Jeff Zahos

I am a percussionist – I play timpani, drumset, orchestral percussion, keyboard instruments, hand drums and more! 

Playing the very nice Adams Professional Timpani at Truman State University

Multi-Percussion setup for Nebojsa Zivkovic's Lamento e Danza Barbara, following a performance accompanying the composer/soloist - Fall 2008, Truman State University

Rehearsal for the world premeire performance of Nebula Picta for Four Players on One Marimba by visiting Italian composer Girolamo Deraco, Spring 2009, Truman State University

That's me playing bass pans (in the background behind Cody Jensen)

 

During the Spring 2009 semester, Italian composer Girolamo Deraco was in residence at Truman State University.  I had the great privilege of performing on the premiere of two of his pieces (Nebula Picta for four players on one marimba and Little Puppets’ Symphony) and commissioning him to write a work for solo timpani (Thou for solo timpano).

Below you will see video of the premiere performance of his Little Puppets’ Symphony, a chamber work involving collaboration between music, dance and theatre, a feature of many of Deraco’s works.

The piece offers a peak in to the mysterious (and sometimes absurd!) process of creative invention, and is a bit of a wink of the eye in self-acknowledgement  of the composer’s own eccentricity.

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Last year, my friend James brought up the idea of building woodblocks specifically for Iannis Xenakis’s Rebonds.  Here’s what we came up with:

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That’s my friend from Truman State University, Scott Quade performing on a set we made.  Scott, like many others at the school, is a fantastic percussionist.

Anyway, James had some sketches of a set of blocks which belonged to a former teacher.  Along with this, Kolberg makes “Power Blocks”, which are often used for the piece.  There is a great video of percussionist Pedro Carniero playing Rebonds B.  Carniero’s blocks are cool, but of course I’m partial to “XenakibloX”!

…next up will be designing and building a mounting system for the blocks.

This is a vibraphone “rescue” project I completed for a local musician. The instrument was given to him by a friend in derelict condition, and only had the bars (the part that is struck by mallets), the damper bar and the frame intact. It did not include a pedal to operate the damper, or, more importantly, resonators.  Because it was given to him by a friend, the instrument has special sentimental value, and it is affectionately called the “Red Vibes”.

MAIN IMPROVEMENTS/FEATURES:

Damper System

Damper Bar – New felt on damper bar

Pedal- Completely new, wide damper pedal for easy access while playing through whole range of instrument.

Resonators

Dimensions – 1/4 wavelength one-end-open, one-end-closed (half open) aluminum tubes, 1 3/4″ outer diameter (equal to the bar width).

Tunable – Tube stops made with aluminum discs with rubber o-ring as a seal (similar to a piston in a combustion engine). Each tube stop has a 1/4″ hex bolt through it, allowing each resonator to be tuned individually with a hex wrench.

End Correction – Gap between bar and tube provides end correction for 1/2 open tube resonators. This ensures the vibrating bar is at the anti-node of the wave, which is slightly (about 1/2″) outside the open end of the tube.

Finish- I investigated several finish options, (anodizing, lacquer, etc.), but decided a “brushed” finish would be best (least expensive and cool looking).

Bars (keys)

I cleaned the keys (along with cleaning and lubricating other existing metal parts) using Scotch-Brite, steel wool and acetone.

THE PROJECT

Design

I designed a pedal mechanism which would mate to the existing damper bar hardware and that would be easy to remove and reassemble at performances. I had it machined from aluminum at Wagner Machine Co. in Champaign, IL (they were in Urbana, IL at the time). This was the easy part…

Because the resonators are part of the sound-producing system of this instrument, designing and building them was particularly challenging. They needed to work with the existing frame and be easy to assemble/disassemble, in addition to making the instrument sound better.

The operating principle of resonators in keyboard instruments is that when a vibrating bar is situated near the end of a tube of equal fundamental frequency (f₀₎, the column of air in the tube will vibrate sympathetically. Because the bar and tube resonate sympathetically at f₀, but have different resonances at the harmonics (f_n), f₀ is amplified more than the higher harmonics. This means that the loudness of f₀ is greater than the loudness of f_n, making the instrument sound less “bright” or more “mellow”. There may be matching of higher harmonics between the resonator and bar, along with the vibraphone, but the main amplification is at f₀. This is the signature sound of the vibraphone, and what I sought to achieve in my design.

Fabrication and Assembly

As mentioned above, the damper pedal was machined at Wagner Machine Co.:

Note that significant mass has been removed from the pedal to keep the action lighter.

Wagner was also the site of drilling the holes for the resonator tubes and rails. The tubes were cut using a plumbing pipe cutter. The brushed finish was achieved using sandpaper, steel wool and Scotch-Brite with the tube spinning on a metal lathe. The tubes are attached to the rails by round head hex bolts and nylon-insert lock nuts.

U-Channel aluminum was used for the endpiece on each resonator set. The original instrument included a small metal bracket with a raised knob in the middle. The U-Channel endpiece has a hole into which the knob fits, holding the resonators in place.

The curve of the resonators made smoother after the “rough” photo above was taken.  The curve was made more smooth.

The vibes on a sunny fall day before being returned to their owner!

Recently, Faster Forward played a short recording session at the Krannert Center for students in the audio production class (I am not in the class – I was just drumming and singing background vocals. In fact, I was forbidden from touching microphones or other audio gear – I could just “Ask questions”. I asked many annoying “questions”!). Sound files from this session

…will never be heard in public! (You could say it was an “off night” for FF, which is to say “a night”. That said, we did 3 songs in as many hours, which is an insane pace).

The good 2/3 of Faster Forward

Jay on bass

Hamptone keeping it real on kick and snare

Robert at the DDA console

Chris, Beth and Robert, our engineers for the session

I play in a couple bands based in Champaign, IL.  One of them – definitely the most domestic-aquatic themed one – is called  Backyard Shark.  I love playing with Ed, Tony and Tommy B – we’ve been together for several years now, which not many bands that have members in 3 cities (4 from Aug. ‘08-May’09) can say.  We have a lot of fun, and we like to think our audiences do, too!  Check us out at:

• Facebook! A book with pictures of our Shark-face
• MySpace! OurSpace
• Flickr! Awesome pics, mostly taken by the awesome Taylor “Hawkins, drummer from the Foo Fighters” Thornton
• Purevolume! LOUD!
• Twitter! Does this have something to do with texting?  I don’t text – I don’t have anything to do with this one…

SHARKIFY!

I play in two bands, the fastest and most forward-moving of them is Faster Forward (although it’s generally about the same speed as Backyard Shark, and in fact, if you averaged the tempos of all the songs from the respective bands, probably slower, and I’m not sure if it is in fact any more forward-moving than Backyard Shark…).  ANYWAY, that is the name of the band!  John Caparoon (the guy on the left) is the primary singer and a fantastic songwriter.  Jay Creek (on the right, keeping us honest) plays bass.

Check out:

A short demo:

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• John’s Reverbnation page
• John Caparoon’s MySpace

Faster Forward at Memphis On Main - Jan 30th, 2010