Patrick H. Cooperman
Pat Cooperman (1928-1995) started out as a drummer in his
elementary school band in Mt. Vernon NY. He served in the
US Navy on an aircraft carrier during World War II, and joined
his hometown VFW Post 596 when he returned from the service.
Post 596 had a fife and drum corps, the Colonial Greens,
and Pat joined in as a rudimental snare drummer. Pat Cooperman
was also a woodworker and furniture maker by trade, and began
to make his own drumsticks. Soon other corps members were
asking for sticks; Pat's father-in-law was a fifer in the
Post 596 corps, and he and the other fifers encouraged Pat
to experiment with fifes as well. By the late 1950's Pat
was making and selling handmade drumsticks and fifes throughout
the New York and Connecticut area. As the years went on,
an increasing number of drumstick models and fife designs
were introduced, and Pat took in more and more repair work
on the rope tension drums. He had a lot of ideas about how
the rope drums could be improved, but was limited by time
and space; his company was still a small home-based operation,
while he held down a full time position as a Fire Department
Captain for the city of Mount Vernon. In 1975 Pat began the
process of retiring from his Fire Department job, and opened
the full-time shop in Centerbrook CT as Cooperman Fife & Drum
Co. Inc. All of his ideas for the rope drums were finally
put into practice when the first set of his Liberty Model
Drums was delivered in 1975. Pat continued to work on new
designs and improvements for his instruments until he passed
away in 1995. He was also intrigued by the growing popularity
of frame drums, and started the Cooperman company on its
present course of being a leader and innovator in that marketplace
as well as in traditional fife and rope tension field drum. |
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The Cooperman
Company businesses
This overview of The Cooperman Company focuses on our musical instruments. There
is a long tradition in the United States of musical instruments companies being
involved in other trades that utilize similar machinery in order to justify the
expense of sophisticated equipment, and Cooperman is no exception. In addition
to the musical instruments we make directly for bands and musicians worldwide,
we manufacture a line of traditional toys, games, and inexpensive musical instruments
for the museum gift shop trade; we supply other manufacturers in the music trade
with parts for their own brand instruments; and we make a custom line of wooden
boxes for the gourmet food industry. 
The Vermont
Shop
Native trees are sourced here in VT, then dimension cut at our sawmill and steam
bent to form drum shells and hoops; shop supervisor is Patrick M. Cooperman.
Raw material may be sent to the CT shop to be made into counterhoops and single-ply
drum shells, or may be made into frame drums at the VT shop. The Cooperman Company
purchased this VT operation from Earle Cowing in the mid-1980's. Under the trade
name Maplecraft Manufacturing, Earle and his father before him had supplied the
American music trade with drum hoops and other musical instrument parts since
the 1920's. Cooperman handcrafts bodhrans, tars, bendirs, pandeiros, riqs, and
a variety of other frame instruments, including a signature line of drums for
Glen Velez, and is a leading innovator in the field with our patented designs
on tuning systems and removeable jingle pins.
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