Bucket Drumming Origins

Series Summary

The drum is perhaps the oldest known musical instrument and its basic design has not changed in thousands of years. Far from today’s uses as a percussive foundation for pop music or for fueling marching band excitement, drumming has a more profound history as a method of communication, and as an implement of religious symbolism.

In this free video series, our expert Ray King will talk about drumming on random objects and bucket drumming. He will talk about the origins of bucket drumming, playing different tones on a bucket, playing drum rolls, bass sounds, hip hop beats, jazz beats, latin beats, dirty south beats, reggae beats, rock beats, salsa beats, afrunk beats, funk beats, cuban beats, and cha cha beats. Ray will also talk about experimentation, playing off time and pickup beats, playing meditative and 80's beats, and the flipping & floor techniques. He'll even give a demonstration of putting it all together so you can get a fell for the art of bucket drumming.

Video Transcript

"RAYMOND KING: Hello, this is Raymond King [SOUNDS LIKE] with a King Drum Jones, here today to talk about the bucket drums. This is a street drum that was created, well, yeah it was created, more like re-reinvented of a reinvention of the bucket, by Larry Wright and Jared Crawford, you know, when we was kids, some about young age, maybe the age of 13, 14, this a way of--a means of making money and paying bills, and keeping out of trouble. And it's just something that we learned and explored with and took up more things and found more creations to do with other buckets and different sounds in the walls, in the floor, ceilings, doors, anything that comes past your way that makes sound. Pots, pans, anything. Sound like different buckets and has different sounds, all in all that too, and I will go into that in a second."