My first steps towards the carrier as the percussion instruments player has begun under supervision of Václav Fildán – a great man, excellent player and teacher, now my colleague at Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava (JKO). The experience gained by playing in youth brass band I later utilised not only in the symphonic orchestra at JKO, but also in hosting at Jiří Myron Theatre, Antonín Dvořák Theatre, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, and others. Other successes include e.g. 2nd place in Conservatory contest in melodic percussion instruments and multipercussion playing, or 1st place in interpretive contest organized under sponsorship of Yamaha Company at JKO. Not surprisingly – using my own handcrafted mallets. Worth mentioning definitely is getting two Anděl Awards – in Band of the Year and Album of the Year categories with Bratři Orffové band – “Šero” album (2013).
My experimenting with making my own mallets started during my school years already, mostly due to high price of “brand name” mallets. The results were often unexpected and weight imbalance or not so perfect straightness of the shaft were an acceptable features of student models of mallets. First attempts to make homemade marimba mallets employed bathtub plugs, bouncy balls, or door stops. First machine turned wooden cores covered with rubber were later replaced with full-rubber plugs, but with very inconsistent hardness.
Only new unique methods of rubber mixtures casting for marimba and vibraphone heads bring stable hardness for many years of playing and absolutely negligible weight differences. Thanks to combination of our focus on quality and design we can claim we are producing mallets like no one else. Individual approach and tailor-made production aim to create new possibilities for players to enrich their expression potential with new style features, or just to achieve their unique personal sound. You can bet on traditional quality in conservative design or you can choose your own level of sonic uniqueness and visual creativity. Accommodation of length and selection of surface finish is a natural part of each order. We welcome a feedback to ensure customer satisfaction.
By natural evolution and continuous improvement of FS mallets we strive to continually improve the resulting sound of an instrument and to enrich the wide range of vast possibilities of sonic finesse of broad family of percussion instruments. Our aim is to bring modern innovations to the realm of natural materials like rubber, latex, cork, wood, tonkin, or rattan and, conversely, to combine the proven traditional procedures with contemporary synthetic materials like silicone, polyurethane, or epoxy resin based hard or flexible glues. All types of FS mallets are subjected to testing on high-quality instruments of global renowned brands. Newly introduced variants are always long-term tested in advance to ensure the final model properties perfectly correspond to the intended purpose. Members of Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, as well as students of Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava participate on the field testing of mallets. I would like to thank them for their cooperation.
František Škrla
Solo player at Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, teacher at Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava
