Reroute---IfCM Blogs

I’ve been writing regularly for the Institute for Creative Music’s email newsletter and blog this year. Check. It. Out.

http://www.ifcmusic.org/ifcm-news

NWA Teach Music Conference Presentation

I’m very excited to be presenting at the Northwest Arkansas Teach Music Conference on 4/13/19! Here’s the slideshow that I’ll be utilizing to distract the attendees from the food stains on my shirt:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AK9HStdBLL_vi4V1YEFZ9WOkijq_5Vfdw2D6NxsxVMw/edit?usp=sharing

Don't let the drums play you...

The year was 2003.  Location: Discreet hotel in downtown Spokane, WA, site of the Spokane Falls Community College Jazz Festival after-hours jam session. I provided the house drums for the session but left my bass drum pedal at home like a goon.  Fortunately, a friend of mine had one sitting in the back of their pickup truck that we could use.  Unfortunately, it squeaked and rattled like it had been living in the back of a pickup truck through an Inland Northwest winter. Was it better than kicking the bass drum with my foot?  Yes.

Legendary drummer Dave Weckl’s band was in attendance after having shredded copious amounts of instrumental fusion at the concert that evening.  Dave was coaxed into playing some standards with the rest of the jazz trio and sounded great, but I could tell he wasn’t happy with the gear.  After he played I chatted with him:

“Dave, thanks for playing!”

Thanks--are those your drums?  That kick pedal is trash, you need to get it replaced! You can’t let the drums play you.”

He also complimented my playing before checking out the shrimp platter at the party.  The statement that Dave made about the bass drum pedal being unfit for duty has stuck with me and I use it regularly to make a broader point to students: You need to be in control of your sound, and that comes from knowing how to:

1. set up your drums in a way that doesn’t make you reach and strain your body

2. maintain a stable upright posture (your throne should not wobble!)

3. have a system in place to double-check these first two points--practice in the mirror and video record yourself.

Every time you have to re-balance your body to accommodate for a stiff bass drum pedal, wobbly stool, or snare drum that’s so low you bruise your thighs, you build bad habits that could be replaced by blazing fusion chops.  Weckl and other great drummers have a lot of headroom available in their playing (extra chops and ability that they don’t need to showcase), and they can access that extra gear because it’s rooted in a foundation that starts with good posture and consistent technique. They don’t drastically change their technique or posture to shift into high gear and that that allows them to move around the kit easily without wasted movement.  

Paying attention to “how I play” as well as “what I play” has become very important to me in the last 5-10 years since I’ve been teaching a lot of beginners (and sometimes reforming intermediate players).  As I talked about in the first blog post in this series, playing drums is the most fun and sustainable when you can play songs, keeping steady time, understand the form of songs, and maintain good technique and posture the whole time. As Dave Weckl said, you should control how you play the drums, don’t let the drums play you. In my online course, “Drum Set Fundamentals,” I demonstrate body movement, drum setup, and how to maintain a fluid and relaxed playing style.  Get this information ingrained during the (free!) first module and then you will thank yourself (thanks, me!)  And buy the full course (winky emoticon).

Beginnings...

I started playing the drums in the summer after 5th grade.  I’d played violin when I was little (crash and burn), and I was still playing piano (taking classical lessons, mostly hanging my head on the keyboard after failing to get anywhere playing Chopin preludes), but drums really grabbed me in a way that the other instruments didn’t.  My dad borrowed an abandoned Ludwig Supraphonic snare drum and we bought a pair of sticks (something like a Vic Firth SD1), and one of those black rubber drum pads (pic) from Hoffman Music in Spokane, WA and I was SET.  My first drum teacher, Dave Wakeley, also insisted that I got a set of earplugs (my ears thank you, Dave!) and we got to work in our weekly hour-long lessons. My family likely wished Dave had recommended ear plugs for them as well. I learned how to hold the sticks, different strokes, rudiments, exercises, and solos.  My level of fun increased as I learned more and led to much more snare drum practice than piano (sorry Frédéric).

Later that year the rest of the drum set was acquired for the long-term and I was making more noise than ever before!  I was to the point where I could play along along with a mix tape of jazz and rock tunes (Natalie Cole’s version of “Orange Colored Sky” and The Association’s “Windy”!) and even read some drum charts with a music-minus-one record that my neighbor gave me (along with a stack of 70s Modern Drummer issues).  This was drumming at its most fun, locked (figuratively, I think…) in the basement playing along with songs and learning rudiments and solos. Happy Chris.

    I’ve been thinking about this formative experience a lot over the last 10 years since I started teaching a lot of beginning students. At that time I moved to Rochester, NY for graduate school and started teaching a lot of new students through the Eastman Community Music School as well as the functional drum set class for other Eastman students.  Most people started as beginners, just as I was when I was 11-years old, but some of them were 5, 17, 32, or even 65 years old!  Any of these people could start learning something completely new, and have as much fun as I did.  I’ve had the opportunity to learn from a lot of world-class teachers, amazing students, and performance experiences and I’ve finally created a method to get first-time students to where I would want to be as a beginner: playing songs, keeping steady time, understanding the form of songs to know when to play a fill, and maintaining good technique and posture the whole time. This method, my friends, is available through my new web-based course, “Beginning Drum Set Fundamentals.” I’ll say more next week, but you should take a peek at the first module and try it out--you don’t even need drums or sticks to get started. I bet you’ll have at least a little fun. You might even say, “whoo,” or “weee,” or “yaaay,” out loud. When was the last time you did that? Try it here…