#296. Fishbowling the drummer.
Jun 15th by JonI realize that the response that many of my more traditional readers are going to have is, “Drummer? What drummer?” It’s true, unless you go to a contemporary church or at the bare minimum a church with a contemporary service, you’re about as likely to see a Bengal Tiger on stage as you are a drummer during worship. (How awesome would that be though? I bet he would play keys.)
But many people know exactly what I am talking about when I say, “fishbowling the drummer.” I am referring to the thin enclosure of plexi-glass most churches place around the drummer on stage.
I imagine this is for acoustic reasons, that being behind the transparent shield gives the drummer a better sense of how the drums sound. But that’s kind of boring, a little vanilla, sort of flat. I think there are three more interesting possibilities:
1. To prevent a funkless infection.
The drummer knows that people like me, the fairly funkless, are out in the crowd. So in a measure of protection, he asked that churches entomb him in plexi-glass. That way, when I am out in the crowd failing to keep rhythm with the song, “blessed be your name,” he’s able to not catch my funkless infection.
2. The choir robe theory
The guy that sells choir robes and hymnals has gone out of business. Less people are buying them, so he has had to diversify. Instead, he created a new market for “drummer bowls” and business is booming at churches across the country. (As I have mentioned, he also sells that little table and chair that Andy Stanley of North Point uses on stage.)
3. A blood feud with the triangle player.
Maybe, as I have referenced before, there is a blood feud between the drummer and the lady that plays the triangle. They are like Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac, east coast vs. west coast, Cali vs. New York. The drummer believes, “the triangle is a percussion instrument and should be mine to play.” The triangle player believes, “the drummer has enough to worry about, let me really explore the stage with the triangle.” To keep the peace, pastors had to build a separator between them.
Again, these are just theories but they might be true.
P.S. Happy father’s day.
Comments
From someone who’s been doing church music for longer than I care to admit in public (yep – church organ traditional AND edgy rock, all on keys):
1) At our space, the acoustics waaaay override anything else on stage because of how the room was designed (badly, acoustically speaking. If I ever meet that architect….)
So the shield was purchased to tone down the amount of sound coming offstage out in the audience.
Drummer hearing is protected because we use in-ear monitoring – sealed headphones for the drummer. That Aviom system was the best thing we ever got.
2) We tried electronics, and they worked OK, but the acoustics are just better for people to play. Hard to find a drummer who will get up on Sunday mornings to play, much less play an electric set (even if it is a hartt……)
3) In our case, it wasn’t the “church hierarchy” that made the decision – it was the band.
The volume questions/complaints happen regardless of the drums, at least at our church! I’ve decided the “happy medium” moved out of town.
4) The plexiglass doesn’t help when the drummer loses their grip – the sticks end up behind them (in our case, in the baptistry. Rather loudly – wooden sticks, metal bathtub…er…..baptistry, resonant chamber. And they didn’t even clank around in time, either.)
The drummer at my church has a glass cage round him. But this might be due to the fact that the worship leader aspires to make a live album. Do all worship leaders want to create albums? haha. We even have ambience mics to ‘capture the sound of the audience’ and a 29-track hard disk recorder.
Although June has a good point – there’s been many a time when our drummer has been carried away and let go of the drum sticks (is that the technical term? can’t help but think of chicken.), and they have gone flying (into the plastic glass stuff). Then we are without drums for the next five minutes as it takes an age to find anything amongst the tightly bordered drum set.
Hate playing in the fish bowl, but if it’s the difference between playing a live kit or an electric kit, where do I enter this fish bowl?
My church built a faux brick-and-wire wall between where the pastor stands and the band as part of a 4 part sermon. Much to my disappointment, they took it down. It reminded me of the chickenwire stage in blues brothers. I couldn’t wait until my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ got unruly and started throwing beer bottles on the stage during a spiritually re-worded version of “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
And then I could constantly make reference to “I’m on a Mission from God”
I was so sad when they took the fence down.
I think they need to have double bass kits. I think we need to do metal renditions of “I’ll fly away” and “Power in the blood”
Anyone who has spent any time with drummers knows why the fishbowl is there – it’s because they spit, like camels.
It’s actually there for several reasons:
1. to keep the stage volume down- allowing the other musicians to hear themselves better and not having to turn the floor monitors up as loud.
2. to isolate the drum mics from other instruments and vice-versa.
With many churches recording the services, it helps to not have crash cymbals going through the vocal mics and guitars going through the drum overheads.
3. to keep the room volume down. that way octogenarians and “old school” worship leaders will be a little less hot and bothered that there are drums in church.
wow. the triangle player is one of the coolest musicians ever. i mean, real skill is involved when we are considering the deafening monotony of this crazy person. this person is one that should be in a cage. (or at least a leash.)
seriously, i have this lady in my church who is the “Oh, Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus! Preach it Pastor!” lady. And boy is she enthusiastic. I work with the recordings and sound and pretty much everything else having to do with the behind and the scenes. One recording session had to be really tweaked because she was so loud that we heard her in EVERY reference mic we had. I-R-R-I-T-A-T-I-N-G!
Funny part. Normal service. Pastor was doing great. Out of the blue, cell phone rings. Not just a normal “cingular” tone but one of those gospel choir recordings and very loud. Everyone is looking for who is causing the disturbance, sure enough Hallelujah Lady is sprinting to the back door as if she was on fire. The Most hilarious thing I have ever witnessed. I think I peed a little I laughed so hard.
Having seen first hand the damage that can be done to a wall when an overly ambitious drummer loses his grip on one of his sticks during an especially lively song . .. my theory is that the plexi glas is there for the protection of the audience/congregation.
Blessings!
i can’t stand drum shields – nothing says “we like to live in a bubble” like seeing that stuff on stage. what are churches afraid of? good music?
yeah, we have that. But we can still hear him. Over the exteamly loud moniters that are blaring out guitars, basses, and vocals. And then there are the drum fills, during the chorus usually, that should not be there. that is why I learned when I am singing with the youth band–
“No follow drummer, Yes follow tone-deaf lead singer” Oh well, But hey, it’s for the service of the Lord.
At my church, we fishbowl the sax player. Not because he sucks, but because it’s a small stage and when he’s playing full blast the rest of us can’t hear ourselves. We have electronic drums, so we can turn the drummer down when we need to. Not so the brass (or woodwind, technically)!
I think you should do a post about the people who leave a lot of comments on your blog. HAHA
Speaking as a drummer who has worked both behind and beyond the”Fishbowl” I present reason #4 Safety glass for the rest of the band, having gone through a period of using cheap drumsticks, (And if you’re a drummer admit it, you’ve either done the same, or considered it) I have learned that they last about as long as a bag of skittles at a youth-night movie. Thankfully the bits and pieces that shatter and go flying are “Caught” by the fishbowl protecting the eyes and arms of the rest of the worship team. (Including our Cow-Bell player)
i have been a church drummer/percussionist for over 8 years… the secret reason for “fishbowling” is because the other musicians are hating on us drummers. here’s why:
#1 drummers get to have custom kits with cowbells and dobros and egg shakers and chinese crashes and we get to hang them around the drum set like mr. t rocks chains. the guitarist may have a limited edition les paul custom signed by willie nelson but unless some pimple faced 12 year old kid wearing the korn t-shirt his mom told him not to wear to church approaches the guitarist after the service to inquire about his guitar- aint nobody gonna care.
#2 drummers may forget to tune the drum heads but they can still get the point across and no one would notice. guitarists, pianists and bassists have to tune like there is no tomorrow because if they were to have one out of tune string the pastor would be questioning their holiness and their wife would be wondering if it was because they had decided to avoid the saturday honey-do list.
#3 drummers keep the beat. everyone else has to remember chord progressions. i can name many times sitting in worship practice and almost falling asleep while waiting for the guitarist and bassist to figure out a key change. i just hit some dead animal skins whilst counting time in my head. if i miss a hit i can make up for it. if the guitarist or keyboardist misses a note the congregation snaps out of their worshipful stupor and coldly eyes the offending musician. i got it good.
there are many reasons to hate on the drummer and so thusly many worship teams have taken to “fishbowling” under assumed “technical reasons” (and believe me i am also a media guru and sound tech so i understand those points!)…
and we drummers forge on despite the hatin…
The reason they keep the drummers in a fishbowl is because if they shine the lights just right, the old people can’t see into the bowl and will not raise a ruckus.
I once went to a church where they enclosed the drummer in a large black box, with a small window in the front. There's probably a small door in the top so they can feed him. Who knows, maybe when no one's around they put him in a large hamster ball so he can roll around the sanctuary and get some exercise.
My church actually did have a tiger on stage once… I can't confirm whether it was of the Bengal variety or not, but according to the info on the YouTube video of said tiger jumping on our pastor he in fact was… here's the url:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KRDEg7Wg9w
I adore my church.
Heaven forbid we let the drummer loose. His energy just might be contagious at 9am on a Sunday morning.
Play him off, Keyboard Tiger!