Has research ever discovered why the drummers are caged ? or,....Why a drummer would agree to play it ?

I prefer a full enclosure on Sunday mornings. I can play naturally without worrying about stage volume, the sound people have control over the FOH, and the people in the seats don’t get their heads ripped off. It’s a win for everyone.

Almost every drummer I saw in the bars in New Orleans a few years ago was playing behind acrylic panels. I walked into one bar, and the band was playing "Dark Side Of The Moon." That's not why I came to New Orleans!

The free range drummers are better for you anyway.

As a Orchestral player, this is sort of unfamiliar territory for me, but I do have some observations. First, a chicken or the egg question...did this come about due to sound guys needing to control volume and mix or was it for the protection of those in close proximity who had volume issues with the drummer?

In my own experience I have witnessed the "Cage" when I played percussion on the Broadway show "Motown" when it rolled through town and the drummer was encased in a portable plexiglass, sound proof room (cage) in the pit with ventilation and everything. We were all miked and had to use headphones to hear him. I could see that he was over-playing in terms of volume, but the sound people adjusted the final product. This was in a 2000 seat hall, too.

In the other extreme, I am sometimes called upon to play drumset for the Orchestra for Pops and other concerts and I am used to our stage crew setting up the large freestanding plexiglass sound shields around me so that my string rubbing colleagues can continue to hear the grass grow another day.

Because I have always worked in a mostly non-amplified work environment, I know I would have serious issues being caged by not hearing others in person and giving up my ability to adjust my sense of touch, balance and volume to another person with their fingers on a dial.

Every time I go to NOLA, I go straight to the Preservation Jazz Hall. That's what I go there for... jazz! Skip all the rock band, tourist bars on Bourbon Street.

I'm still a little confused about the acrylic cages. Someone told me that they originated in studios (and then live stages later) to prevent the drums from bleeding into the vocal mic's. If that were true, then why aren't the Marshall stacks put into their own cages?

Mike

If you want to play live gigs in a cage, do your gigging at the zoo.

Drum booth for the Garth Brooks tour. He's used an iteration of this on stage for many years.

That's interesting. I was in Nashville two years ago for a couple of weeks and was in perhaps 15 or 20 bars and restaurants that had live music, and not a single drummer was in any sort of acrylic enclosure, not one!.