Drummer lady

I'm excited because tonight was my debut performance as a drummer (I feel so cool).

Last Wednesday at church we were about to start the music and Mike said "Why don't you play the drums tonight?". I replied "But I've never played in front of people before!" and his answer was "Well then this would be a good time to start!".

I chickened out that time, but tonight I went for it.

Photo by Adactio

The very first song was All Over The World. Not exactly hardcore lol. We didn't do it quite like in the video... we had two female singers, me on drums, and Mike doubling on vocals and guitar. The pianist was off at his football practice, you're only young once. My drumming was not exactly inspiring, but I was on the beat except for a couple of times when I got distracted by the fact that I was playing! the! drums!

Then we did a chorus in Maltese (forgot what it was), followed by Come Now Is The Time To Worship. The guy whose drum set it is has the snare set up off to the side and at a fairly steep angle instead of between the knees and flat as is customary. When Mike started strumming for CNITTTW in the key of G, the snare started to resonate, which was a bit unnerving. But anyway, he started it soft and slow, so instead of letting loose with the bass drum like we'd practiced, I just played the snare very softly and let the sticks bounce until they naturally stopped moving. They also slid down the drum because it's inclined so steeply, which was fun to watch. Bounce and slide, bounce and slide.

This sound worked really well with the style Mike was playing, and I liked it so much that I just kept doing it for the whole song, bringing in the bass drum for the chorus.

I've been practicing snare drumming for a few weeks now, working on basic rudiments, usually by using my sticks on a paperback book or a cushion because I don't have a practice pad yet. Mike promised to pick one up for me soon though, yay, which means I'll be able to practice things that rely on the bounciness of the drum.

I've only actually played on the real drumset a few times so I'm not used to the locations and sounds of all the bits and pieces. Better a little done well than a lot done badly, so tonight I confined myself to the bass, the snare and one cymbal. Now I'd better start practicing rhythms at home as though I had a full drumset instead of just a snare, lol.

Anyway, it's been ages since I had so much fun playing a musical instrument. I'm looking forward to Sunday, muahahaha. This morning I informed the rest of the team what the songs were for Sunday, and I accidentally put down the wrong name for one of them, and the singers had already rehearsed by the time I realised my mistake. So instead of doing Light of the World (which we have done a few times and improvise four-part harmony on), we will be doing God of Wonders for the very first time. Oops...

Oh well, Mike has a whole three days to learn the chords, overall song structure, lyrics, rhythm, melody, and to think about any harmonies he might want to throw into the vocals. Just as well he's such a great musician...

Comments

[Sandro Vella]

Good night lovely girl.

I am going to bed and dream my imagination.

:) This post will be soon published in Maltamedia.

Sandro

[MaltaGirl]

You're such a flirt... just as well we're both married.

Sweet dreams!

[wen]

Hi! :) Wow! Your debut performance as a drummer! Cool! I would have been very nervous :) What is snare drumming?

[MaltaGirl]

I was nervous, lol, but I have years of experience in making mistakes while playing in front of people, so it doesn't bother me much. I regularly choke while singing, sometimes I can't find the rhythm on the guitar, sometimes I start in the wrong key by mistake, sometimes I realise too late that I've pitched the whole thing much too high and I'm never going to reach the high notes in the chorus... so yeah, it takes the pressure off *grin*

The snare drum is the coolest drum of them all, in my biased opinion. It's what they use a lot in marching bands - more about it here. I think the sound is great - it's different to the other drums in the drumset because there are some wires/strings/cables stretched across the bottom that make a sort of rushing/rattling sound besides the usual "boom".