learn the drums

Sonny boy was taking drum lessons for about 9 months, then stopped because he needed to adjust to his new school. Which means that I stopped, too, because I was learning vicariously through him.

The drums are still here, taking up bedroom space, collecting dust. But I don’t want to get rid of them yet…I want to look at this as a pause, not an end.

The first lesson for my son is set up for later this month, and i hope to learn by practicing with him.

Spent the last hour setting them up—may take a bit of learning, plus they are rather cramped in my bedroom (hey, it’s Central California, your average mortal has a SMALL home out here!), so it will take a bit of futzing around to get the positioning right. Will be learning how to tune them, plus the hard part (for me) has always been getting the high hat right. Anyway…now that I have devoted 1/4 of the floorspace in my bedroom to this thing, I damn well better learn to play!

Will post a photo as soon as I’m able!

And I’ve looked into drum lessons for, er, my son. Yeah, that’s it. Actually he will be taking the actual lessons and I will be the obnoxious parent hovering around who is too cheap (read: poor) to pay for lessons for both of us and will be taking notes the whole time.

_{Do you think the instructor would mind if I pulled out a videocamera?}

I am getting a drum set! My dad called and just happened on this deal where someone was trying to get rid of a set, it will be used temporarily for someone’s brief 2 week tour, and then I will buy it for about 1/3 of the price!! It will be here in September! WOW! WOWEEE! WOWWOWWOW!

_{Now I just have to figure out where I’m going to put it…ah, well, details, details!}

Actually got up in front of people to drum today—under duress, and very basic drumbeat, but woof, I was shaking. Went ok and was over faster than I thought. Have had two very good sessions in the past two days of just playing and messing around and adding impromptu fills that sounded really good. I have to learn more basic beats, though. Practicing some paradiddles == now need to know how they relate to actual playing….

Drummed for about an hour yesterday, came up with two more very simple fills. Ack, I think I need to learn drum notation.

Have access to drums, but not ALL the time, and no drum teacher, so I’ve been trying to mess around and teach myself. I have a few basics I can do, plus some fills I know or made up. Problem is remembering things. Since I don’t know drum notation, it seems like I either need to learn that or to record myself so I can go back and say “Oh, yeah, THAT’s how that went.” But it is great fun, time is completely warped when I play.