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Jun. 16th, 2019 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSo. The Drumming Story.
I went up to Canada yesterday to pick up some movie posters I bought from a friend of a friend. I'd made plans to do this last week, but the car breakdown nixed that. Going back up to Canada was a last minute thing, so I didn't have any plans other than "Pick Up The Posters." Since Emily was going to be free that day, I decided to just let her take the day over.
Had a nice day on the beach, followed by a lunch at Frenchie's and a tour of downtown Vancouver (something I actually hadn't done in a while). I did want to see the Girls Rock Camp Vancouver's new Field House since I'd taken a shine to the organization after seeing their Rock Lotto show a few months ago. So we picked up some equipment she wanted to move over to the fieldhouse and we went.
And once we were there, she started saying some wierd stuff. "Oh, put your bags over there, we're going to set up a drum kit here." And I was thinking "Oh, I guess she's gonna practice while we're here." And then she asks me to start setting up the kit pointing out the intricacies and how stuff all assembles together.
The more I'm doing this, the more I'm thinking "You know...she normally doesn't play drums...she's a bassist and guitarist. We get it set up, and then she hands me a set of ear-protection and drumsticks and she grabs her bass. I'm immediately all "Uh...aren't you going to play here?"
"No. You are."
I haven't played an instrument regularly since 1983. And that was a piano. And I remember exactly ONE song, and apparently only the right hand parts. Drums? Never even occurred to me to even try playing them ever.
"You write a lot about musicians, so it's time you learned what goes into music."
I will admit, I went into a semi panic. But...2019 has been a year for "Don't knock it till you try it." I didn't think I was much of a poet...but I wrote four sets of lyrics for a friend. I didn't think I was much of a play-write...but I wrote a pretty well received draft for a musical. Heck, I remember when I couldn't cook for crap, and today I made stuff manicotti shells and saved myself from a mistake I'd made in them from what I'd learned over the years
So.
WHY THE HELL NOT?
She sat me own, told me what each of the drums/hi-hat/everything did and the sounds they made, and then just walked me through the steps. "Try the kick drum, four beats...now the snare, on 2 and 4....and then the cymbal in 16th notes." She played the bass in time to help me figure timing out
It took some figuring out what I was doing, coordination and "figuring out where I was hitting" was a bit perplexing. I eventually could figure out where everything was around me and making sure I hit it correctly...but I never got the coordination. My left and right hands: REALLY good and doing their own thing. Kick drum, not so much as it kept wanting to do what my right hand was doing.
Emily is an amazing teacher, too. Very encouraging, very helpful. Much more than my piano teach in 1983, who was good, but not very encouraging (and often frustrating). I picked it up pretty quickly, from what Emily said. And by the end of the hour I was doing okay-ish. By the time we finished up it was 9:30, but...honestly? I kinda wanted to keep going.
I never considered myself a music maker. But I never considered myself a poet or a writer or a cook. Not even a comic artist back in the day.
But if I TRY...well, you never know until you try.
I went up to Canada yesterday to pick up some movie posters I bought from a friend of a friend. I'd made plans to do this last week, but the car breakdown nixed that. Going back up to Canada was a last minute thing, so I didn't have any plans other than "Pick Up The Posters." Since Emily was going to be free that day, I decided to just let her take the day over.
Had a nice day on the beach, followed by a lunch at Frenchie's and a tour of downtown Vancouver (something I actually hadn't done in a while). I did want to see the Girls Rock Camp Vancouver's new Field House since I'd taken a shine to the organization after seeing their Rock Lotto show a few months ago. So we picked up some equipment she wanted to move over to the fieldhouse and we went.
And once we were there, she started saying some wierd stuff. "Oh, put your bags over there, we're going to set up a drum kit here." And I was thinking "Oh, I guess she's gonna practice while we're here." And then she asks me to start setting up the kit pointing out the intricacies and how stuff all assembles together.
The more I'm doing this, the more I'm thinking "You know...she normally doesn't play drums...she's a bassist and guitarist. We get it set up, and then she hands me a set of ear-protection and drumsticks and she grabs her bass. I'm immediately all "Uh...aren't you going to play here?"
"No. You are."
I haven't played an instrument regularly since 1983. And that was a piano. And I remember exactly ONE song, and apparently only the right hand parts. Drums? Never even occurred to me to even try playing them ever.
"You write a lot about musicians, so it's time you learned what goes into music."
I will admit, I went into a semi panic. But...2019 has been a year for "Don't knock it till you try it." I didn't think I was much of a poet...but I wrote four sets of lyrics for a friend. I didn't think I was much of a play-write...but I wrote a pretty well received draft for a musical. Heck, I remember when I couldn't cook for crap, and today I made stuff manicotti shells and saved myself from a mistake I'd made in them from what I'd learned over the years
So.
WHY THE HELL NOT?
She sat me own, told me what each of the drums/hi-hat/everything did and the sounds they made, and then just walked me through the steps. "Try the kick drum, four beats...now the snare, on 2 and 4....and then the cymbal in 16th notes." She played the bass in time to help me figure timing out
It took some figuring out what I was doing, coordination and "figuring out where I was hitting" was a bit perplexing. I eventually could figure out where everything was around me and making sure I hit it correctly...but I never got the coordination. My left and right hands: REALLY good and doing their own thing. Kick drum, not so much as it kept wanting to do what my right hand was doing.
Emily is an amazing teacher, too. Very encouraging, very helpful. Much more than my piano teach in 1983, who was good, but not very encouraging (and often frustrating). I picked it up pretty quickly, from what Emily said. And by the end of the hour I was doing okay-ish. By the time we finished up it was 9:30, but...honestly? I kinda wanted to keep going.
I never considered myself a music maker. But I never considered myself a poet or a writer or a cook. Not even a comic artist back in the day.
But if I TRY...well, you never know until you try.
