#3: Quick interlude

This week’s blog post is a short and sweet interview with a dear friend of mine, Angus, about drums and lessons and music and all that fun stuff 🤘🏽

After attempting the Phil Collins drum solo over and over and over again, I was just not able to get to a place where I felt like it was coming together. And so I took a short break from pounding at those rubber pads and recouped.

While talking to my friend Angus, I realized that the short simplicity of “In the Air Tonight” pulled me in so blindly, that I forgot to actually re-teach myself the simple, yet necessary, thing of… uhm don’t laugh…reading sheet music again.

Apparently, re-learning how to play music is not the same as re-learning how to ride a bike 🙁. SO, I’m sad to say I still do not have a video of me perfectly executing that Phil Collins drum solo, BUT I did get to chat with my friend about playing the drums and get his thoughts on my initial plan to learn how to play 5 songs in 56 days!

I started off by asking Angus how he began playing the drums, and what sort of drums he has played…

How did you start playing the drums? Or how were you first introduced to them?

“My grandma’s partner Barry used to teach drums on the sunshine coast and he had two drums set up in the living room of their house. Whenever I used to go visit as a kid I used to just play around on the kits and the marimbas and he used to give me a few super casual lessons.”

That’s pretty cool, what were the sort of drums he had that you could learn on?

“Marimbas of all sizes drum kits in various arrangements hand pans, hand drums, and jumbos.”

(I didn’t know what a Hand Pan was, so here’s a picture in case anyone else didn’t know!)

SO many to choose from! What did those lessons usually look like? Do you still remember some of his lessons now when you play casually?

“He would give me brief technical lessons on how to make different sounds with different parts of the drum, and then usually he would just get me to watch him play and then follow along afterwards. Then he would either correct me or just allow me to try again… it was mostly just a like a play by ear sort of learning style you know? However, there was one lesson I do remember that is the basic lesson on how to do a drumroll. You basically start slow and hold the drumsticks gently, and just let them bounce and then you speed up gradually”.

Would you give me a demonstration?

“Haha sure! You can even record it if you want!”

So, as someone who knows how to maintain a beat, what are your thoughts on the YT video that claims a beginner can learn to play 5 songs in 10 days? (See video in blog #1 that I am referring to)

“The video was very informative, and he laid out how to play the songs very well and the song choices were also good in that the more you progressed along through each song, the more you’re using skills from the previous songs to incorporate them into the later songs. He went from simple to more difficult, allowing a beginner to learn 5 songs in 10 days”.

So, there you have it folks! If Angus says it’s possible to learn those 5 songs in 10 days, then I surely can do it in 56 (one would hope 😅)