Travis Orbin - Second Cyclamen Session - "Senjyu"

  / thiscyclamen  
http://cyclamen.bandcamp.com/
  / thiscyclamen  
  / thiscyclamen  

Finally, there's "Senjyu". I approached this piece a bit differently. I wanted a big, earthy sound so I switched my beaters to the felt side and 'upsized' most of my cymbals. In place of my 21" ride is another 21" ride with a heavier weight and instead of my usual 19" and 18" crashes I opted for my 21" DRK ride and 19" MDM crash (respectively). The chinese cymbal is the same, and the right-side hi-hats are my 14" MDM hats. The left-side hi-hats are a pair of 18 inchers (!), constructed out of two crashes (the top being my 18" MDM crash).

I wanted to complement the mood of this tune as best as I could and I found it challenging; I really had to dig deep for parts that I liked that also melded well with everything else. From crescendoing the crash cymbals (er... one ride, and one crash, hah) in the beginning to the brief crescendo on the china at 3:54 before the vocals kick in, to the final accent (more on that later) the whole piece has sort of a forward motion. One should refer to the transcription to get a more detailed feel of the dynamics that I had in mind.

When the drums first enter at 2:00, there's a neat groove that Hayato composed that superimposes a four feel over the six feel. I kept this and complemented the six feel with hi-hat splashes on the big hats every three quarter notes. There's a 16th-note quintuplet fill-in that creates some tension and marks the start of louder dynamics at 3:36 and there's an eleven-tuplet fill-in into an 8th-note triplet fill-in at 5:58 before the 'roomy' drum groove.

Additional cymbals that I required were graciously loaned to me by my brohamncheesesammich, Alex Rudinger, who also makes an appearance at the end. He helped me make that last cymbal crash that much more epic. Check out the china-- cymbal devastation at its finest!

If you'd like to purchase an isolated drum movie for this, please visit: http://travisorbin.bigcartel.com/prod...

Full drum set transcription:
http://www.travisorbin.com/images/Cyc...
Tempo = 149 BPM (eighth notes)

http://www.travisorbin.com