Just as they did 30 years ago, Rush gave me a new sense of inspiration to play the drums when I watched the latest documentary 'Beyond the Lighted Stage' on their musical career. Neil Peart was the first drummer I mimicked, before I had my first set of drums. Playing pots on a ping-pong table to Tom Sawyer, or air drums to Limelight are distant but unforgettable memories for me.
Through the eighties and nineties, Neil had the most influence on my playing and certainly presented plenty of material to practice.
Now as I watch the band perform and see Neil's techniques I think about my own technique and performance. There is much work to be done.
I need to use the foundation of grooves and chops that I built over the last few decades and improve on them. In the spring of 2011, I purchase a used set of Roland V-Drums. I needed a set of electronic drums that I could practice on without shaking the house down - and these are perfect. The Head unit allows me to play along with a song using headphones, or play to a click-track or just jam. The Pads are small but excellent representations of acoustic skins and therefore the stick response is very much like playing my Tama StarClassics.
Now that I am setup to practice, I must get started.
The first necessity is to get my basic chops back - get around the drums without losing a stick, clean up my rolls and basic rudiments and just an overall smoothing-out of the stuff I already know.
No comments:
Post a Comment