Word: drumhead
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...teenager, Bill performed in high school musicals and sang lead in a cover band, the Dutch Masters. ("I thought the name would look good painted on a drumhead," he explains.) Like several of his brothers, he caddied at the Indian Hill Golf Club to help pay his Catholic-school tuition. (Murray's father Edward, a lumber salesman, died in 1967 at age 46 of complications from diabetes; his mother Lucille, a mailroom clerk, died in 1988 of cancer.) It was while caddying that Murray developed his ferocious sense of justice. "As a poor kid carrying a rich...
...timpani looks as if it were forged for the artistic elevation of soups. Its expansive, gleaming copper bowl tilted jauntily to a side and the drumhead stretched taut over its opening suggest hidden depths of bouillon--of boiling meats and vegetables. The common name for the timpani is, not surprisingly, the kettledrum. Originally a military instrument, primitive versions of the timpani were slung over the backs of horses in cavalry units and, aside from their practical uses in battle, often served in processions and other public events as a sort of status symbol...
...from two to five drums, each a different size and in a different register. Each individual timpani can be tuned up or down during the actual performance, so the percussionist actually has a significant melodic range. Formerly, this tuning was done by carefully twisting the screws holding down the drumhead but most timpanis today are constructed to be tuned with a pedal. This is quicker and allows one to tune two timpanis at once. This has dramatically expanded the role of the timpani in the modern orchestra and indeed as a solo instrument...
...even with the innovation of the foot pedal, playing the timpani remains a delicate and complex job. Each timpani is different, and in addition, each spot on the taut drumhead has a slightly different tuning, tension and response. And the tuning is still an uncertain science, performed with the orchestra in full swing around the timpanists. They have to find the perfect pitch despite the tooting and sawing of their neighbors and without losing track of the conductor. If you see them stooping over the drumhead during the concert as though they were whispering into a gargantuan ear, that...
...camera crews laid daily siege to Lance as he left his home in the morning or his office at night. A small army of pushy reporters thrust long microphone rods into his face and asked the most impertinent questions, hoping to elicit an off-guard response. This is a drumhead trial, and few of those who are subjected to such a process escape unscathed. A print reporter who finds a rumor to be unfounded usually does not refer to it in print; but a television reporter's unverified insinuation, heard on-camera, lingers in the audience...