A couple of things happened recently that lead me to "improvise". i am sure this happens to all of us, and in some cases, either lead to a discovery that we would encorporate again, or something that is just awful and would be good for a laugh later on. If you have a story of this please share.
Two things happened recently. One good, and one not so good. #1, I have a gig during the week in which I play percussion and the kit. I spend the night hoping between the two since some of the songs we do sound better on congas, and some on the kit. If I play the kit though, I hear percussion rythms, and vice versa. Well I was late from work, so I rushed home, and threw everything in the car. When I got there, I had forgotten my snare stand. So i brainstornmed, and ended up keeping the bass drum, the hi hat, a ride, and put my congas where the snare an floor tom would be. So I played hi hat with my left foot, like 3:2 clave, or just quarters or eighths, bass dum with the right foot, and the congas with my hands, unless my right hand played tamborine or the ride. I was able to play the backbeat with a conga slap, so in essense I was able to sound as though there was a drum set and a percussionist playing together. I will definitely do that again.
On the flip side, playing percussion at church, the drummer broke the foot pedal. I stopped playing percussion and tried to fix the pedal. The piece that holds the beater in place had snapped, and was still in the pedal so there was no way to keep it in. I forced the beater stem back in the pedal, but it popped right off again. We were in the middle of a high energy song, and with no bass drum, so I picked up the floor tom, got a mallett and started playing it like a surdo just trying to give us a bass drum pattern. That was a mistake. We would have been better off with no bass drum pattern at all. It sounded awful, and everyone was looking over at me. Some with screwed up faces, and others just laughing at the whole situation. Well...some ideas work and some don't.