Total Drummer - A student's Perspective
So....... you have decided that you want to learn drums, you have chosen your kit, (or maybe Santa will perhaps bring you one!), and it's all shiny and new, and you sit behind the kit, clutching your drumsticks ready to rock out..... Then you realise that you have forgotten one of the most important parts of your new hobby, you don't have a clue how to begin to make sense of what is laid out in front of you...!
As a result, you make a bit of noise, randomly hitting drums, toms and cymbals, and after a few weeks, you get bored because no major rock bands have 'come a knocking' on your door, and the drums either end up as a weird clothes horse, or they end up on an online auction site being described as 'As new, hardly used'!
I speak from experience, as I was that person, 2 years ago. I am now 60 years of age, (so I reckon that I must have been 58 when I shocked my wife, and announced that I wanted a drum kit!).
She went along with it, so I bought a Roland TD17KV kit. Both her and my family were convinced that I would end up placing the kit on the 'online auction site' (as mentioned above), as I had never shown any interest whatsoever in playing an instrument before! But I didn't..... and nobody is more surprised than me about that!!
What I did do, is spend some time researching online tutors, as this was the method of teaching I had decided would suit me best.
Also, no-one could have forseen what was about to happen to the world, so it transpired to be a masterstroke on my part!
I opted to join 'Total Drummer', and this has also proven to be another cracking decision.
Matt, the sole teacher on the site, first of all sent me a personal video message welcoming me, and has been there every step of my (often faltering) journey, offering encouragement, and suggestions to help make my drumming miles better, and also to make me the 'best drummer I can be'.
This is a milestone of where I am as a drummer right now, and am only at this point due to hard graft... (I am most definitely an 'enthusiastic novice'), and having an excellent tutor.
There is so much information, courses and general help from Matt on total drummer that a 'practice failure' soon becomes a 'practice success', so the spectre of the drum kit becoming a 'clothes horse' never materialises!
I am currently approaching the end of one of the more in depth courses on TD, (that being the 'beginners drum course'). I could have finished it far sooner, but .... it is a course that allows the student to go at their own pace, and encourages development leading to other aspects of drumming.
I have also done lots of smaller courses while undertaking the beginner's drum course, purely because that is the way I wanted to approach things, and everyone is different, so the whole TD website is geared to individual choice.
I make a valiant attempt to do between 1-2 hours a day on my drums. It's MY chillout time. When I'm not drumming, I'm reading about it, and every surface becomes a drum pad!
Seriously, that is how much drumming gets under the skin.
Matt is at the end of an email if my practice sessions, or a particular groove is baffling me, and he is there most Wednesday evenings giving us all a live, interactive lesson where his 'infectious enthusiasm' can't fail to get the best from us, the students who join him live, week in, week out!
Drumming has occupied my mind throughout Covid, and continues to be the best thing I have ever 'taken up' as a hobby.
Don't just take my word for it though. (I have no connection with Matt or TD by the way!)
Just don't sit at your drums waiting for some devine inspiration. Have a look at TD, you won't regret it.
30 novembre 2021
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