In ten days, rehearsals for Mahler #6 will start. I will be in charge of the bass drum and, as you may know, there is a European tradition which ties together this instrument and the rute. A rute is a bunch of twigs used to hit the bass drum shell, resulting in a very peculiar sound. Its origins go back to the davul (you can check my article HERE), an ancestor of the BD, played using a mallet in one hand and a very thin “spaghetto shaped” twig in the other. This tradition continued with the bass drum, and that sound and way of playing lived on (still lives on!) in certain parts of Europe. Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky, etc., are composers who wrote for rute.  

 

As I prepare for the rehearsals, I want to have as many options as possible. I own a pair of large rutes I got for almost nothing (which you already heard when the Asturias Symphony Orchestra last played Haydn´s “Military Symphony”), plus some Promark Hot Rods and Vic Firth Rute505. Looking ahead, just in case the large ones produce too much sound or the others too little, I decided to make something in between so I can have all the colours in a complete palette. I got, for €2 each, a couple of these in the decoration/garden aisle of a store: