What got you started playing drums?

Started drumming back when joing grade 8 band. I only got serious about drumming when I first got into the song Hell's Kitchen by Dream Theater. It was pretty inspirational in my mind, still is really. I've just graduated and I'm hoping to find a drum tutor because I'm basically self taught (My music teacher knew nothing much about drumming). Glad to meet you all.
 

Hey guys

I started drumming in 2006 when I was ten years old. When I first started I wasn't really interested but a few months in I was watching videos of Buddy Rich on YouTube and tried to get one handed drum rolls. My best-friend started playing pipe-band snare in a pipe-band when I was in high school. We sat up the back of the classroom and in French we'd sit and do paradiddles and windmill strokes. Really fun (we passed French too haha).

I started playing along with Music in 2008. I started by playing with AC/DC to get my timing and technique strong. Guns 'N' Roses to get fills right and The Fratelli's for fun. 2009 was the year when my drumming changed and I tried to play bands like Slayer with one pedal. I could nearly get the full speed of Raining Blood and a band at school asked me to join. Soon after I left the band as I got fed up with Thrash Metal and started listening to Grunge. Dave Grohl has since then been one of my biggest influences. Meeting Taylor Hawkins at the beggining of the year was also a great day and he told me about the next Foo Fighters CD. Bonzo is also a great influence and I use his techniques with triplets etc.

Thanks guys
Chris
 
About 15 years ago I played bass in a band. Our drummer got a girlfriend and started missing practice. I started playing then (2 guitars, drums). After a while we just found another bass player and I stuck with drums full time.
 
Really? I never replied to this thread? I've told the story (in bits and pieces) elsewhere, but I guess never here.

I decided when I was about seven or so that I wanted to play music, and since I hadn't really been introduced to much popular music at the time, the only musicians I really knew about were my schoolmates who were learning instruments at the time. The coolest instrument looked to be the trumpet, since it got all the melody lines. So I gave that a crack for a couple of years, but I didn't have the lips for it. My teacher was bluntly honest, said I would have a really tough go as a trumpet player, but I had a really noticeable knack for music in general, and to try another instrument. So I transitioned to saxophone as I entered junior high school, but then my world was turned upside down by rock and roll. My best friend started playing the guitar, and seeing as none of the hard rock or metal bands we emulated had saxophones in them, I picked up the bass. I was decent at it, but there were very few drummers in our school and we sounded pretty weak for just two of us. I grabbed a pair of drumsticks and started teaching myself how to play the drums, and went in halves with my parents for a beat-up old drumset. I enjoyed it more than any of the other instruments, so I kept at it. Twenty-five years later, here I am.
 
First tried following in my old mans footsteps in playing guitar....SUCKED. Sucked so bad I hated it and got bored with it. Then was always beatin on the table along to songs and whatnot, and my parents said "Dammit were gettin you a drum set so you stop bangin on the table!" Lol little did they know the bangin on the table would never really go away =P and I was just more of a natural learner of the drums, and have grown immensely these last 6 1/2 years Ive played!
 
My love for drums awoke at the same time my musical awakening happened, I was just a normal kid, listening to radio, mainstream type of music, then one day I heard Master of Puppets and everything changed, that music was so different from everything I had ever heard, i fell in love with it and I knew from that moment I wanted to play music and I was just attracted to the drums, it took a couple of years after that but I finally got myself a cheap drumset and I haven't looked back since.

That was almost six years ago, currently I'm beggining my music studies at college, something I am very exited about.
 
I remeber watching Queen play Radio GaGa live on tv when I was a kid. I was just really mesmerised by the whole band, but especially seeing Roger Taylor on drums. He wasn't playing anything really complex, but he just looked cool! I started lessons shortly after that.
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"When the going gets tough, the tough get going!"

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When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my Mum was part of a street drumming band thing. There was about 20 of them and they would be split into different groups, Snare, Tom1, Tom2, and Bass, and hit 'em all with beaters. It was really cool to hear the stuff they made. So one time I was taken to their practice and I picked up some sticks and started hitting the snare. Apparently I was a natural, So I played snare with them for about 2 years. Basically consisting of rhythms and stuff. But then after we left the city, I gave up drumming for a while, untill I got to secondary school, and someone asked me stuff I had done in the past. And when I told them that, they insisted I join their band!
First (and last!) practice, we played Night Train by Guns 'n' Roses. Suffice to say, it was pretty crap. But that was my first proper time on a full drum kit. And it was alot of fun! So here I am!
 
The marching band that always played in our town at special occasions, when I was 10 I really wanted to play with them so I started taking lessons. And a few years later I got to play with them which was alot of fun :D

After a few years of doing that I got my first drumkit and started playing along to songs. I started with alot of Rock/Punk Rock which a few years later got me interested in Metal.

Nowadays I get inspired by bands such as Tool, Soilwork and Machine Head.

I technically started in 4th grade band when I just chose drums randomly. I originally had barely any desire to play, but I had to do band. I was stuck learning rudiments and snare technique from a trombone player who attempted to teach traditional grip and it was just a whole mess.
 
I got into drumming by mistake actually. I am a guitar player and back a few years ago we had a little Metallica tribute band here in Erie, PA. It was called MILITIA. you can see us on youtube. we have fade to black up and am i evil. we played a battle of the bands and there was this one fan that loved us so the video is us playing at his birthday party..im the guitar player with the white v. but anyways when we got our little band together our drummer was way into grind core and death metal. so i had to tech him all the Metallica tunes...and i realized i was pretty damn good at it. so after we quite the covers we started our own band and fired our drummer due to his person problems...but i became the drummer. so i stumbled into drummer by mistake. Its been great...love drumming!
 
As a kid, I was made to take organ lessons for about 4 years. I was never very good at it but learned to read music, did well enough to play in church a couple of times but that's it. It was definitely never something that came natural to me. Not much happened musically after that.

I've always been a HUGE music lover but as a teenager couldn't afford to go to hardly any concerts. But in about 1983, my brother took me to see Rush at the Cleveland Colliseum and seeing Neil Peart and his "drums in the round" is something I'll never forget.

Flash forward to about 2 years ago and I was finally in a place in my life that I could afford to go see some concerts. Every concert we went to, I found myself always being drawn to the drummers and "air-drumming" along with them. We've seen some great concerts in the last couple of years...Jeff Beck, Clapton, Daltrey, the last 2 Ringo's All Starrs to name a few... and it didn't matter who the headliner was, it was the drummer that I would watch the most.

Watching Daltrey's drummer, Scott Devours, probably was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I came out of that concert (Clapton, Daltrey) talking more about Scott then anyone else. I was mesmerized and I knew then that I had to one day learn to play the drums.

Long story short (I know, too late) last Wednesday at the ripe old age of 43, I began my lessons. I've never been so excited about anything in my life. I don't know if I'll be any good as a drummer, but I sure do intend having a blast finding out!
 
My older brother brought a kit to the house when I was about 10 or so, which I would play when he wasn't around to beat me up for playing his drums. After a couple years, he abandoned the drums and I took them over, as my friends were starting to play guitar and needed a drummer. Prior to getting the kit, my kit for jams was paint cans and buzz saw blades balanced on broken drumsticks for cymbals and an aluminum tv dinner tray for the snare, sounded great actually. My first guitarist's family was good friends with a blues/jazz trombone player named Clarence "Big" Miller, and he gave me lots of great advice when I was a wee laddie.
 
Though I'm primarily a guitar player, I've always been interested in the drums. I guess it started when I went to Players' School of Music about 10-11 years ago. I went down to Sam Ash to get me some Aebersold books and for some reason I also left with a practice pad, a pair of Erskine Ride sticks as well as Buddy Rich's "Modern Iterp.." and the Dennis Chambers "Serious Moves" book. Had no plan really. Just picked the sticks up now and then.

When I started looking for a job, I sort of knew I would have to teach drums as well, and knowing how bad a job most multi-instrument teachers do with drummers, I thought I'd do something about that. I started taking lessons, bought just about every book and dvd I heard was good, and got a bit hooked.

I enjoy learning new things in general, in all sorts of fields, and these days I spend as much time with the drums as I used to do with the guitar.
 
My cousin inspired me to get into drums.
We both starting out marching, he started 1 year before I did.
But I went with him to his rehersal, and I decided I wanted to give it a try.

17 years later, I'm still drumming away
 
Listening to too much Joey Jordison (Slipknot, Wednesday 13, Murderdolls, Rob Zombie, etc).

Also, listening to Thin Lizzy's Sha la la la and thinking "yeah I'm gonna play Downey's drum solo one day"
 
Music - Led Zeppelin. I literally went from pop music to this in one day. That same day I wanted to be a drummer! I never ever thought about drumming or drummer until I heard the Physical Grafitti album. Got the Zep dvd and was blown away!
Drummer - John Bonham
Person - John Bonham then later drum teacher
Style - Classic rock
Inspirations- John Bonham
 
My love for drums awoke at the same time my musical awakening happened, I was just a normal kid, listening to radio, mainstream type of music, then one day I heard Master of Puppets and everything changed, that music was so different from everything I had ever heard, i fell in love with it and I knew from that moment I wanted to play music and I was just attracted to the drums, it took a couple of years after that but I finally got myself a cheap drumset and I haven't looked back since.

That was almost six years ago, currently I'm beggining my music studies at college, something I am very exited about.

That's pretty much my story!! It's weird how you happily go along with the pop music crap then BAM everything changes :D
 
Music- The Beatles
Drummer- Ringo Starr
Person- Cousin
Style- Normally rock, but I'm getting into jazz.
Inspirations- I played rock band, actually. I thought it was really fun and that surprisingly gave me a pretty good foundation of the very basics of drumming.
 
Music White Stripes
Drummer Meg White (yes, I do know that she is not great or anything, but I'm a no-frills kinda girl, so I love her straight-forward approach).
Person No one, really.
Style Undecided. Whatever you call the style of Steve Jordan and Cindy Blackman. I love that groove.
Inspirations Any time I hear "Icky Thump", I start pounding on my steering wheel. I'm a classical pianist (and I love it), but I've always felt I needed something to beat on.
 
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