MUSIC GEAR
SEPTEMBER 29, 2021
Story Of Vic Firth Company
The story of Vic Firth company began when the company was founded in 1963. It was founded by Everett Joseph “Vic” Firth to meet demands of percussion sticks and mallets. Firth was an American musician and the business owner. Currently the headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Vic Firth was born on June 2, 1930 in Winchester, Massachusetts. His father was Everett E. and his mother was Rosemary Firth and they raised him in Sanford, Maine. Son of a successful trumpet player, he already learned music at the age of four. Later he developed skills to master percussion, trombone, clarinet, piano and music arrangement as well.
As for his formal education, he also held a Bachelor’s degree and Honorary Doctorate in Music from New England Conservatory in Boston where he started his teaching career before he finished his degree.
Firth was the Boston Symphony Orchestra youngest member when they hired him as a percussionist in 1952 when he was just 21 year old. Four years later he became the principal timpanist of the orchestra, a position he kept for 46 years. From that year to 2002 he was the principal timpanist of the orchestra.
According to npr.org website, the Vic Firth company manufactured about 12 million sticks a year in 2012 and offered about 300 products from their factory in Newport, Maine. The company claims an output of more than 80.000 sticks per day and covered about 62 percent of the drumstick in the market in the past decade.
Labeled themselves as the world’s largest manufacturer of drumsticks and mallets, the company merged with Avedis Zildjian company in 2010 but would remain to run independently according to official statement.
It was all began when Firth decided to design a set of a higher quality drumstick when he was asked to perform pieces by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He felt that drumstick on the market at the time didn’t meet the requirement.
He designed the first sticks by his own hand and sent the prototypes to a wood turner in Montreal, Quebec. Those two prototypes would become the SD 1 and SD 2, the first two models of sticks manufactured by Vic Firth Inc.
Though it was meant for his personal use, the sticks became popular among his students and eventually hit the market, sold by retailers in 1964.
In 2002, Vic retires from Boston Symphony Orchestra after glorious 50 years of career. Vic Firth died at the age of 85 years old on July 26, 2015 at his home in Boston, Massachusetts.
Besides producing regular sticks, Vic Firth also manufacture signature drumsticks for great drummers. Some of the names are The Steve Gadd signature stick, The Harvey Mason signature stick, The Dave Weckl signature stick and The Peter Erskine signature stick.
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