 1, 2021.
PAS membership is not required.
There is an entry fee of $100 for PAS members and $150 for non-members.

Deadline to apply is January 31, 2021

All quarter-finalists will be required to play the following:

Rebonds (A & B) by Iannis Xenakis
One (1) marimba solo from the following:
- Boomslang by Roshanne Etezady
- Transience by Jason Eckardt
- Mirage by Yasuo Sueyoshi
- Marimba D'amore by Keiko Abe
- Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman
- Khan Variations by Alejandro Viñao
- Dances of Earth and Fire by Peter Klatzow
- Entlehnungen by Michael Jarrell
- Empty Shell Girl by Amy Beth Kirsten
- Velocities by Joseph Schwantner
- Nightsong by Paola Prestini

Iconic Recording

The iconic recording this week is Gordon Stout's Two Mexican Dances. They are a standard in the percussion community. This work has been recorded and performed in recital many time over. Each of the movements may be played in conjunction or independently of each other. The recording is of Dame Evelyn Glennie, from her 1990 release “Rhythm Song”. The video below is of Kevin Bobo performing movement 2.

Music News

On the heels of the $10 billion Save Our Stages act, currently before Congress, that aims to bring federal relief to independent venues across the U.S. comes #SaveLiveEventsNow. The new initiative that looks beyond venues and aims to expand government relief for the more than 12 million live event workers across the United States who have been out of work since concerts, plays, comedy shows, and all other events shut down in March. -Article

There is more info on Save Live Events Now on their WEBSITE, and you can check out NIVA (National Independent Venue Association) on their WEBSITE.

The song leading into the interview is “Michi (for Marimba)” written by Keiko Abe, from Rebecca’s album called ‘Across Time’.

Rebecca Kite Interview

The interview starts with preparing for “drop the needle” tests in music. Here is an article on some tips to prepare. This is another article that is a bit more in depth.

Rebecca talks about getting the Darius Milhaud Concerto for marimba, vibraphone and orchestra score and copying out the parts compared to tracking down a PDF of what you need from the internet these days.

Rebecca talks about going to the first incarnation of PASIC in Chicago and seeing Gary Burton right after he released the album “Alone At Last”.

Damon talks about transcribing “Times Like These” by Gary Burton and Makoto Ozone and now the PDF is available online. It is from the album “Face to Face”.

Damon also talks about the search for the elusive B7 chord.

Rebecca attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music for undergrad.

Rebecca’s father got a new job in the Department of Education at Peru State College, the Kite family moved to Peru, Nebraska. It was here that Kite's musical education entered a new phase. As a musically talented nine year old, she took violin lessons with Dr. Victor Jindra, Professor of Strings at Peru College. And, at age ten, started playing the snare drum under the tutelage of Dr. Gilbert Wilson, the Director of Bands at Peru State, who also served as Kite's elementary school band director.

Rebecca and Damon talk about being driven to be better and the search for information. They also talk about the demands of a percussionist when they were coming up and what is demanded now-a-days. Spoiler alert, percussionists are asked to do much more now, from playing to recording to PR, marketing and more! They also talk about how to have a career and monetize things to be able to be a working musician.

Rebecca talks about being in a cover band and working with the union and booking agent. Damon and Rebecca talk about guarantees vs. door splits. There’s another side of things where you can “buy on” to a tour as an opener for a bigger artist.

Rebecca brings up (friend of the show) Ari Herstand, who has been on a couple of times like THIS EPISODE. He is the author of the book, How to Make it in the New Music Business and he also writes the blog “Ari’s Take”. Both help independent musicians be successful in the music industry.

Damon suggests that people go and read Rebecca’s full bio. One of the stories he brings up with her was choosing an instrument in elementary school. "There were no rental instruments in those days," says Kite, "so we had to choose our instrument from among those the school owned. I'd wanted to play the trumpet or the French horn, because I really liked their sound. But since my last name starts with a K, which is in the middle of the alphabet, when it was my turn to choose, all the trumpets and French horns had already been claimed by other students."

Dr. Wilson suggested that she try the snare drum and, because she could read music, he put Kite into the junior high band the following week. "At that first band class," says Kite, "I played cymbals on 'Great Gate of Kiev' from Pictures at an Exhibition, and I'll never forget how it felt to crash the cymbals together at the right time. After that, I was hooked on percussion." Two years later, she began a period of what she calls "self-study," and taught herself "by going through method books and solos. I continued with both the snare drum and the violin through high school into my first year of college."

Rebecca put together an album called “Prism” of standard marimba literature for others to reference.

In 1972, Kite was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honor society for academic excellence, and, the following year, she earned her B.M. in Percussion Performance. After completing her undergraduate studies in music, Kite launched her musical career as a freelance percussionist (she was a drummer in a jazz-rock band, a timpanist for local orchestras, and took on private percussion students). At the same time, she was eager for advanced training as a timpanist, and in 1974, contacted the well-known timpanist of the Cleveland orchestra, Cloyd Duff.

She then began a course of study with Duff that lasted for several years. And when she began investigating graduate schools, planning on furthering her musical development, Duff suggested that she contact his old friend, George Gaber, who was director of percussion at the world famous Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. Kite auditioned for Gaber, and he invited her to study with him in the Master's program, awarding her a two-year assistantship. In 1977, she graduated from Indiana University with an M.M. in Percussion Performance.

"George Gaber demanded perfection of every kind in my playing," says Kite. "He insisted upon extremely thorough preparation. And this discipline was exactly what I needed to up-level my playing to the highest professional standards."

Another place Rebecca traveled to was Nicaragua to play with the orchestra. She said because of the revolution, it was a bad time to be there. She was hired as both the timpanist of the National Symphony of Nicaragua and as the Director of Percussion Studies at the National Conservatory

This is the record that Rebecca was talking about by Frank Arsenault demonstrating the rudiments. Some of the snare books Rebecca used as a kid were from Haskell Harr and as she got older, she moved into the Wilcoxon book. For marimba, she started with Dr. Peter Tanner’s work and also Mitchell Peters’ Sonata Allegro. On multiple percussion she did the Twittering Machine by Al Payson based on a Paul Klee painting.

To advance her percussion proficiency on other instruments, Rebecca joined PAS. She also became aware of other things in the percussion world from the magazine that PAS puts out called Percussive Notes.

Rebecca and her friend Barbara Allen created the GP Percussion company.

There is a plaque at the Rhythm Discovery Museum that inspired Damon to reach out to Rebecca.

Rebecca talks about the inspiration for the timpani she built being based on the historic Ringer Timpani.

Rebecca and Barbara traveled to Bucyrus, OH to get the copper for the timpani bowls. They found a used planishing hammering machine as well to be able to mold the metal.

The GP Percussion drum that Kite designed had a strengthened frame and several improvements in the mechanical aspects of the pedal, rocker arm, and spider – improvements designed to eliminate the problems of other Dresden-style drums. To Kite, no detail was too small for improvement. She even introduced wheels that had both rolling locks and swivel locks, so the drum could not move around when a timpanist changed pitches.

The more than thirty-five innovations (resulting in four US patents) that Kite designed included a support ring machined to precisely match the underneath side of the bowl lip -- thus making for a truly suspended bowl that was better connected to the frame, and giving the drum greater projection.

"I added a short lever arm," explains Kite. "It was added to the connection between the rocker arm and the spider that converts the arcing motion of the rocker arm into a straight vertical spider motion. As a result, the timpani head would never pull down off-center, and would remain cleared at all pitches."

She also designed a pedal that is easier to push down as it is moved to a higher pitch setting. Today, many of her innovations have been incorporated into drums made by other manufacturers (using their own new designs); in particular, designs that pull the head down perpendicular to the bearing edge throughout the entire range of motion, and a pedal that is easy to push for high
pitches. Kite's many design innovations for the timpani have been awarded the following four US Patents: US Patent # 4,635,524; US Patent #4,674,390; US Patent #4,730,531; and US Patent #4,831,912.

Rebecca touches on some of the sexism she faced when trying to build the timpani as well as market and sell them. This is not new, and you can read an in depth report on that HERE.

Rebecca is not only a great performer and instrument builder and educator, but an accomplished writer. She has a book on one of her mentors, Keiko Abe, the Evolution on Concert Marimba, as well as some method books.

You can contact Rebecca on her Website, follow her on Facebook, and Twitter.

Rebecca plays Yamaha instruments, special shout-out to the YM-6000 marimba.