138 Years of Combined Service...and Counting
The Concord Band percussion section—
and the percussion sections of large instrumental
ensembles of all kinds—may be
described in terms of extremes. At one time
or another, percussionists are responsible
for gathering hundreds of different combinations
of pitched and unpitched instruments
and beaters. As most drummers will
tell you, the most
difficult problem
they usually face
is not in playing
their parts, but in
setting up and
moving between
their instruments
as quickly as necessary
when the
section has a limited
number of
players.
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(l to r): Dan Diamond (snare drum), Ken Troup (mallets),
Neil Tischler (drum set, tympani), Buck Grace (bass drum, cymbals),
Steve Polit (tympani, mallets). |
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The Concord
Band’s five percussionists,
with tenures of 39, 38, 37, 14
and 10 years, rank 3rd, 4th and 5th longest
among all active Band members. They are
very well educated—with two doctorates
and a handful of other advanced degrees
among them. Though they may wish it
were otherwise, they are also probably the
oldest section of the Band.
Dan Diamond joined the Band in January,
1970, a few months after completing
his PhD at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Dan is primarily self-taught as a
percussionist, but he was taught musicianship
and to play the cymbals by Warren
Myers, who played in the Boston Pops in
the 1950’s. He was the Mass. All-State Orchestra
cymbal player twice. As an undergraduate,
also at MIT, Dan was a member
of the MIT Symphony under John Corley.
He has been a professional manager in both
the high-tech (NEC, Harvard Software,
TMR Networks) and art-reproduction (Facsimilies,
Ltd.) worlds and a consultant.
Ken Troup, who also sings in choruses,
joined his flutist wife, Brenda, in the Band
in 1971. After obtaining engineering degrees
from Purdue and Northeastern and
serving in the Air Force, Ken joined the
percussion section because the Band
needed a bass drummer. He applied his piano
training to the mallet instruments,
which he took over when the late Carl
Getz retired from the band in 1995. During
his time in the band, Ken has had dual careers
in freight transportation analysis for
the Federal government at the DOT Volpe
Center and as a consultant, and executive
leadership in town government primarily
as a selectman for 26 years in Bolton.
Neil Tischler, who joined the Band in
1972, received his early percussion instruction
through the public school system
of Cairo, New York, 35 miles south of Albany,
where he developed a particular interest
in tympani. He never studied privately,
having, for the most part, been selftaught.
Neil has also been the set drummer
in a Klezmer band. He earned degrees in
Mechanical Engineering and Engineering
Mechanics from Union College and Penn
State and has been a self-employed consultant
for more than 30 years in the mechanical
design and packaging of new products.
Neil’s hands-on mechanical skills have also
been very useful in percussion instrument
repair and in the design and manufacturing
of the Band’s rolling crash cymbal stand.
Lloyd F. (Buck) Grace, who joined the
Band in 1995,
was the second
member of percussion
section
who had military
service, whose
wife, June, was a
Band flutist and
who came in to
play bass drum,
having previously
played piano, but
not percussion
instruments.
Through substantial
on-the-job training, he mastered the
crash cymbals and many accessory instruments.
Buck was trained as a chemical engineer
at Carnegie Tech, and spent his career
as a manager in steel, copper and
chemicals, before retiring 15 years ago.
Steve Polit, who joined the Band in January,
1999, has had the best percussion training
of the section, having studied with Vic
Firth, long-time (now retired) timpanist of
the Boston Symphony. He played in the
Mass. All-State Band while in high school,
and continued to play at Tufts and Stanford,
where he earned a PhD in Math. After having
been a Math professor, Steve entered
the software arena, and is now with BBN
Technologies. Before joining the Concord
Band, he played in bands, orchestras and
small ensembles, including those conducted
by John Corley and Harry Ellis Dickson.
