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…