 Hey, guys, today we're talking about something a little bit different and a little more close to home than I normally do on the YouTube channel and the podcast. This right here next to me is my great, great grandpa's snare drum from when he was a cadet at the Kenyan Military School in the 1880s. His name was Albert James Bell born in 1873, went to military school very young. I think that was common in my family at that time. It's certainly not anymore. As a pretty young kid, he was a cadet. This was his standard issue snare drum that he would get at Kenyan Military Academy. He did go to Kenyan College. It's in Gambier, Ohio, and he went through and became a pediatrician and then the chief of staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital as I'm looking at my notes here. He did pretty well. He was not a drummer. This was like a standard issue. Here's your drum. I guess it was a part of Military Academy was you would, it would be like a class or something. I mean, that's just what it was. But he didn't carry on being like a jazz drummer or trap drummer or anything like that. But still very cool. My great grandpa had this at his house in Rochester, New York. I think he's who turned it into a table with the drumstick legs, which I'll show you some more close up shots here as we go. So it has a piece of glass on top. It's not playable. It still has the calfskin heads top and bottom, gut strings on the bottom there. I never knew much about this snare drum until I had reached out recently and asked some questions on the Facebook group, which is the 1920s and 30s drum set traps and percussion sound effects collectors page, which is created by Northup drums, Tim Northup. So posted a question saying, does anyone know about this drum? Obviously, this is pre 1920s, but I explained that. And my old friend, first interview of the podcast back in 2018, Joe Mechler, Joey Boom, stepped up and answered and said that that is a Prussian style snare drum, which was very common in the 1880s, 1890s, maybe into the early 1900s. So that led me to do a little more research on this snare drum, which really kind of opens it up more and makes me appreciate it even more. So I wanted to share with you guys, Hey, this is just a cool piece of family history. That's a drum. It's really, really old. But there's actually more to this Prussian style snare drum thing that I than I originally anticipated. So I wanted to tell you guys more about it. So I'm getting most I'm getting pretty much all this information from the Boston drum builders blog, which has an incredible page devoted to Prussian drums, which again, that's what this is is a Prussian drum. So for starters, let's hear a little bit more about what Prussia was. I think most people know that, but it's kind of a weird country that doesn't exist anymore. So Prussia was the most powerful German state, which in the 1860s and 1870s had claimed a series of resounding military victories, including the Seven Weeks War in 1866 against Austria and the Franco Prussian War in 1870 and 1871, which ultimately led to United Germany. So the reason they called this the Prussian drum was, yes, it was because Prussian drummers in the military actually did use this style drum, but it actually kind of was symbolic of like great strength and great might. And it was just like a word that was associated with like being powerful and strong. And it was a good thing. So this is metal. This is a metal shell on the drum. Because before this, I believe, were typically wooden and they were marching drums that would be a lot deeper. You'd think, you know, rope tension drums, marching snare drums, big heavy drums. This was a much lighter, much smaller drum. It was mass produced. This is not an expensive drum. This is meant to be used at a military academy or something along those lines where someone like my great-great-grandpa Albert James Bell would just get this drum with school. You know, it would be a part of his standard issue. Like you get your uniform, you get your probably, I imagine, like a wooden gun or maybe a real gun or something to practice. And then you would go to your classes and stuff. And this would be a part of it. So nickel, German silver and brass shells were common for Prussian drums. I think this is nickel. I'll show you guys on the inside. I'm not a big expert on metal, but I'm pretty sure this is nickel. It's not brass and it could be German silver, not really sure. But there are wooden styles of these drums that are also common. So it's not uncommon to see a wooden Prussian drum. That's not some rare one-off thing. You'd find a lot of those too. And I think a lot of these are still in existence, which is neat. They're not super valuable. There's some money to it. This obviously has a lot of family history, so it's priceless to us. So you'll notice that this looks on the side like a wooden finished drum. I'm trying to avoid the lights. It's kind of a fine line of it being blasted with the light and working and stuff. This is painted. So this is a faux wood paint job. The rim, which is wood, has a wooden rim, has like an ornate kind of, there's stars. There's like Prussian style painting. This is what I guess that style of the Prussian military would use. So a pretty cool looking faux wood paint job. There's like an ornate little kind of like star type deal on the side there, which you can see in the various catalogs. You could get different levels of like gilding and ornateness to it. So you can see in different clippings that they would have just a basic metal version, not painted. The wood hoop might be painted. It might not be painted. They would basically range in price from five from what I've seen on the Boston Drum Builders blog, five to like $7, which in 1880, again, you have to remember that that price conversion, which I'll put up on the screen here, is not cheap. That's a lot of money in the 1880s. I've read in some of these ads that you get a pair of drumsticks with it. The paint job on the sticks looks, it's kind of hard to see on the camera. It looks like the same exact faux wood paint job that is on the actual drum itself. So it makes me think because there's three legs on this drum, maybe he had a set of two sets of them and he broke one. And then when they found the drum, there was three sticks and they made it a three leg table because it certainly would be more sturdy and not fall one way or the other. If there were four legs, I'm completely guessing on that, but maybe because this looks like the original sticks. These Prussian snare drums would also come with a leg rest because the way they're built, I didn't really come up with marching with a giant snare, obviously. So maybe someone would know better than me. But because of the size of it, I guess it's better to have a leg rest that makes it more comfortable for standing and marching. So in the old literature about it and you see pictures of it here, it comes with a leg rest. Ours does not have a leg rest. It'd be cool to have that. But you know, whatever it's, it's again, it's a table. The hardware, it's described as being efficient and it works, but it's not refined and it's not very, you know, complex. Again, this is a cheap drum that they would give to, let's say he was 10 years old and this is his standard issue drum. So he'd get this. It's a single tension drum. There's a square. I have not tried actually and see if I think this is bigger than a modern tension rod. I know it is. This is bigger than a modern tension rod, but you would use a key. It would tighten the top and bottom head simultaneously. And that's how you would tension the drum. So single tension, but kind of progressive for the time. I know a lot of times there was rope tension and different tension going on at the time, but this is also, I guess it's like a free floating shell because it's not attached. There's no lugs. So, you know, that's kind of a progressive thing at the time as well. The strainer on the side is pretty neat. From what I've read online, it is too tightened. The gut snares on the bottom, which is what a snare does now. But there's no there's no fine tuning functionality. The only purpose is to tighten the snares and that's it. And on the backside, there's a little butt plate that comes through that is very, very small right here. Hopefully you guys can see that it is all it's doing is coming between the hoop, the rim, I guess, and the flesh hoop. And then it's holding on the gut snares on the bottom. And it is just purely serving to keep those those, you know, on there. I don't think these guys were going for anything, you know, any amazing sound. It was probably a bunch of, you know, like I said, 10 or 12 year olds learning some rudiments at military school in the late 1800s. Post war, post civil war. So he was too young to be born, you know, he was born after the war. But a lot of these kids would grow up in that kind of timeframe. Post drummer boy and all that stuff. So drummers were still, I guess, used in the military. I have to refer back to my one of my older episodes, but pretty cool to see that. So the last thing I'll say about it is I'm going to read my notes here is. On the Boston Drum Builders blog, he mentioned that these Prussian style drums can be viewed as a predecessor of the modern snare drum because typical marching snare drums were deeper and often used rope tension, as we discussed, and orchestral snares were more shallow than these Prussian style drums. The size and tension style of the Prussian drum would somewhat quickly evolve into the modern snare drum. I can kind of see that because I believe it's kind of hard to tell because this has a massive thick rim, wooden rim on it. But I believe this is a six and a half or six by 14 snare, which that evolved into basically this modern snare drum. I could probably take the table apart. I could probably take the glass off the top, which again, it probably won't show up. That is glass on top, which preserves the head, which is pretty neat. But and if this is not a half size, like a pre international size head or whatever, I could put maybe a modern head on it and turn the snare drum into something that could be played today. Probably not going to do that. No, actually, definitely not going to do that because it's just it's cooler how it is. It's been a table in my family for, you know, 80 years or whatever. I feel very fortunate to have this in my possession now. I have to tell our baby to stop grabbing. I keep it down by a piano in our living room, and the baby always walks over and wants to pull himself up on it. And it's just like, you know, so I'm trying to keep it safe and preserved. But maybe I could clear coat it or something just to keep the paint from flaking anymore. But again, like I said, I feel really happy to have this in my family. Super cool. Thanks again to the Boston Drum Builders blog for giving this information on his great website. I've used it before on other various like stone drums and various Boston drums through the years. Thanks to Joe Mechler, Joey Boom, for his information. Be sure to check out the Delaware drum show. That's Joey Boom's baby. And it's an amazing show I've yet to go, but I keep seeing pictures and hopefully I'm there next year. So and then thanks to Tim Northup for the and everyone on the 1920s and 30s drum set, traps and percussion sound effects collectors page. And I hope you guys enjoyed this. This is, again, a little bit different. And I wanted to share this with you guys. So thank you for watching and I will see you in the next video.