Hey I'm Roo 
Hey everybody,
My name is Roo (formally Andrew) and I live in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I grew up in England, and moved back and forth between Canada and the Middle East, and now I've buried my roots here in in Canada. My first experience with playing a drumset was during a sporting event in the Middle East (specifically the country Qatar) where my school had a trip to nearby country Bahrain to compete with another school. Well, as luck had it, my host who I stayed with (along with another friend called Tom) had a drumset in his room. This guy I was staying with gets up on his set and just goes nuts and its like 11 O'clock at night and I was just mesmerized. He then went on to play the good ol' basic beat that all set players first learn to play.
As this guy I was staying with got off his set, i thought I would give it a whirl. Just like that I played exactly what he had just played with no mistakes, right up to speed. I didn't consider it a big deal until my friend Tom tried afterwards and he couldn't get close. It suddenly hit me that this was something I could try and persue as a hobby when I got home. I immediately raised all the money I had (forcing my brother to pay back some loans
) and bought an Indonesian-made "Lazer" 5-piece drumkit. From then on I practiced whenever I possibly could, and started picking up ideas from music and other drummers. As I started progressing, another drummer moved to my community who was quite a bit better than me, which inspired me to start progressing more and more. I started getting involved with jamming with music teachers and participating in productions.
Upon moving back to Canada, I joined my middle-school "Intermediate Concert Band" and got my start at playing classical music. Since then I have considered drumming a really big part of my life, and have progressed greatly since I was 12 years old thanks to my drum teacher Karl Ganz.
I am now 15 years of age (as I post this) and I am the Head Percussionist for my High School Senior Concert Band, Jazz Band drummer, and Musical Drummer/Percussionist. I thrive on meeting and sharing ideas with other drummers. I had a chance to attend a Kenny Arnoff clinic in mid 2005 and got to talk with him afterwards and got autographs. I wish I would have asked him more questions, as since then I have learned crazy amounts about him.
My favourite drummers as of this moment would include Kenny Aronoff, Dennis Chambers, Gregg Bissonette, Buddy Rich, Ringo, John Dolmayan, and Mike Portnoy. I play with a young blues band (me being the youngest) and we are starting to get noticed and will hopefully play in the 2006 Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival. I have very high hopes of being able to one day turn proffessional, with plans to earn a degree in classical percussion after high school.
I am very happy to finally register at the forums here, as I have been completely addicted to Drummerworld for a long time and have spent huge amounts of hours taking in the masses of content here. I hope to become a very active member of this community. Thanks
- - - - Roo
