Purdue News
Purdue News
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Additional background provided by Purdue Department of BandsThe drum was completed in June 1921 at a cost of $800. To pay for it, the band performed a concert that raised $500. Elks BPO Lodge 143 donated the remaining money. To announced the drum’s completion, Ulysses Leedy called the press who took both still and moving pictures. Movies of the drum were shown at the Circle Theater in Indianapolis during the week of Aug. 14, 1921. Amidst much hoopla, the drum was displayed at the Indiana statehouse, then exhibited at the Indiana State Fair for a week. Finally, it was delivered to Purdue and began its long career with the band. Throughout the Midwest, it was an immediate sensation. After a football game at the University of Chicago, that university asked the Conn Company to build it a big drum. They created "Big Bertha," but it has never been shown to be larger than the Purdue drum. When the University of Chicago dropped its football program, the drum was sold to the University of Texas where it remains to this day. Having a big drum created challenges for the Purdue Band. Since the band traveled mostly by train, and the doors of baggage cars were not large enough for the drum to squeeze through, Emrick enlisted the help of New York Central Railway in finding cars that could accommodate it. Later the drum had to have its own truck. But the biggest challenge was finding replacement drumheads when aging heads cracked — and paying for them. During World War II, there were so many other events of concern, that a drum with cracked heads was of little importance. For long periods of time between 1940 to 1954, the Purdue Big Bass Drum sat, unused, in storage. When Al Wright became Director of Bands in 1954, the first thing he did was ship the drum off to Leedy for repair. But finding replacement heads was still nearly impossible. Wright pleaded with DuPont Research Laboratories in Wilmington, Del., the inventors of a plastic knows as Mylar, to help him solve the problem. A Purdue alumnus, who worked for DuPont took a special interest in Purdue’s dilemma. On his own time, he worked on making sheets of Mylar large enough to make giant heads out of them. Finally the problem was solved. Once again the drum took its place at the center of the Purdue "All-American" Marching Band on the football field. Over the years, the drum has had all kinds of adventures and has been "drum-napped" several times by pranksters including students from Purdue’s arch rival, Indiana University. But it’s too large to stay hidden for long, and has always returned to its home in the Purdue Armory. For more than 50 years, the Purdue Band has been engaged in a friendly, but heated controversy with the University of Texas over who really has the biggest drum. In 1961, Purdue members of Kappa Kappa Psi band fraternity challenged their Texas fraternity brothers to a drum showdown at the fraternity’s national convention in Wichita, Kansas. Purdue kept its promise. They loaded their drum on its truck and headed west. At every large city — Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Topeka — crew members took the drum off and pushed it through the city streets to show it off. Arriving at the convention, they found the Texas students failed to bring their drum. So, with the default, Purdue students declared their drum to be the "World’s Largest Drum" Since that time, the exact measurements of the Purdue Big Bass Drum have been kept secret to preserve the mystique surrounding it. Now that drumheads can be made synthetically, it is possible for other big drums to exist, but challenges to Purdue’s title of "World’s Largest" are rare. Many of the same problems that existed in the 1920s still exist today. Big drums are expensive. They are awkward, hard to house and hard to transport because of their size. But even if someone were to build a bigger drum, Purdue will always hold a spot in music history as the home of the first Big Bass Drum.
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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