Playing Music
Mel Brown – Drum Teacher Knows Best
An open letter to Mel Brown, great drummer, teacher and mentor from Portland, Oregon: Dear Mel, It was great to hear you at Jimmy Mak’s last week after so many (too many!) years. My wife and I decided to spend a long weekend at a downtown Portland hotel so it was a short walk to […]
Practice Without Drums – Think Before You Play
Visualize Playing the Drums Did you know that you don’t have to be sitting behind a set of drums to practice playing the drum set? There is a technique called visualization that will allow you to create a mental picture as if you were playing the drums. We’re following a plan to play drums in 4 weeks and […]
A Crazy Saturday Night Playing Drums at the County Fair
It’s our last 2 shows of the weekend at the Clallam County Fair. To get to this point, I’ve loaded my drums in the car, travelled 3 hours, set up my drums 3 times for 3 shows, had a mildly upset stomach from eating “road food” and have spent 29 of the past 31 hours […]
Seafood Eggs Benedict, Goodwill and Electrocution
I bet you didn’t know that a glamorous life on the road as a drummer includes eating breakfast at a local cafe, a trip to the Goodwill store and having to worry about getting electrocuted on stage (and “no,” it wasn’t part of the act). Those things and more were a part of a recent […]
2 Days in the Life of a County Fair Drummer (Friday)
So you wanna be a star drummer? Here’s an inside look at what goes into being a “star.” It’s not all glamorous but it’s still a lot of fun to play the drums in front of a crowd! There’s an old saying among musicians that we get paid for the 22 hours a day that […]