K'wentong Soundcheck

It was one of those high-paying hotel gigs with famous singers in tuxedos and gowns. The producer had hired the best of the best technical outfits to do our lights and sounds, and had even convinced the famous Mang Tenga, all-around jazz musician and audio engineer, to man the mixing console.

The tech crew was taping down cables or getting some sleep on the equipment cases backstage.

The huge ballroom was all a-bustle and a-clink with the catering crew setting up the buffet perimeter rows and about 50 round tables, each to seat 8 luminous people.

Soundcheck time. As we set up our stuff on stage-right risers, Mang Tenga plays one of his albums and calibrates the house mix. Drummer Boy is fixing our aluminum baking pan over the snare drum -- our signature sound for the first song. We setup our guitars, gongs, and various sound toys .

Kick, says Mang Tenga through the stage monitors. Drummer Boy starts foot-thumping the bass drum pedal. In no time the kick drum sound comes out thick and heavy, almost creamy, but well-defined. A master is at work!

Ok, snare, Mang Tenga says. Drummer Boy starts hitting the baking pan fixed over the snare drum.

At the rate of 60 beats per minute a drummer can do 60 single strikes per minute. After approximately 200 strikes of the baking pan --- which is, of course, enjoyed by everyone in the ballroom, as the baking pan hits reverberate through the powerful sound system --- Mang Tenga gets a crew guy to change the microphone over the snare drum. After about 300 more strikes of the baking pan Mang Tenga finally gets up from his command console and walks pointedly over to Drummer Boy’s throne. He stands there , scratching his head, looking down at the aluminum baking pan on top of the snare drum.

He shakes his head and heads back to his post. As he passes me he remarks Lata pala talaga…

All the while he had been trying to make it sound like a snare drum.