Deagon
Man I’ve been playing that instrument for a month over at Resorts in Atlantic City. It gets me thinking about the times and jazz way back, and more.
I usually warm up for a while on the instrument and just listen to it. I’d love to hear from a Deagon player.
To me it sounds like an instrument that sounds best when played louder than softer. At a medium volume it sounds soooo beautiful. Terry Gibbs said it is ‘the’ best sounding instrument. I see what he means when I play it. I bet sticks were different back then. You think? Made for different instruments maybe?
I don’t like the bars being so close. However 4 mallet playing was not what it is now. I still wonder if the musser ‘enabled’ 4 mallet playing to expand… Unless there were deagon models with the same width?
I don’t know and I’m not an expert but I just dig thinking about it and speculating. Why don’t other manufacturers offer instruments with different sounds, you know like linux distributions (computer geeks know what I mean). Why can’t I buy a Musser vibes with a deagon sound.
Well just posting some stuff in my head. My wife reads this and laughs. Imagining vibe players talking about this stuff is funny to her!!!
posted by Tony at
12:46 PM
1 Comments:
Tony,
I own a Deagan Traveller and a Musser Pro Vibe, and when I took lessons from Terry Gibbs at his home I played his Deagan Aurora every week. So here's my two cents worth.
I bought my Provibe in 1978 specifically because I couldn't play four mallets on my Traveller. In retrospect, I understand now that four mallet playing would have worked just fine on a Deagan Commander (Mike Mainier's axe-of-choice) but by that time Deagan was on its way out. No question - my Traveller bars were too thin in the low octave.
Recently, I set up my Traveller next to my Provibe, and found that the sound from one to the other differed based on the mallets. The "signature mallets" that were named after Deagan artists (like Terry) definitely sounded better on the Deagan, and my Burton mallets sounded better on the Musser. Since I've moved away from four-mallet playing back to two mallet playing (as I'm playing more funk these days than jazz a la Roy Ayers), the Deagan tends to be my preferred instrument to practice on, although I prefer to use the Musser on jobs since it has pickups and is gold instead of silver.
One thing that Terry told me in lessons about his Aurora is that the lowest notes don't have the high overtone that he found on Musser bars. Now bear in mind that he is using cord-wound mallets which are going to sound a little harsher in the low register, but I found it to be true that the lowest couple of notes had no overtone ring on his instrument.
By
John Keene, at 8:16 AM
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