Musician's Journal: On Learning to Play the Cowbell

Yes, a cowbell, a standard Latin Percussion timbale cowbell. It’s 8” long, and the mouth measures 4 1/2” by 2 3/8”. It’s painted matte black and has a mounting bracket for attaching it to a drum kit. But I don’t have a drum kit. I hold it in my left hand and beat it with a drum stick.

I’ve been learning to play this bell for, say, 25 years. With any luck I’ll still be learning the day I die. Why so long to learn to play the bell? That’s probably not quite the right question.

Let me explain. In the first place, when I set out to learn a musical instrument five decades ago, the cowbell wasn’t what I set out to play. I set out to play trumpet. The musical role I cherished as a trumpet-player was that of improvising soloist. In time I became quite good in that role, good enough to open for BB King in one band, and for Dizzy Gillespie in another.

The soloist role is very up-front. It’s a role that allows for, and often calls for, a lot of flash and dash. You’re the center of attention, and you have to deliver.

The cowbell isn’t like that. Oh, I suppose it can be, if you’ve got more technical skill than I’ve got. But percussionists with the skill to solo generally don’t do so on cowbells. They’re more likely to use a jazz-type drum kit, or timbales, congas, bongos, djembe, or some other drum. Cowbell solos are rare.

The cowbell is an anchor instrument, a foundation instrument. It’s responsible to the basic rhythmic framework, whether a simple regular beat in rock and jazz or the more subtle 3/2 clave in Latin and African musics. The foundation has to be rock solid, unwavering, there.

And that, the role, is what I’ve been learning above all else. The foundational role is entirely different from the solo role. The soloist is a peacock, spreading his tail and strutting for the peahens. The bell is the ground on which the peacock and the peahens walk. The soloist needs good time, but that time can flex and change quite a bit – ever listen to Louis Armstrong? The cowbell’s time cannot flex and change, for it is the background against which, the framework within which, any flexing and changing is done.

By the time I’d started to play cowbell I’d been flexing and changing for 25 years. Learning NOT to do that, learning to be rock steady, that’s a process.

A tricky process. For you see, the time of a group is not mechanically perfect. It’s a steadiness built on a shifting framework of micro-, no nano-, flexing. There are little perturbations that give life to the time. Those perturbations exist in relation to the time of everyone playing. You’ve got to absorb all those time streams and drive your own time down the middle.

Rock steady, then, is not mechanical. It’s got it’s own regime flex. That’s tough to do. Well it is and it isn’t. When you’re going it, it’s the easiest thing in the world. When you’re not, it’s the most difficult thing in the world.

Still, after 25 years, I lose the microflex. Too many times. I generally get it back, often quickly, but the momentary loss is both personally irritating and, more serious, a flaw in the flow of the group.

And then there’s the sound, which is not, of course, separate from the time. But it requires a separate discussion.

Just what sound to you want from the bell? For it varies, and you need a sound that’s appropriate to context. Do you need a dark sound, or a bright one? Thick or . . . I’m not sure that “thin” is the right contrast.

How do you vary the sound? For one thing, there’s the way you hold the bell. As I said, I hold it in my left hand, with the closed end pointing toward my body and the open end pointed away from me. If you grip the bell more or less loosely, it will resonate – ring – more freely. A tighter grip dampens the sound. So that’s one thing.

Hitting’s the other. Where do you hit the bell (and with what kind of stick)? You get one sound when you hit on the mouth’s edge and other sounds when you hit the bell’s body. If you hit it near the narrow end, the pitch will be relatively high; if you hit it near the large end, the pitch will be lower. You can hit on the wide flat side or on the rounded ‘corner.’ You can allow the stick to rebound freely, or you can hold it ever so momentarily against the bell once you’ve struck it.

All of these things make a difference in the sound. These nuances in the sound, they contribute to the micro-flex of the time. A quarter of an inch, a half inch this or that way, and the sound changes. Sometimes ever so slightly, sometimes a bit more. Because small differences matter, constancy is tough. Keeping your grip constant, your stroke constant, same place, same velocity – all of this matters, is difficult. Is impossible.

The music has to breathe. You have to breathe. And you all have to breathe together.

That’s what all this impossible subtlety is about. Breathing together. Hearts beating together. When it works, magic! No thought, no effort, no nothing. Music.

It’s worth 25 years, 35, I hope 50 or even more.

(Not, mind you, that I have any intention of giving up the flash and dash of the trumpet.)