a thing about re-learning to play drums

in

Among the few benefits of music school is that, 20 years after I ran away, I retained the ability to reeducate myself – or at least to develop a plan to do so – on drums. Ignoring all of the “percussionist” background and sticking only with drumset because it’s the fun one – or at least the one that I had the most fun with. Can’t figure why I played marimba so much then. Eh, live and learn.

(But it’s nice to know I can still read music without a problem.)

The four things I’m focusing on right now: hand strength (read: make 44-year-old hands do what 18/19 year old hands could do and endure an entire song never mind an entire gig); pedalwork (for some reason, I really glossed over that part); keeping rock solid time; and being present while I’m playing (read: not letting the fuckeries of institutional music education seep into my enjoyment and reentry into the ways of).

Working through both Stone’s STICK CONTROL for the first part and Chester’s THE NEW BREED for the second part with a metronome to satisfy the third. I do most of the practicing on my roland V drums before moving over to the Tama Cocktail Jam kit for the systems/reading playthroughs.

As for the presence, I’m getting there: I’m still counting through 16ths in my head way too much (read: at all) but it’s nonetheless helpful that drumming was, like metalwork is now, one of the few things with which I could lose myself to flow – by necessity and by love.

tactile

in

Conversation with a good friend the other week made me realize what's going on with my move towards metalwork: I'm redisovering my love for and need of tactile creation. Suppose this love makes sense, given that my entrance into the arts was playing drums (hit stuff and that makes cool sounds) and that my downfall(s) began when I shifted more into the internal, less tactile arts (music composition, especially, though writing can't be absolved of its complicity in my descent into creative schizophrenia). Filmmaking was far more tactile than writing – though since I've also started drawing and cartooning, I'm bringing more tactile sensation to my storytelling (should it survive). And I can't forget that I've long considered accepting the Executive Director position at the NPO to be the biggest mistake of my career: I missed getting my hands dirty too much. Alas, live and learn. Eventually.

in

Original intention yesterday was to disassemble and stow my electronic drumset away in the eaves above, but I couldn't do it once I got it out to The Shed. As of this morning, I still couldn't bring myself to do it. Not sure if it means that I'm too lazy to take it apart or if the drums and I still, after more than a quarter century and multiple instrumental permutations, have unfinished business.

processing

in

Thinking today of how my means of processing life, my processings of processings, have changed over time. Writing - journaling in notebooks and reMarkables or blogging here - used to be the main way, but now I seem to have moved more over into fiction and cartooning. Attendance Cards as graphic blogging, having replaced the old daily maunderings that gave birth to this space for the last two years now.

In an effort to figure out where I am now – who I am now, creatively and, perhaps, more deeply – I've spent the last few years revisiting all of the art forms of my past: while it wasn't unpleasant to work thorugh Stone's STICK CONTROL, a return to music yielded little more than a reminder of why I left music in the first place (it served its purpose, to get me out of Ohio when I needed it most) and so here I am, even further back, playing with drawing and the memories of stick figures with my grandmothers at their respective dining room tables. Maybe this is where I was always meant to be, having given it up in my late teens, or maybe it's nothing in particular but what it is. Doesn't matter. I'm enjoying myself either way.

french grip

in

Re-starting my drumming re-education / music therapy from scratch with a new grip. Tried traditional: my left wrist hated it and it defeated the purpose of trying to make my arms of similar strength (though I'm left-handed, my left hand is far weaker than my right: ATV accident fucked that shoulder years back and I've never fully recovered). Matched: both wrists hated it a little less than my left wrist hated traditional, but it still felt too rigid – and was the only grip I was taught during my first, otherly-directed percussive education. Which also killed my passion for drumming, so probably wasn't the best idea to try it again. Live/learn etc.

Now, though: trying out French Grip, which is basically the same as a timpani-playing grip – matched grip but with the palms facing one another and playing shifted from the wrists to the fingers – and I think I like it. If I'm not mistaken, it's what Carter Beauford uses, isn't it? Will never reach that level, but I'm intrigued by the action of the sticks vs. matched (or as I like to call it, missionary grip). So far, a bit dodgy, but I've re-started Stone's STICK CONTROL (again) to, well, control the sticks – shouldn't you be writing, he asks himself / this is part of my writing, he says.