Drums
One afternoon back in 2017, while I was stomping grumpily around our house after learning that Alan had chosen the title ‘Mrs’ rather than ‘Ms’ for me while completing a form, I thought: I wish I’d never changed my surname when I married. (I was pretty sure Alan would never have chosen ‘Mrs’ on a form if I’d kept my maiden name.) And then, almost immediately after I had that thought, I had this one: Why don’t you just change it again?
I did change my surname, and Hazel’s too, but this isn’t a post about that. This is a post about drum lessons.
I was thinking about 2017 because I heard that same calm, curious voice pipe up again recently. About 6 weeks ago, I watched a video of Daniel Hanson drumming for Ball Park Music at a show, and then I watched the video again, and then I watched it a third time, after which I sighed and thought, I wish I could play the drums. And then, almost immediately after I had that thought, I heard the voice: Why don’t you start learning?
And then I thought about the Very Good Reason I’d never taken up lessons before: even the thought of simultaneously doing one thing with one arm and something different with one leg made me want to curl up in a ball and cry for several hours, let alone trying to do TWO different things with TWO different arms AND two different legs AT THE SAME TIME.
When I was 4 or 5 years old, I used to have to do coordination exercises each night, which involved lying on my back on the itchy brown carpet at my grandparents’ house and slowly raising then lowering my right arm and right leg together, then my right arm and left leg, before switching and repeating the same thing with the other sides.
I’ve associated these exercises with my first and only attempt at ballet; when I try to remember that initial class, I picture myself in the blue leotard and pink tights, and then my memories suddenly skip forward to me on the floor, sometime later that week/month/year, raising and lowering various limbs.
After watching the drum video, I texted my mother. “Do you remember those coordination exercises I used to have to do? What type of practitioner suggested them? And was it because I was terrible at ballet?” Mum tells me she remembers the exercises, but has no answer for my who or why questions.
I wanted to study psychology for a long time before I finally decided to sign up for the Grad Dip. In the end, I realised I’d be more upset if I didn’t try than if I tried and ended up failing. My questions around drum lessons felt kind of the same.
I texted Mo’s drum teacher, Paul. “Do you also teach adults?” I asked.
“I do!” he replied.
“What about adults who are so uncoordinated they had to do specific exercises for it when they were a kid?” I asked.
Paul said he reckoned I’d be fine, and would I like to start after Mo’s lesson on Wednesday?
I told him to lock it in, then suffered through two days of intense rushes of nerves every time I thought about what my first lesson might be like. I wondered if I could make sure the rest of my family had left the house so that the only other person who’d hear my awkward banging would be Paul. I wondered if I could ask Paul to teach me things and then put on noise-cancelling headphones so that no one but me would hear my awkward banging.
In the end, I let both Mo and Paul stick around and listen. It was less embarrassing than I’d expected.
So I’m learning to play the drums. Every week now, I sit at the kit wearing my work clothes, with a large sun hat lightly perched on the front of my head so as to keep the blazing sun out of my eyes but also avoid hat hair.
I’m making sense of symbols that meant nothing to me only a month ago, and getting faster at translating said symbols into the appropriate brain signals and subsequent movement of both my arms and a leg (fortunately one of the foot pedals is broken on the second-hand kit we bought, which has saved me from having to introduce a fourth limb to this already-extremely-difficult equation).
There have been two times when the cognitive load of the translating-signals-movement process feels so impossible that I want to throw myself on the floor and have a toddler-style tantrum, but I’ve managed to keep myself calm in these moments (I say, “I need to practice this part” rather than “I’m NEVER going to get it!”). I’m noticing I feel more compassion towards Moses at homework time than I used to. Learning new stuff is hard.
Initially, Paul introduced rows and rows of “grooves” and tried to steer me away from pop and towards cool music like Cold Sweat by James Brown, but over the weeks I’ve politely resisted and managed to convince him instead to write out the symbols I need for All Too Well by Taylor Swift (“I’ll drum for the full 10-minute version!” I told him excitedly, before trying it and quickly realising I did not yet have the stamina to make it through even the shorter version of the song).
Paul then suggested Wake me up When September Ends by Green Day, and I counter-offered Sugar by Maroon 5, at which point he rolled his eyes and said, “FINE,” and wrote out this song too (I can now play ¾ of it – including a fill! – with one of the two required leg parts at 75% playback speed on YouTube).
I plan to test Paul by requesting only pop songs until he tries to end our lessons due to irreconcilable differences in musical tastes, at which point I will very carefully consider accepting his next suggestion.
On our way to futsal on Wednesday night, Mo watched me slapping the steering wheel along with the music then said, “You’re getting good at drumming really quickly!”
I beamed for the rest of the trip/week.
I love this! Learning in front of Mo is also huge for him. He’s seeing you go through what it looks like to pick yourself up and keep trying. I can’t can’t wait to hear you drum. Is Florence and the machine a good compromise option? Loads of great drums.