When you’re cooking behind the set and suddenly the stick leaves your hand instead of hitting a drum at approximately 10–18 mph (see fancy AI math at the end of the post), you sure as hell don’t want it hitting any of your bandmates.
The Problem – a plank of wood held tightly in sweaty hands, moving fast and smacking hard. People have tried every fix imaginable to keep that hickory stick where it belongs. Some work some of the time. Some don’t work at all. Here are two of the most popular:
Gloves – Some drummers like them. Personally, I don’t. I think they make my hands sweat even more. They’re pretty good for keeping your knuckles from getting scraped up on the rims, but they kill tactile response between you and the stick.
Gorilla Snot – This stuff works pretty well, but it stinks like hell. And once it’s on your hands, that smell gets everywhere — it’s like picking up a fish, nearly impossible to get rid of. After about half a set the stuff wears off and needs a reapply. It comes in a tiny black plastic container. Super easy to find in the dark on stage… not!
The fix that works 100% of the time:
Lightly varnished sticks — the less slick, the better — and a solid grip. Yes, I know they’re supposed to be held loosely. Whatever grip you use, make sure the fingers not actively moving the stick are enclosing it, keeping it home. And the ones doing the work have a nice, secure hold on it.
Math-
my stick weighs 1.7 ounces. Now how does that change the math?
ChatGPT said:
Perfect — that’s a realistic weight.
1.7 oz = about 48 g, or 0.048 kg.
Let’s redo the quick physics:
• Let’s say your stick speed is 5 m/s (a good mid-range stroke).
• Kinetic energy Ek=12mv2=0.5×0.048×25=0.6JEk=21mv2=0.5×0.048×25=0.6J.
• Momentum p=mv=0.048×5=0.24kg⋅m/sp=mv=0.048×5=0.24kg⋅m/s.
So that stick carries about 0.6 joules of energy and 0.24 N·s of impulse before impact.
If contact time is 3 ms (0.003 s), the average impact force is roughly
F=p/t=0.24/0.003≈80NF=p/t=0.24/0.003≈80N — about 18 lb of force on average, with short peaks 2–3× higher (say 160–240 N).
That’s exactly in the range measured in percussion studies — enough to make a loud hit but nowhere near dangerous energy levels.
so can you extrapolate that to mph?
ChatGPT said:
Yep — let’s convert that 5 m/s stick speed into miles per hour precisely:
5 m/s×2.23694=11.1847 mph5 m/s×2.23694=11.1847 mph
So, about 11 mph.
If we extend the range:
• 3 m/s → 6.7 mph (soft hit)
• 5 m/s → 11.2 mph (typical stroke)
• 8 m/s → 17.9 mph (hard rock hit)
That’s the realistic range for a 1.7-ounce stick — roughly 7 to 18 mph, with most playing around 10–12 mph.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com, I read every note. Promise, no spam, just musician-to-musician talk.
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Janet Tambour / Blog
Be Thankful
Every show that comes off the way you think it will is its own kind of small victory. Drummers drop sticks, guitarists snap strings mid-solo, vocalists deal with cues shifting under them, someone’s mix is always off, and the room never sounds the same twice. Still, the music keeps moving. What looks smooth from the floor is usually years of rehearsal and split-second recoveries hiding under the surface.
So at the end of the night, when the band nails it, stand up and let them know you saw the work in it, even if it looked effortless.
Enjoy the holiday with your people and some good food.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com, I read every note. Promise, no spam, just musician-to-musician talk.
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RN Value
How Many of You Out There Are Still Getting Value From RN
First off, thanks to everyone still following and listening. Is anyone actually getting traction here anymore, or are we all just posting into the void? The reason I ask, I’ve been writing blogs (my day job is Tech Writer) and I became aware that there is no way for fans to comment on the blogs. I took it up with Support and they basically said, “we ain’t gonna fix it.”
I don’t know if any of you have posted blogs, but when you click on ‘blogs’ it says ‘Load full blogs and comments’ which tells me they planned to do it at some point. Code’s probably sitting in there commented out, because they decided that managing it would be costly. But seriously — how is fan engagement supposed to work if artists and fans can’t even talk to each other? Feels like they’ve forgotten what made this place special — the community.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com, I read every note. Promise, no spam, just musician-to-musician talk.
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New Practicing Ideas
I love playing drums, but practicing the same old stuff gets boring after a while. I think most of us hit that wall.
I’m always looking for ways to shake up my routine. For me, without the lyrics of a song, I sometimes lose my sense of placement.
💡One thing that helps is using Moises (not sponsored). Take one of your favorite songs, isolate your instrument, and practice along with that track.
It gives you something familiar, but with a new angle, and it makes practice feel fresh again. 😃
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com, I read every note. Promise, no spam, just musician-to-musician talk.
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The Nemesis of the Drummer
When you’re cooking behind the set and suddenly the stick leaves your hand instead of hitting a drum at approximately 10–18 mph (see fancy AI math at the end of the post), you sure as hell don’t want it hitting any of your bandmates.
The Problem – a plank of wood held tightly in sweaty hands, moving fast and smacking hard. People have tried every fix imaginable to keep that hickory stick where it belongs. Some work some of the time. Some don’t work at all. Here are two of the most popular:
Gloves – Some drummers like them. Personally, I don’t. I think they make my hands sweat even more. They’re pretty good for keeping your knuckles from getting scraped up on the rims, but they kill tactile response between you and the stick.
Gorilla Snot – This stuff works pretty well, but it stinks like hell. And once it’s on your hands, that smell gets everywhere — it’s like picking up a fish, nearly impossible to get rid of. After about half a set the stuff wears off and needs a reapply. It comes in a tiny black plastic container. Super easy to find in the dark on stage… not!
The fix that works 100% of the time: Lightly varnished sticks — the less slick, the better — and a solid grip. Yes, I know they’re supposed to be held loosely. Whatever grip you use, make sure the fingers not actively moving the stick are enclosing it, keeping it home. And the ones doing the work have a nice, secure hold on it.
Math- my stick weighs 1.7 ounces. Now how does that change the math? ChatGPT said: Perfect — that’s a realistic weight. 1.7 oz = about 48 g, or 0.048 kg. Let’s redo the quick physics: • Let’s say your stick speed is 5 m/s (a good mid-range stroke). • Kinetic energy Ek=12mv2=0.5×0.048×25=0.6JEk=21mv2=0.5×0.048×25=0.6J. • Momentum p=mv=0.048×5=0.24kg⋅m/sp=mv=0.048×5=0.24kg⋅m/s. So that stick carries about 0.6 joules of energy and 0.24 N·s of impulse before impact. If contact time is 3 ms (0.003 s), the average impact force is roughly F=p/t=0.24/0.003≈80NF=p/t=0.24/0.003≈80N — about 18 lb of force on average, with short peaks 2–3× higher (say 160–240 N). That’s exactly in the range measured in percussion studies — enough to make a loud hit but nowhere near dangerous energy levels. so can you extrapolate that to mph? ChatGPT said: Yep — let’s convert that 5 m/s stick speed into miles per hour precisely: 5 m/s×2.23694=11.1847 mph5 m/s×2.23694=11.1847 mph So, about 11 mph. If we extend the range: • 3 m/s → 6.7 mph (soft hit) • 5 m/s → 11.2 mph (typical stroke) • 8 m/s → 17.9 mph (hard rock hit) That’s the realistic range for a 1.7-ounce stick — roughly 7 to 18 mph, with most playing around 10–12 mph.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com, I read every note. Promise, no spam, just musician-to-musician talk.
Reply
It’s that time of year—so here’s my ghost 👻 story from behind the kit.
I was 18, going to college by day and playing bars at night. My band was a power trio doing straight rock, even Pat Benatar, and I sang lead on those tunes.
Once a month we’d drive six hours round trip to play a big biker bar next to the State Police station.
💀 Friday night of our two-night gig, the place was packed. We’d been on stage maybe an hour when suddenly all hell broke loose, the entire dance floor erupted, people screaming and bolting in every direction. Somehow I could hear it even over our volume.
🎃 My bandmates rushed me off the stage, shoved me into the van, and told me to stay down. Then they vanished. I sat there watching chaos spill into the parking lot, thinking, What the hell just happened?
They finally came back and said, “We’re done for the night.” “What?”
🧛♂️ We drove an hour in silence before they told me: “A guy opened the front door, and someone shot him point-blank. Killer’s still out there.” I just stared at them. “We have to play tomorrow night. What if they don’t catch him?”
They shrugged.
“But I have to sing Hit Me With Your Best Shot!”
👹 Tell me your scariest experience. Happy Halloween everyone!
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 — growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com — I read every note.
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After 30 Years, Garbage Calls It Quits on Touring
I’m sure most of you have seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eG-wJpFo5w.
After 30 years on the road, Garbage is done — they can’t afford to tour anymore. Yes, you read that right.
This isn’t just about one band. It’s the whole landscape now — everything designed around chasing algorithms instead of chasing ideas. The artists who might’ve reshaped music are too busy optimizing thumbnails, begging the algorithm gods for visibility.
Once, rebellion built careers. Now it kills engagement.
And even the veterans — the ones who already earned their space — are getting priced out.
You’d think with all the tech we have, it’d be easier. But that’s part of the problem: anyone can record and upload, whether it’s good or not. The result? A flood of noise, and real art sinking under it.
Before long, everything we hear will be white bread.
Maybe the future of real music isn’t in the charts. Maybe it’s in the cracks the algorithm ignores.
Maybe that’s where real music lives anyway — in the basements, garages, and back rooms where no one’s checking analytics.”
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 — growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com — I read every note.
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Plan for 2025
For 2025, I decided to follow in the footsteps of my favorite band — they’re on the road about 300 days a year. My version? Play at least 45 minutes a day. Not a New Year’s resolution, just an experiment. Yeah, that’s it.” :)
Then December hit… and so did the upstairs neighbors from HELL.
I play electronic drums without an amp, but apparently that still offended the gods of apartment living. It took a week to find the groove again.
A couple of good months, then April fizzled. By July, life threw me a curveball (see my “walking away” post).
A few half-hearted sessions in August. By September, I was done.
I wanted to record a few new songs — remember those neighbors, they’re so fucking noisy there was no way to do any recordings! I tried to pick it back up, work on old songs I’d been meaning to learn forever… but the spark just wasn’t there.
Biggest lesson? You can’t just assume you’ll “sit down and practice every day.” Even the best intentions need a plan. And to be really successful a map.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 — growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com — I read every note.
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Yelling into the void
😱
These days, it feels like all 8+ billion of us are trying to get someone’s attention — fans, clubs, agents, family. With so many streaming platforms and social media, attention is lost in the noise.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel a little invisible these days.
Personally, trying to keep up with all my feeds — following friends, family, fans — leaves me feeling like I’m pushing a rock uphill. Wait… that was someone else.
Take a breath. Realize it’s not personal — it’s just this wonderful (sarcastic) technology we have now. Ground yourself in family, friends, and the people who actually make your life lighter.
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com — I read every note.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 — growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
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Hope is the most dangerous thing a human can carry.
As a musician, you practice honing your craft, your skills, upgrade your equipment, your transportation so that you can ‘play in the bigs’ whether that’s local or national. All the while hoping your ‘chance’ comes along.
But as time ticks by, that big break, wasn’t, too many times. But down deep inside you the pilot light is still glowing, you’re still determined, you keep working, practicing, you’re a musician and we have to pay our dues before we can reap our rewards.
After decades of the grind, of hope being snatched away, every time, do you finally throw in the towel?
Hope can burn you, but it’s also what made you a musician in the first place.
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com — I read every note.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 — growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
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The Things We Do for Love
Back in the day, Honda ran an ad campaign showing real owners hauling impossible amounts of stuff in their cars. Watching those, I thought: Hey, that could be me.
I was in a band whose practice space was a two-hour round trip from home. Once a week, I’d load my entire drum kit into my little car, drive out, unload, play, and then reverse the process to get home. The crazy part? Everything fit—and I still had room for a passenger.
Gas was under a dollar a gallon, and that car quietly delivered 78 miles per gallon. At the time, it just felt normal. Now, looking back from behind the wheel of my Jeep Wrangler (where that old kit definitely wouldn’t fit), I realize it wasn’t normal at all. It was dedication. It was stubbornness. It was love. It was all of those things, along with being 18.
Musicians don’t always see it while it’s happening, but the miles, the late nights, the sore backs from hauling gear—this is why all of our partners and friends think we’re insane.
But hey, that’s rock ’n’ roll.
BTW: Check out my photos for my Honda Commercial image
💬 Thoughts or feedback? Reach me at janettambour@gmail.com — I read every note.
🎶Grateful for every follow 🙏 — growing, connecting, and drumming forward.🥁
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