Eric Persing? Doug Rogers? Nick Phoenix? Where are you when we need you the most?
Watching the stunning opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was witnessing a moment in history. China is back and bigger than ever. But the most spectacular part of the performance for me – and probably most musicians – was watching and hearing the 2,008 fou drummers pounding out rhythms, yelling, chanting and subsequently stirring up our tribal urges. I was fascinated in how much emotion can be wrought from drums and the human voice. Was the emotion brought about by a great musical composition or are we genetically predisposed to react to tribal drumming and chanting because our ancestors did it thousands of years ago and we’re still doing it?
Emotional. Powerful. Dramatic. Stunning. Well that’s about all I need to hear and I’m sold on those samples. So where was Spectrasonics? Where was East West? Native Instruments? I want those fou samples and I want them now. Surely someone thought to multi sample 2,008 people pounding on drums. Right? Preferably with 20 velocity layers, different sticks, hand slaps – both with the natural ambience and dry? Oh, and while you’re there, I could go for some of those yells and shout outs.
So here is a bit of the history of the fou drum I found at http://www.chinalyst.net/node/44347.
The style of fou used in the ceremony was unearthed in 1978 and comes from the Xia and Shang dynasties (2070BC-1046BC). It was used primarily as a piece of furniture, a buffet. Wine was stored in the fou and apparently as the drink readily flowed, people wanted to pound out a little music to go with the liquor. So they beat on the fou table. It became a drum. And a badass one at that.
So bring it on sampling geniuses. What is the sound of 2,008 fou drummers with a convolution stadium reverb setting?
If that won’t trigger the infamous brown note, what the hell will?
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