My Week In Drums #2

Hello again! Look at that, two weeks on the trot... Maybe I can make a habit of this after all... In the last week I've been fairly busy work-wise and also honing in the website as expected. The latest changes being the addition of a "Media" page, which I've made a start on with a couple of videos (feel free to take a look!), and also the changing of most of the site from 3rd person to 1st, based on feedback from friends and peers. I'm fairly happy with it now (but no doubt I'll keep tinkering with it for a little while!).

Once again, this post is just something of a weekly roundup, to offer a bit of insight into what I tend to get up to! As usual, I had my 3x days of teaching, but also a few other bits going on. One day was dedicated to rehearsing for an upcoming event I'll be playing at called Spring Harvest - a Christian conference ( https://www.springharvest.org ). We ran through a few of the new tunes we'll be playing, tried out a few ideas, and grabbed some lunch on the beach - nice! 

A shot from our Spring Harvest rehearsal.

On Thursday evening, I had the pleasure of doing a jazz quartet gig in Brighton, which was a part of Splash Point Jazz Club ( http://www.splashpointmusic.com/ ). It was a lot of fun, and I got to play alongside three folks who I'd not had the pleasure of playing with before - all of whom were wonderful musicians and great company for the evening! Truth be told, it had been a little while since I'd played any straight ahead jazz, so it was a slight case of blowing away some cobwebs, but I had a great time regardless. Also, a student of mine (+Dad, who's a bit of a Splash Point Jazz Club regular!) came along to support, which was nice!

My Gretsch Brooklyn in 12/14/20, which is my default "jazz kit".

Another highlight of my week was doing an assembly at one of the schools I teach at. In this case it was a primary school, so all the students there are pretty young. Regardless, they're all making great progress and I was massively proud of the lot of them - every single one of my 11 students at this particular school performed something, and they all did a fantastic job. It was a real delight to see them having the opportunity to show off their hard work to their friends, and what was especially nice was how they all rallied around one another to support and encourage their fellow drummers! Age-wise, they ranged from school years 1 to 6, and experience-wise, they range from playing for around 3 months to playing for around 3 years, and each of them got up and played something along to some music in front of the rest of their school. It was a real treat, and I was delighted with how well they all did!

All set for my student's assembly performances!

The final thing of note this week was another gig with the function band I mentioned last week. Again, my challenge to myself was to try and make it look like I was reading as little as possible for the sake of the performance, but that is helped of course by playing the set more regularly, where you're able to remember more of the details each time without having eyes glued to the page! Again, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening!

My other Gretsch Brooklyn in 12/14/22. This one's real pretty! As you can see, it's a wonderful example of the band being squeezed into the smallest space humanly possible..!

That's been the bulk of what's kept me busy this week. I've another busy/varied week coming up next week which I'll try to shed some light on next time, plus I've been sorting some new head choices (but still Remo, of course!) and tweaking my hardware configurations, so that'll truly be one for the drum nerds! Hope to catch you again soon - all the best! Ed.