I'm deviating from the story of re-locating and the adjustment to university life to share a long standing passion with you. It will help connect subsequent blog posts.
My passion is playing the drums, and I've been playing for over a decade. Like many things in my life the experience of playing the drums, is much different than the average practicing musician. I first learned to play the drums at age 10 in the middle school band. My father used to tell me stories about his time playing "rat-tat-tat," on the drums in middle school. My parents embraced my new found interest in the drums and purchased a pare of drum sticks and a rubber practice pad for me. At school everybody else had shiny, new, chromed 175 dollar snare drums. Because my family believed in the notion of "if you want it, you will earn it," I showed up to band with a pare of drum sticks. My band director found me an old, beet-up snare drum and let me borrow it. If I remember correctly the drum itself was missing quite a few parts including a stand for it to sit on, but I was optimistic , I had a drum to play and setting it on a charr would work for the meantime.
Because of the fact that I was a kid who happened to be visually impaired I was unable to read printed sheet music. At first, learning was rough. I knew nothing about playing the drums and private lessons cost too much money. Fortunately the band director and my Braille teacher, who also worked at the school kept open minds. The first attempt at teaching me to play the drums consisted of a hand-over-hand technique. I would hold the drum sticks and my Braille teacher would stand behind me and put her hands on top of mine while she read the sheet music. The idea was that I would learn to memorize based on rhythm and motion of the drum sticks. Now, you may be asking yourself "isn't there Music Braille and wouldn't your Braille teacher suggest it to you?" The answer is yes, there is such a thing as music Braille and my Braille teacher and I had many conversations about implementing music Braille. The challenge was I would have to learn an entire new version of Braille designed specifically for music, and learning any more Braille was not appealing at the time; I already was learning and using two versions of the code. The other issue with using music Braille is it of course requires the use of one's hands, but so does playing any musical instrument, so following along with music Braille during band class would prove to be way too cumbersome. (I'm not downplaying the importance of music Braille; but it does have its limitations). My solution to learning to play the drums as well as learning to play with the school band had two major parts.
1. I would record the school band during practice and then take the recordings home and practice after school. I didn't have much for recording options; I used a four track tape recorder that looked like it had just came from a museum of vintage technology and a stack of four track tapes. The recordings weren't the greatest, but honestly that four track recorder did a pretty good job of recording 30 middle school kids in band class. Each day I would lug my tape recorder home, along with the freshly recorded band rehearsal and practice. "It was like Jake had the entire school band in his bedroom," my Mother used to say. I would drum along on my practice pad, memorizing not only my part on the drums, but the way the rest of the band sounded. I quickly learned and still believe that if you know how to play your chosen instrument and you know how to actively listen the music itself will provide audible landmarks for you to follow. The music will tell you when and where to play, it will tell you how loud or soft to play and it will tell you how to play. It is an organic process obtained using the resources of the human body and mind.
2. During band practice I would follow the drumming patterns of the other drummers, who were of course reading the sheet music. This, in my opinion worked pretty well. Anybody from a single musician to an entire band will tell you rehearsal often consists of playing each section of the music several times to build knowledge and mastery. This gave me more opportunities to memorize my parts. I also learned how to count measures. I won't delve too deeply into musical theory here, but I'll give you an idea of how I learned to count in music. First understand that depending on the type of music will depend on how you count its measures . Lets use the standard 4-4 time signature. Each measure consists of four beats (quarter notes), and a phrase has four measures. Play a quarter note twice as fast in four beats and you have eighth notes. My job was to learn to count measures and to understand quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, ETC.
Today I still employ these simple, but effective techniques to learn music.
At age 12 my parents gave me a drum set for Christmas; still one of the top ten best Christmas gifts ever. The set was old and needed some work, but that didn't stop me from putting it to good use. As a result of been given a vintage drum set I learned over the course of my high school career one of the most important things that many drummers fail to learn; how a drum works. Simple right? You whack it with a big stick and it makes a big bang! Well, sort of. Drums, like any other instrument require tuning and upkeep, and my vintage set was happy to provide both.
Throughout junior high and high school I continued playing in the school band. Personally I felt like I received a wonderful musical education, which says a lot about the music director, the school and the volunteers who did anything from help raise money to driving the equipment bus when we traveled. Because our school was so small (150 students in grades 7-12) band class consisted of the marching, concert and pep bands. My class mates and I learned a wide variety of music. But with this awesome education came many challenges. I was a pretty good drummer (in my opinion), and I learned to play differently from the other drummers; so what? But that didn't stop a couple of them from picking on me for it. I was often accused of employing poor technique, playing my part completely wrong and simply not good enough for this "hard core, in the middle of nowhere, tiny school band." As a result of my alternative techniques to learning and playing the drums I was intentionally given parts that had no significance, or simply not given a part at all. But, I didn't quit, and I didn't tattle on the other drummers who were technically employing acts of discrimination against me. I kept the verbal confrontations over who played what and why quiet and I did my best to avoid the occasional "accidental thump on the head," by a fellow drummer's drumstick. Instead I took drumming seriously and learned my parts of several drumming positions to a tee. My mentality was if I can't read the sheet music and the other drummers are going to discriminate against me, I'll beat them at their own game and learn several parts. Then I'll walk into band class, pick up my drum sticks and stand up straight and play the part of my choosing. You can imagine the conflict this caused. There were several times where I was literally shoved aside by another drummer, but I still kept playing the drum, so both of us were playing on the same drum at the same time. I wasn't going to be shoved aside, and come hell or high water I was going to play the part and sound good doing it, and in the end even the meanest of the drummers knew that you can't argue with skill, no matter how it's obtained. However, with all of the negativity there was twice as much positivity. I taught many of my underclassman how to play and how to play well, which expanded my circle of friends, I slowly worked my way up in the drumming ranks and nothing can replace the positive feeling of finishing a performance, slightly under stress, but bang on time and perfectly done. Those were the moments I lived for.
Since graduating high school several years ago the demands for my drumming have slowed down considerably. This is not a lack of interest by any means, but rather the costs of growing up. I occasionally play with friends, I've played in a community college pep band a couple years in a row and every now and again I get asked to play with a local group. That was then and this is now. Since re-locating and enrolling at university I have started researching the musical groups on campus. My plan is to try and join the marching band. I've never joined a college level marching band, but I look forward to the challenge. before This has been a goal of mine for many years. I used to listen to the marching bands and more specifically the drum lines of the local universities near my home town. They always sounded so cool. I was always impressed by the number of people all working together to produce some amazing musical productions.
No matter how much or little I play with musical groups, I always practice drumming. My drum set is one of my priced possessions. My set will go with me anywhere, even if their isn't enough space to set it up.
The moral of the story? If you have a passion for something, don't let anybody or anything stan in your way. It is your passion and nobody should ever take it from you. I will never give up drumming; I worked hard for it, and in a way it's who I am, apart of my identity, an extension of my personality. It's like somebody who owns a custom car, they build it how they see it.
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