The Way of the Gong™

Today's post features a recent comment from the mail bag, or more accurately, from one of my YouTube videos about Gong stands: Most all gong stands I have found are boring and do nothing to present the beautiful gong that brings so much joy to our well being. I am surprised your stands are not more artistic like.  I built a great gong stand in my shop to hold my 40 inch wind gong.  My gong is very happy to be housed in it because it told me so. I have nothing against beautiful, artistic Gong stands. I do have some decorative wooden ones in my house that are more for displaying various Gongs I have. Decorative stands , much like fancy furniture,  are great for permanent installations. My current rack set up: sturdy & functional I'm a working musician and have been for almost 50 years now. Currently, I play 8-12 gigs a month with my Gongs, generally traveling within a 100 mile radius of my house. I also have to carry and set up everything...

Today is another post from the mail bag. I've had multiple people ask me where to find various models of Mike Balter Mallets . The state of things at Balter is changing, because  Mike Balter retired last year and sold his company to the Zildjian cymbal company, who also owns the Vic Firth drum stick company.  Balter made mallets for both Zildjian & Firth (as well as many other drum companies). Zildjian has made some changes   to streamline things , dropping some Balter mallet models that were also available from Zildjian or Firth, or moving some models from one brand to another. U nfortunately,  some models were dropped completely. This is especially a problem for Gong players, as Zildian has done away with all Balter Gong mallets! There are some duplicated with a Firth model, but my favorite and most used models are now gone.  I have to say that I have played Balter mallets literally  forever, and I've been an endorsing Balter artist since 2005....