Monthly Roundup #28 - June '20
/Hello again, and welcome to my monthly update for what I’ve been up to drumming-wise throughout June! Again, living in lockdown-Britain it’s not been the busiest of months, but there’s been plenty to crack on with to make the most of the downtime, be it the delivering online lessons, making videos, catching up with other drummers, gear maintenance or needless to say, practice time! Please do read on to find out more…
The online teaching has been carrying on nicely, and the plan is to do until such a time that school life is back to normal. In fact, I had a few more students sign up recently which is great, so that’s actually filling my days fairly well! I haven’t really changed my setup from a technical perspective since I first started doing these remote lessons (“if it ain’t broke…!”), but I’ve certainly found myself getting more into the flow of it and getting more used to what works well and what doesn’t work so well. I’ve said it before, but one thing I’m seeing over and over again is how my students that are taking these online lessons are growing in their independence as musicians in terms of being able to read the dots on the page for themselves and turn it into music. Hopefully that will be something that’s here to stay once things return to normal!
Something else I’ve been putting a bit of time into this month is making a few tutorial/demo videos to put on YouTube. It’s not really something I’ve done much of before, but there are load of ideas I have in mind that I’d love to share with like-minded drummers. There have certainly been plenty of times over the years that I’ve turned to YouTube for a tutorial on this, or a demo of that, so I’m hoping to be able to share my experiences there to reach a wider audience. I’m not too concerned about posting drum lessons or gig footage there (for now, at least!), but as far as tutorials and demos go, I’ve got plenty of ideas in mind… Watch this space!
Another thing I’ve been able to get on with this month is getting myself a logo! This is one of the things that’s been sitting on my to-do list for some time, and having some more spare time at the moment meant I could crack on with it. With the help of graphic designer (and fine bassist!) friend of mine, Mark Prentice, he was able to turn a couple of ideas I had in mind into something I’m really happy with! Hopefully by now it’s starting to appear in a few different places, but the idea was to have something simple and recognisable to tie various things together, be it my online pages, teaching material, business cards… You get the idea! Here’s the finished product - thanks again, Mark!
The new logo - thanks, Mark!
Plus, it also works nicely on the front of the bass drum!
One issue that obviously couldn’t go ignored for this month’s instalment is the unrest in the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Following on from “Blackout Tuesday”, in order to follow up with something a little more personal I decided I’d like to share my “Top 10 Black Influences”, in terms of musical artists that have played a big role in my musical journey so far. It was a real challenge to narrow it down to 10 (and that was just with artists I deemed “influential” to me, let alone those whose music I love!), but the 10 I settled on that I felt I could honestly say have had a big influence on me and my music were the following (in no particular order):
Stevie Wonder
Beyoncé
Quincy Jones
Luther Vandross
Nina Simone
John Legend
Gregory Porter
George Duke
James Brown
Aretha Franklin
If you’re interested to hear a little more about how each of those artists influenced me, please do check out the posts on my social media pages. I imagine many of you are familiar with most of those names, but please do take a moment to scroll through the pictures below if you’re not! There’s obviously so much more to this issue than posting a black square on a news feed and then listing some influences, so I certainly don’t want to “down play” it in any way, but I hope that some of these steps will continue to raise awareness of the issues at hand and challenge people into thinking, ultimately making racial discrimination thing of the past.
Next up is something I was very excited about… For anyone who’s unfamiliar, I cannot truly tell you quite how much of a big deal it is - perhaps you’ll have to take my word for it…! If there was one drummer who could do it all, it would be this one - the legendary Vinnie Colaiuta! This was another of the Zoom “Drum Hangs” organised by my friend Russ Gleason, and boy did he pull it out the bag for this one! This was a kind of informal interview/chat really, where the guests in the call had the opportunity to pose questions to Vinnie and hear his thoughts. It really was something special having the opportunity to hear him speak on a number of different subjects, and it offered a great insight into the man himself. If there was one overarching theme that I came away from it with, it was that it’s always got to come back to the music - a helpful reminder for all of us, I’m sure, in a world filled with so many distractions! It really got me inspired to practice, figure things out for myself (something else he was big on!), and made me really keen to get back to playing music with other musicians again once this current climate of lockdown/social distancing has passed. I’m sure those of us in the chat will be unpacking some of the pearls of wisdom Vinnie passed onto us for years to come!
The Drum Hang with the one and only, Vinnie Colaiuta!
As ever, we had a couple of our own hangs too… Despite Vinnie being unavailable for these ones(!), it was great to catch up with some of the drummers from my local area as always! As has become the usual at the moment, we had one which was more of an informal catchup, and another with a bit more of a topic. For that one, this time we each took the opportunity to share some of the music which has inspired and influenced us and our drumming over the years, pointing out any particular milestones or game-changers that we heard along the way, sending our drumming in different directions. We didn’t quite have time to cover everybody’s in full depth this time (as it turns out it’s quite a hefty subject once you start talking about it!), so maybe we’ll have to do part 2 next time around?! But yes, as always it’s been great to keep in touch with the wonderful community of drummers in our area!
Some of the friendly, familiar faces that frequent our regular drum hangs!
As always, I hope you’ve found this month’s instalment to be of interest as a bit of insight into my drumming goings-on over the past month… I’m really starting to get “the itch” to get back to making music with others, so keeping everything crossed that life will soon start to return to normal! In the mean time, I’ll continue putting my free time to good use with the hope of coming out the other side of this better off in one way or another! I shall look forward to catching you next time, but until then, take care and all the best!