buy a drum set and play drums again!

I had my first session of rental drumming today. I played a 4-piece kit with hi-hats and Paiste 302 20” ride. I just beat out the basic 4/4 beats. My foot on the kick drum was a little lethargic. At one point I slipped on headphones and fired up my mp3 player to try and play along with a few songs. I did have trouble keeping up so I didn’t do that much. The coordination is there but the muscles needs to be re-trained.

Still, my hands and feet were happy to be making rhythms again!

I remember the first time I ever played drums back at my mom’s house. I was probably in 9th grade. I had borrowed a drumset from a kid who’s friend had left it at his house (basically, I borrowed a drumset from someone I didn’t know, who didn’t know that I borrowed it! The guy who owned the drums later was the keyboard player in my band – I was playing bass by then.) After dinner the night I brought the drums home, I announced that I was going downstairs to practice the drums. I put on The Beatles’ “White Album” and tried to play along with “Birthday”. After a while, I’m not sure how long, my younger brother came down and said, “All you’re doing is making a lot of noise.”

While I was playing today, I kept waiting for someone to poke their head in the door and ask me to keep it down. I would look over every once in a while to see if anyone was peeking in – but no one did and the band played on :-)

I’ll try not to make this long and boring – just long. ;)

I got to thinking when I lived in Cleveland (yes, that Cleveland. “Hello Cleveland!”, and an even better reference in Noises Off!, but anywho), that I had jammed with a band a few times out there who rented a practice space in a music store. There were 6 or 7 bands in different rooms. 24-hour access, lights, power, a/c all that. So I started searching around in Philly for the same deal and found…er, not much. Some good setups but the one that interested me the most was only available after 6pm and on weekends (“Because of our downstairs neighbors”, said the owner). Hmmmm…I spent a week or two rolling this idea around and trying to figure out what would work.

Then, like a bolt of lightning an idea hit me, I was walking down the street, past the music store that is 2 doors down from my apartment and that I walk past at least twice a day, you know the one with the drumsets in the window that I always stop and look at? and it occurred to me that maybe these fellas have practice rooms for rent! And guess what? They don’t!

Well, they didn’t until I asked. And now they do and they’re open all day and evening but mostly have kiddos taking lessons in the evenings. But I can rent the room, which has a drum kit in it already, for a few bucks by the hour!

I haven’t done it yet – but this is a major step in the direction that I want to go and moves me very close to achieving this goal.

Hooray!

Well, this is sort of cool that the vid game Rock Band has an option to add a little electronic drum set. Though a REAL electronic drumset that I could play through head phones might be a better investment. Still, I LONG for my days of getting behind my kit and playing for hours. Those were the best times. I loved it when I had hours of time to myself and I would put on albums and play along to the whole record. (sigh)