Your Mom and any influence she may have had on your drumming?

2bsticks

Platinum Member
Without my Mothers support I know there is a good chance my drumming career might never gone anywhere.

She and my Dad had 9 kids with limited funds but they found a way to get me my first kit. All my bands growing up rehearsed in my basement. She would sit on the steps and watch us (mostly me) always giving me compliments and insisting I practice every day. Her favorite was Soul Sacrifice :)

She knew that by having us in the basement we couldn't get in too much trouble.

Thank you Mom, I owe you a lot, miss you so much but I know your always at my gigs still watching.
 
Mom was always supportive of me playing music, and while her eyebrows went up several notches when I declared that I wanted to take up drums, she went ahead with it. As she kept saying, "I always know exactly when you are when the dishes are rattling in the cabinets." To this day, she asks for copies of our CDs and videos, and follows my band on Facebook even though we're across the country from her.
 
Props to mom. Shell never cared how much I played. Shell would just get annoyed when I would practice twirling sticks and drop them on the floor a bunch of times, lol
 
I agree. Thanks Mom for giving me the cash you had in your purse 40 yrs. ago so I could go ride my bike down to the local drum shop and buy my first pair of sticks and a practice pad. Cash that you probably were saving for something the family needed more. Then helping me buy my first set of drums in 1980 (Slingerland's). Then encouraging me to further my studies.
Hoping you get to meet your favorite singers up in Heaven.
 
Christmas gifts one year was a Gretsch snare and stand. A year later was a bass drum and ride cymbal. That lasted a long time. She also paid for summer lessons through high school once. She wasn't a cheer leader, but pit up with my noise as did my siblings.
 
I owe tremendous thanks to my mother who was the first one to suggest I study with a private teacher, after hearing a group play at the local high school, liking the drummer and asking who his teacher was. She supported me trying different instruments as a young kid, moving from trombone, to trumpet and finally to drums in the 6th grade.

Both parents supported my interest in learning drums and never complained when I played the drum set in my room upstairs, which no doubt could be heard throughout the house!
 
All I got from either of my parents was discouragement, which is just what a rebellious teenager needs.

It lit a fire under me and I worked hard to be a musician- a guitarist initially- I came to drums much later.
 
My mom was the typical proud mother of all that I accomplished, though my playing used to send her over the deep-end. Must have been the floors a-pounding and her ornaments a-shaking, not to mention her head a-throbbing!

Nevertheless, mom was always right there behind me every step of the way, attending every parade and school concert I played in, and of course, she seen to it that I had the basics when I was first starting out, and I'll never forget the time good old mom offered-up her expertise when my cymbals needed a good cleaning and I was fresh-out of cleaner.

She instructed me to round-up my cymbals and bring them upstairs. By the time I arrived back in the kitchen, mom had her trusty old powdered Comet out on the counter along with cloth, and away she went showing me how to bring my cymbals back to a sparkling shine! Roaring with laughter!

You may be gone, but you're always near.
 
w ill never forget the day, as a 10 year old that she walked up to me and said"i signed you up for drum lessons". I didnt ask for them, she noticed me drumming on everything and decided on her own. almost 40 years later, she hardly misses a gig of mine.
 
My Mum put up with me playing on pots and pans, the furniture, and anything else I could hit. Then she put up with my guitar playing and my first band of mates taking over the kitchen on many a night. She said little about my long hair and weird, to her, clothes and hippie friends. She was the first to hear our original demo recording, and offered nothing but praise, even though it was dire. RIP Mum, miss you every day.
 
i got my first kit for xmas, then later i was surprised when i opened my closet and she had put some cymbals in there.

i'm told i was "playing" in the womb and i recall using her krochet needles as drum sticks before i knew playing drums was a option, though i never did it in front of people so i don't know if someone snuck a peak at me doing that.

not to mention putting up with years of me learning to play and playing in bands in the garage.
 
Well... my Mom is also a drummer. So yeah, that kind of says it all.

Although it was my Uncle who got me my first real snare, at the ripe old age of 2, it was my mother that got me my first full drum kit. A Mahogany Slingerland in candy apple red.

She also had a hand in my musical taste. Playing lots of hard rock around the house and turning me onto bands like Aerosmith and Metallica.
 
Allowing me to practice in my room without coming in and strangling me. Reupholstering my drum throne seat when I didn't have money to buy a new one. Refinishing my really cheap first drum set so I felt better about dragging it out in public. The list goes on...thanks mom.

One of the last gifts my mother bought me before she before she passed away at age 76 was one of those welded nut and bolt sculptures of a set of drums with a drummer. Cheesy, but it was her way of saying she still supported my drumming after 30 years.
 
My mom was a piano teacher, and also played the guitar. My dad played trumpet---I learned piano first, and also trumpet---including how to read music. I started playing guitar when I was 11, and played on and off for the next 35 years. Got my first kit 6 years ago---now I have 2 kits, a dozen guitars, and enough gear for a whole band---If is wasn't for mom's piano lessons none of this would have happened---thanks mom!!!
 
I got my 1st kit in 1969 for Christmas. I was 9 yr. old. I lost my dad 2 days before Christmas that yr. I don't think he would have put up with all the noise and believe me it was all noise. 9 yr. old and no lessons. My mother put up with me playing pretty much as much as I wanted. She always bragged about me, and encouraged me to play. She bought me 3 drum sets. The 3rd kit was a used 5 pc. Ludwig Standard kit, which I used for many yrs.When I formed a band she said we could use the living room so we could have more room. When you walked into her house the first thing you saw was all this band equipment. It was so cool. She always came to all of my gigs in town and told me how good I was on the drums. She supported me all the way.
 
Funny I recently thought about this. Yes my Mom supported me playing drums. Her brother was a drummer in the Navy band/orchestra, not sure which. My Mom and Dad bought me my first Star kit when I was very young, maybe only 7 or 8.

But the one that just brings me nearly to tears is right after my parents were divorced and my Mom took almost no money from the settlement, she took me to a music store and bought me the Gretsch Chrome monster kit. I had no idea she was making as big a sacrifice as she was.

Times were tough for her for a number of years and to this day any food spilled or otherwise wasted makes me cringe because I recall a day I went to visit her and she bought a pizza with the last bills in her purse and she dropped it. She cried for a long time because she couldn't feed me dinner that night. I lost my Mom 20 years ago and this memory just made it all too real again. Thank you Mom, I miss you like nothing else!

PS I was wrong, nearly was not accurate!
 
Yesterday marks the 25th year of my Mothers passing, my Father passed 12 hours later. Damn cancer.

You are both missed more than you know and thank you for letting me and my bandmates learn our craft at the expense of your ears.

I came from a large family so my Mother (who was Canadien and Mic Mac Indian) and my Father Italian had plenty of pasta in those days so all the band members were always being fed, my father would come to the cellar door and flash the lights to make us stop playing and yell down "when you are finished slaughtering cats down there dinner is on the table"

I think he got that from the guitars is my best guess :)
 
My mom tried to keep me from drums. When I finally got some used Ludwig-drums from a friend, she threw them away secretly. She wanted me to learn something "useful"... guitar. Meh.... Mom, if you read this: I do have THREE drumsets, TEN snares, FOUR sets of cymbals. Nananananaaaaanaaa! :p
 
My mom neither encouraged or discouraged me, but she supported me. She did drive my drums and myself around just a few times before I could do it myself. She would help me with anything I asked. I tried to make it as easy as I could on her.

My Dad on the other hand told me it was his biggest mistake... allowing me to have drums. He couldn't have stopped it anyway. They invested probably 300 dollars in a set of Stewarts and 3 years later my first 2 Zildjians. I still remember, I got an 18" crash and a 20" ride for 36 and 42 dollars respectively. That would have been 1971.
 
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