March 28, 2011

   Anybody with parents, consider yourself lucky but if your parents let you play the drums you won the lottery man!   Only about one percent of people are drummers and if you are that one percent you don’t quite understand what’s wrong with all those other people. How can they not understand the endorphin release, physical gymnastic assault or sheer joy of playing and eventually…making music.

   I say FEAR, not from the student but from the parents.   How many people start out playing drums first, practically nobody, did you?   It’s piano, violin or one of the classical instruments as far from the percussion section as possible.   This happens not because its less worthy of a pursuit but because when you start out in the basement it sounds like a gang of drunken sailors performing bad carpentry experiments.

   I’ve annoyed my father, nearly got kicked out of the dorm in college and upset my neighbors but somehow managed to entertain my mother.   While growing up she couldn’t sleep unless I was playing the drums.   And the applause…I would always hear it at the end of my solos. I would think “Really, was that good? Who is gonna applaud paradiddles?” She would also cheer, now that’s love or insanity. I’m thinking love.

   With anybody else in the house I would ask if it’s ok to play but with mom I knew when she was taking a nap it was go time. If I wake her up, instead of getting reprimanded I’ll get applause and cheers! It was sometimes embarrassing especially when I had been playing something extremely repetitive. “Ok mom, you just cheered a half hour of bass drum exercises, all notes equally spaced and sounding exactly the same in 4/4 time, clearly you are just being kind.”

   My sister recently told me that in my mother’s eyes I could do no wrong. It all makes sense to me now. After witnessing my formative years of playing sports and falling down a lot, my mom put me on a piano bench figuring I’d probably be safe there with just my fingers moving and a few pedal pushes.

When I eventually went for the drums it must have been as if my mom saw Forrest Gump breaking out of the leg braces and running free. “It’s a miracle” she must have thought, “my son is somewhat coordinated.” I think she was cheering the fact that I might be bumping into things less the more I practiced.   Not surprisingly, the coordination increased and the injury rate did go down.

   My mom helped me buy my first drums, was the only person who gave me drums for Christmas, hauled my drums to college without removing the snare stand from the snare…she didn’t know how. She knew nothing about the drums except that when I was upset I could be appeased by handing me drum sticks, “Here…go play, you’ll feel better.” she would say.  She died yesterday.   I know that playing the drums will make me feel better but the most comforting thing is that I’ll still be getting cheers… Thanks mom!