Originally Posted by
Drumbledore
Yeah NIM, it's like what a few have said, you're just feeling a little low at the moment, and it could be maybe one or two stresses in your life that may be affecting your attitude. Hey, it happens to us all at one time or the other in our drumming paths, whether you do it for fun or you're focussing on it as your career. Heck, it's happened to me a couple of times. There was a point in my life where just after school and before I scored my first full-time job, as well as during my holiday breaks in my last year in high school where you could not tear me a way from the drumkit.....they would be the days when I'd be exercising at 6.30am, breakfasting at 7.30am, and then as soon as I saw the clock hit 8am....foooom! There I was, practicing rudiments and reading with a pad before hitting the kit from 9am, lunching at noon, quick siesta, then 1pm to 5pm whacking away at the kit. Mind you, at that time we lived with very understanding neighbours too, both on each side were musicians as well, thank God lol. But jeez, after being in a lot of bands, yeah, sometimes you do get a little burned. So I found it was sometimes good to take a little break, whether the band that I'd be in was forging ahead or not.....especially if it isn't. See, perhaps what accounts for the fact that I'm fairly diverse in what I listen to or play is that sometimes I really needed a break away from one style, and I would go into the complete opposite of what I was playing. That happened when one band I played with was an experimental band, where odd meters, one person playing polyrhythm against the other and weird scales was the norm....loved it to bits but after a while, you know what I was missing? The fact that I was neglecting to play backbeats in 4/4. So, after fitting in a good drum bud of mine as a replacement for that group, I ended up playing in a country rock band....I'm sitting there going "Ok, you want me to play what? Boom-bap, boom-bap? Cool!" It was so simple, but you know what? It felt great, and it felt the right thing for me to do...at the time. I think I was the guy that lasted the longest with them in the drumseat too, because the other thing was that we got along great personality wise and they were all such nice guys too. In the end though, like all bands, nothing lasted forever.
Another thing too is this.....ever thought of having a break away from the drums, but take up another instrument? I find that because I do percussion, and nowadays also branching a bit more into stuff that gets you completely away from the drumset way of thinking, when I do get back onto the kit, my mind is pretty much fresh again. Also, to keep up with what I had studied, I found that going over scales on mallet percussion (xylophone, marimba, etc), plus having an electric piano nearby, it gets me thinking of stuff that drumset doesn't necessarily cover......keys of songs, chords, melody and harmony, etc. Actually, I have a number of musician friends who double up on drumkit, so whenevr they come around, we just have a blast swapping around....they try to teach me chords on guitar which I then redo on keyboards (I can't strum a guitar for my life!) or I'll get them to double up on a second kit over here and have fun tripping them up on stuff....although some guys are pretty damn good.....one mate, Stu, showed a trip-hop beat and I can remember getting sooo frustrated with it, lol. So that is something to consider.....if you love doing music, I mean....really love doing it, you'll be able to find some little trick in your brain that will re-trigger that initial spark which got you into drumming in the first place. Hey, for me, I live through that moment everytime one of my new students finally nail their first drumbeat or fill and surprise themselves. Or when they finally work out a song we've been doing.
Bookmarks