Dear readers,
my matura thesis includes a huge amount of work and research. Without my friends I would never have been able to realize this project. I want to thank these three exceptionally good drummers once again at the beginning for their commitment: Linus Wesp, Nicolas Wesp, Nicolas Gehrig and Olaf Wiedemann (videographer). A special thanks goes out to Christian Döbeli and Urs Gehrig aswell for their advice in the content and written part of my matura thesis.
Before you continue reading, let’s take a look at the main product, the first composition of mine: “Highspeed”.
My Matura thesis is divided into two parts:
The first part (chapters 2 – 7) deals with the basics of drumming, the current drumming culture in Switzerland and in the city of Basel, my three favorite drum groups and the cultural-historical context of drumming. In addition, I will discuss the term show drumming, how it could be described and what I personally understand by the term show drumming.
The second part (chapter 8) describes the elaboration of my composition. It is the product of my ideas and research. Many conversations with experts in the art of drumming served as support during the creative phase. During the development of my composition I also had the idea to combine three drum styles in my product. I analyzed these in the first part (chapter 7.2), including Basel, Scottish and American drumming, and compare them with each other.
Furthermore, I had the idea to create an educational video with the help of digital media. Towards the end (chapter 9) I will describe the steps that finally led to my product.Before I could start composing, I had to get a rough overview of the performers of show drumming. I got inspired by the many videos on YouTube which became one of my most important sources for composing.
It’s my first composition I’ve ever written down. Before that, I had taught myself music theory with Musescore by trying to write down simple rhythms and using the playback function to see if it matched with what I was trying to write down.
I always wanted to know how other drummers approach to the composing process was because of my fascination to drumming, I knew one who wrote extremely powerful and visually attractive pieces in his past. I asked Mark Reilly from the U.S. Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps to help me, or further to explain how he’s writing. With his help I got to know how to structure a composition. However I got help from all sides, I’ve learnt that composing is something which is very personal and that it is something which is not teachable. You have to know what you like and how you approach the final piece by yourself. You will suffer aswell. Creativity doesn’t appear every day and you have to know that when it’s there, you’re ready to receive it.
If you’re still interested about the matura thesis, you can now download it right below. Enjoy! (Unfortunately, still only in German…)
Link zum pdf meiner Maturaarbeit