Things you hate to have happen while drumming

any lefty (left hand lead) drummers will agree that having to re-arrange a righty set in less than 5 minutes is an olympic event. especially when its a 6pc (3 rack toms) and cymbals everywhere on a 8'x8' riser that was almost 3 feet off the ground. this happened to me at battle of the bands in high school. I was dog-tired before our first song. not to mention I naturally wasn't used to the hap-hazzard set-up and I missed many drums and cymbals, dropped sticks, and had to limit my fills. we got 3rd place out of 6 bands though!

another thing that shivers my timbers is when someone new you're playing with "shows" you how he wants you to play a beat because you're "not doing it right," when in fact you were just experimenting to see if something else sounds better. (In a kind of karma-inspired moment the person trying to show me on my lefty drum set can't do it anyway!) Or what I really hate is when they try to beat-box the way they want you to do it. I can understand if they said so beforehand that they need it a certain way for a recording, but it's insulting to our intelligence as creative drummers not wanting to do the same-ol', same-ol'. GRRRRRRRRRR!
 
I would hate to break a cymie........... they cost so much to replace....... i would be devastated!!! :-(
 
Man! You guys make drumming sound like a full-contact sport! Hitting faces, knees, thumbs, bass players, noses....etc. I can play fairly hard and I don't ever recall hitting any part of my body. If anything, just rims or a complete miss of the drum/cymbal.

I guess that's at the top of my list. Nothing worse than doing a great big powerful round-house fill only to end it with a big whiff of air.
 
Of course i hate dropping my sticks.. and my Hi Hat has a thing u need 2 turn to make it stay. i hate when i hit that and i cant make the hi hats move apart
 
guess you'll keep extra sticks nearby from now on, eh?
 
I hate getting stabbed in the middle of the chorus.
Also falling out of the helicopter is unfortunate.
And I think we all dread the giant squid attack.
 
Holy Schmoly,

I'm sitting here at work reading all of these stories laughing out loud. This has got to be one of the funniest threads I've read on many forums. I don't know of many other kinds of musicians that take this kind of abuse from their own actions and still love to play day in and day out. I guess I have lots more experiences to look forward too. So far my list is:

- flying sticks

- smacking the rim of my tom rather than the head

- having the nut holding the beater loosen and then drop down and nearly rip a hole in the batter head of my drum from the opposite end dragging back across the head.
 
ajgdrums722 said:
Having the bass drum begin to slide away from you as you hit it in the middle of a song.

oh god. i HATE that. and then once it starts going further away and you start hitting it at an outwards angle, it just goes farther, and farther, and FARTHER... ARGH!

that, and having sweat drip into your eyes. that doesn't feel so good.

i think hamsterboy's wins, though.

hamsterboy said:
Here's one. Knockin you bass player unconscious in the middle of a gig. He was leaning in trying to tell me something, (never found out what), near my 16" crash. I (of course) was deep in the groove, prob with my eyes closed, lookin real cool n stuff and just then I noticed that my new Sabian sounded a lot like someone beating somebody between the eyes with a 5b.............which, as it turns out, was exactly what that sound was. He kinda recovered after a few mins sitting down. The crowd all saw it and thought it was hilarious!! Bassist did find it funny after a while.
 
Kids don't try this without a parent present ...your mother or sister specifically..... In the 80's....and i swear I only put on make up & eye liner once ...

my original band was performing a Showcase in front of some extremely notable people in the music business and from the very 1st song the sweat dripped down my face......the eye liner went into my eyes & burned like you can't imagine.....i played the whole gig with my eyes completely shut from the burning...& tears rolling down my face....

I played great anyway & no one really noticed & it was so bad I had to have my bass player help me to the dreesing room because i couldn't even open my eyes....Never again !!!! my most hated moment onstage

Lee
 
Yep, pretty much everyone has listed my usual pet peeves, but one thing happened at a huge picnic we played that just about killed me.
The park was a monster and just over a thousand people were to be spread over the grounds, so when we did our sound check, the fella running the thing told us we weren't loud enough. Yeah, we don't hear that very much do we? Anyways, we mic'ed everything, including my entire kit. Well halfway thru the second of the five sets we were doing, I did a nice fill that I like and for some reason, smacked the snare mic and it came off. There it was, dangling in between the snare and bass, pretty much bouncing with every kick beat...and making some terrible, off-beat noise. And yes, people asked me later what that noise was.
Not something that happens a lot, but happened nonetheless.
 
Probably the biggest one is when I go to hit a cymbal on the other side of the set of where I was playing, and its a crucial moment, but I completely miss the bow of the cymbal and hit the bell or even the felt, it just totally kills the whole feeling. That one kind of makes me a little frustrated...
 
Ok, this is so Spinal Tap but when you play on a drum platform that is not constructed well for the job. You fall thru the platform wishing you could spontaneous combust & turn into a green globule like the past drummers of Spinal Tap.
 
This may be slightly off the beaten path, but this is what I hate to have happen while I'm playing. I hate it when the band's playing a kickin' song and some lovely young women jump up on stage and decide to dance with the bass player, effectively making him a bass player sandwich - or worse yet, decide they're gonna grind him silly on stage. All the while I'm the one laying down the beat they're dancing to. I get green with envy. I do get my "revenge" of sorts in between sets however. Women tend to like drummers better than bassists.....

Saint
 
I think we can all agree, one of the most annoying aspects of drumming (people who are heavy on the double-bass might notice it more) is...

You guessed it, swamp ass. I always make sure to have another pair of pants ready after a long time on the drum throne. Don't act like it doesn't happen to you, you know it does.

; )
 
^^ yeah swamp ass SUCKS

my biggest annoyance is that my double bass pedal(the remote one*referred to as a slave?) slides when i play it, usually running into the leg of my hi hat, making it unplayable!(any suggestions on stopping that?)

Few others would be....
cymbal stands falling down
smashing your knuckles on rims/sticks/cymbals
cracking cymbals
 
I was playing in front of 4,000 people in the charlotte arena and had the following happen,
1.Drumstick flew out of my hand and into the audiance.
2.lost my balance, and fell over backwards( I was into it to much)
3. Tom Tom fell off(Not screwed on tight enough)

That day was awesome and sucked at the same time!
 
For me, just a few things.

I hit my finger on my snare hoop while doing a really hard rim shot..broke my finger..that wasn't fun.

Had someone try to walk off with my cymbal bag....(luckily my band and I chased him down the street and proceeded to teach him a thing or two about being curtious)

I had a stick break in half (one to many rim shots I guess) and the top piece went flying off of the riser and into the first couple rows....I thing I hit soem poor girl in the head.....on a related topic, I had my lucky hat stolen by a few teenie boppers (15 and 16 yr old girls for those of you not from CT) and they wouldn't give it back unless I took pictures with them and my band....yeah..but on the bright side, one of their moms was pretty hot.....(and don't laugh....I'm sure im not the only one with a lucky hat..those of you who have one would go through ANYTHING to get it back, just like me.)
 
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