Monthly Roundup #29 - July '20

Hello all, and welcome to July’s update. For the most part, it’s been business as usual operating from the “drumgeon” again this month (as my drumming space is affectionately referred to!), but I did actually manage to get out to play a kit elsewhere too, which was a treat! Although it’s mainly been the usual online lessons, plenty of practice time, experimenting with some things at the kit, and chipping away at writing out more teaching material ideas and so on.

As far as the teaching side of things goes, as the school term came to an end things got a little quieter, but there’s still some teaching carrying on into the summer holidays, which is obviously handy for me but also nice to bridge the gap to September for my students. It’s funny looking back to March when I (and plenty of my peers!) suddenly had to learn how to offer online/remote lessons pretty much overnight, and now it’s become so normal! As I’ve touched on before, I’ve really enjoyed getting to grips with the online setup and learning what does and doesn’t work so well, and to be honest, I’d say it’s gone a lot more smoothly than I anticipated it might back when schools closed before Easter. I still don’t think there’s any replacement for one-to-one, private lessons in person, but given the crazy circumstances, the remote lessons have proved to be an invaluable tool which I’m sure will be around to stay to some extent for a little while! It’s obviously been nice working from home too, cutting out some of the hassle of getting to school bright and early to set up, juggling timetables and so on, but I really am looking forward to getting back to lessons in person, hopefully not too long after school’s reopen in September. Watch this space!

With everything having settled into a new routine, I’ve been able to throw myself into a lot more practice time over the last month or so, which has been really nice! As I’m sure plenty of musicians find, even with the best of intentions sometimes day to day distractions get in the way of good, regular practice habits, but the last few weeks have been among my best, I’d say, and it’s felt great to see results in a relatively short space of time. I’m sure things will take a little bit of a step back over the summer as routines relax a little, but I’m hoping to keep it up as best I can and keep up the progress! I’ve been keeping up my monthly(ish) lessons remotely with my current teacher, Andrew Small, since the lockdown started, and as above with my own lessons, while there are some things which obviously can’t be addressed quite so easily, there’s been plenty of great work we’ve been able to crack on with - particularly on the pad, which I’ve found a new passion for this month! I’m looking forward to getting back to playing out and about with other musicians, especially having put in the time in the practice space!

Something else I’ve been experimenting with over the last few weeks has been adding some of my electronics bits to my practice setup. I’ve got a Roland TM-2, with which you can add either 2x stereo or - as in my case at the moment - 4x mono pads/triggers to the kit. While I’ve needed it for gigs on a few occasions, I’ve never really left it set up at home, as under normal circumstances the drums are always coming and going, and the kit setup for practice often gets swapped for another, depending which one suits the next gig, but as the drums aren’t going anywhere right now it seemed a good opportunity to get everything set up and spend some time playing around! It’s been really nice to have the time and opportunity to just play with the electronics setup, and I’ve particularly loved sticking on some favourite pop/R&B albums which are a little more heavy on the electronic drum sounds and getting more comfortable integrating them into my playing. Again, hopefully that will be something good to come out of this time that’s here to stay, as I’ve often thought I’d love to get more into playing with electronics but haven’t always had the time to experiment. It’s been great fun!

The setup I’ve been using at home for my teaching, practice, and more recently taking the chance to experiment with the TM-2 electronics setup for a bit!

One nice milestone that July brought about for me was the first chance to play drums outside my house since pre-lockdown! I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a “gig” on this occasion (my first gig back is hopefully coming up in August!), but rather it was my chance to go and record drums for one of my church’s Sunday morning services, for which everyone has been recording and videoing their parts remotely for them to be put together and added to the live stream each week. As rules have relaxed a little more, and as I got a little quieter with my teaching beyond the end of term, it meant I could go and provide some drums! Just before the lockdown came into place, the kit at church was about to receive a makeover with a new in-house snare and set of cymbals - so this was my first time to get hands on with them, which was an added bonus! The snare is a 14x6.5 Ludwig Acrolite, which is absolutely the perfect drum for the job (in my opinion!), and the cymbals are a new set of Heartbeats. I’ve not played the Heartbeat cymbals a great deal before, but have seen them becoming more and more of the “go to” brand for the worship music genre. These ones (like the others I’ve heard), are great for a big, warm, washy, “wall of sound”, with even the biggest cymbals being very “crashable”. They’re quite different from what I’m used to in my current line-up of Zildjian cymbals, but it’ll be fun to get to know them better - and to not have to lug my own around early on a Sunday morning! ;)

Setup at church, recording for a Sunday morning meeting

As per usual, some of us local drummers got together for our regular “drum hang”, which was wonderful as always! You’d think that eventually we’d run out of things to talk about with our rather niche mutual interest, but that appears to be far from the case, and believe it or not, we always find plenty to discuss!

One of July’s virtual drum hangs.

Unfortunately though, we did have some sad news in our drum hang community this month, as we heard that one of our most dedicated, regular members, John (pictured below), had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away at his home. John was one of the most knowledgeable drummers I’ve ever met, being able to list off band members from all sorts of genres across multiple generations, and was always keen to be involved with whatever we had going on. He was a kind and generous man with a big heart, and he’ll be greatly missed in our drumming community and beyond! There have been some wonderful memories of him shared already, with a particular favourite of mine being a recording from a 1980 episode of Top Of The Pops - please do check that out below to see John in action! A truly lovely man who we already miss greatly.

Our good friend John at one of our drum hangs (pictured right)

Well that brings July’s instalment to a close… While things are set to take a little bit of a summer break over August, I’m excited to have a couple of playing opportunities lined up again, so hopefully all can go ahead there and I’ll look forward to sharing next time! Until then, take care, have a wonderful few weeks and catch you soon. All the best, Ed.