Monthly Roundup #44 - October '21

Hello, and welcome back to my monthly blog with what I’ve been up to throughout October. Once again, the teaching side of things has been keeping me busy, and there have been a few more gigs to keep me occupied, which have been great fun! As mentioned last time, my teaching week underwent some changes in September which took a bit of time and attention to settle in (organising new timetables etc - all the fun stuff!!), but once we got to October I’d got back into the swing of things with my new routines.

The trusty teaching setup!

With the teaching side of things having then settled down, I then spent some time sorting through some gear which I’d been meaning to do for a little while; shifting some bits I figured I could live without (just hardware/accessories, no lovely drums/cymbals etc, don’t panic!!), updating some things which had seen lots of heavy use etc etc…

One of those updates was to get a set of the Tama Classic hardware. I had decided that my previous “lightweight" set of hardware wasn’t actually all that light in the grand scheme of things, and as some of it was in need of an update anyway, I thought I’d use it as an excuse to get something smaller/lighter in it’s place. After doing some research on some of the options available, I ended up taking a shot on the Tama set. It turned out to be a great purchase and I ended up using it as much as possible over the month!

The Tama Classic hardware set in it’s teeny tiny bag!

As I’d had a couple of rehearsals for the previous month, at the start of October I had the gig with The Jonah Medal, a band based in Lewes. The show was a great success, with the crowd bracing some crazy, stormy weather to come and support the show! It was great to do a night of original songs - something I love taking the chance to do whenever the opportunity comes my way!

One of my go-to setups in action for the gig with The Jonah Medal. Note the new Tama Classic hardware, which was great!

There were also some outings with the familiar faces of the guys involved in The Rhythm Crew, a local function band. There were a couple of hotel functions (which again, that new lightweight/compact hardware was a dream for!), as well as the Duality show at the end of the month. The hotel functions were the kind which pre-Covid the band was doing all the time, but unfortunately there hasn’t been as much of that going on more recently. However, it’s been great fun shifting the focus to the Duality show which we’ve had going on over the last few months!

The simple setup for the hotel functions…

… and the slightly more exciting setup for the theatre shows!

That more or less fills you in on my drumming throughout October… I must admit, November is looking fairly quiet on the gig-front at the moment, so I’m hoping that I can make it a productive month in terms of teaching and getting plenty of practice done at the very least, but do check in next time to see what I end up doing with myself! Until then, thanks for reading, take care and all the best!