Whats Your Drumming Story?

HUdrummer

HUdrummer

Senior Member
Whats your story behind where you are drumming today?

Ill start: When I was 14 I got my first drum kit from a friend of mine for only like 5 video games. It was a shitty Sound Percussion kit, but for 5 sucky video games, I couldn't argue. I played that for around 6 months... I fell in love with drumming. I was taking online lessons for up to 4 hrs a day. It was all I breathed for a while there. After about 8 months of playing I was already getting asked to join bands and stuff. Things were going great. I started taking lessons from a guy for awhile, but stopped after about 2 months into it because I was just a kid, and $75 a month was getting harder to pay off, and I was learning nearly just as much with online lessons. After about a year and a half I get blessed with the deal of a lifetime on a Brady drum kit, I dont think I'll ever need another kit... Ever! Well theres my story... lets here yours!

*Note this does not have to be a long autobiography of your drumming career, just a brief summary :)
 
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uniongoon said:
wow, that is a pretty short story, I am afraid mine would take up more browser space than this site would allow.
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Funny.....I thought exactly the same thing. Started to type out a response and thought to myself, I'll be here forever...take up a couple of pages in text and bore everyone to tears in the process. I guess it stands to reason.....the younger you are, the shorter the story.

OP, if you ever come to Melbourne, we'll stand at a bar for several hours and go over it there (after your 18th b/day of course)........it's a long and arduous tale that gets better the more drunk we get. :)
 
Was gonna copy and past from some of my spaces but ... naaahhhhh.

Here's the short:

Parents bought drums when I was 8. Quit then started at 13, was made fun off and the rest is history.
 
I got into drumming because 3 of my friends really wanted to start a band. I picked up an entry level kit (Pearl Forum) from my local music shop and started taking lessons. I started practicing 3-4 hours a day and took my lessons very seriously. Unfortunately, it became pretty obvious that despite my best efforts, I needed more time to learn the drums than we had originally thought (it was my first musical instrument, after all).

One of the other band members had some previous drumming experience so he took the drumming position, most likely because they were all eager to start the band. I don't really know exactly what happened, but they seemed to have a nice thing going on without me, and I didn't want to be the one to dampen the experience with my mediocre playing.

Instead, I got immersed in everything to do with drumming. I spent hours learning to tune my kit, watched videos of professional drummers, and spent a lot of time just working through books and on technique. I balanced high school and drum lessons for about 3 years, and came out a semi-decent drummer in the end (I hope? :p).

Now I'm a university student, and to this day still haven't been in a real band, but I've assembled a new nice sounding kit and still love to practice and develop my technique. Couldn't live without the drums :)
 
Dad got a drum kit when I was 9, I wanted to play an instrument. Guitar wasn't for me at this time, aged 10 start drum lessons. Give up a bout 5 months in, decide to go back for about a year then go on a break again. Then decide to start taking drumming serious when I'm about 12-13. Start learning songs from my favourite bands, dad gets an electronic drum kit, start messing about with styles and combining D&B with jazz and Funk etc. etc.
Join a band on percussion, they already had a drummer... Who let them down alot so I'd jump in.
Do a school battle of the bands, get 4th place. I quit, try to learn guitar and writing my own music and then get a friend in to help. Him on guitar and me on drums or switch abouts, then get my other friend in on guitar. I'm on drums and synth programming, other two friends on guitars. Start a kind of electronic/rock kinda thing. Pretty cool.
Disband that idea, move to a more prog/emo (Sunny Day Real Estate emo...) sort of style
get asked to join a local punk band (in 4/4... Yawn, but it's fun I guess). Take it up, instant 5 gigs. DEAL!

Continue to do band with my friends, still not got a vocalist, but we still write music. And we have a bassist now, just wondering. And the synth thing got scraped.
 
Rockband. My friend had Rockband, and at first I didn't want to play it. My brother was playing drum, and he wasn't too good at it, so when he got fed up with it he handed me the sticks, and from then on I was pretty much stuck to drumming.

Eventually the friend I started out with got a guitar, and we jammed a bit using an e-kit at my church, but that wasn't too convenient. We cooled it, and I kept looking for my own kit. Luckily, I got the opportunity a little over two years ago in the form of a son moving off to college, who couldn't keep his set. It was a Pearl Export 8 piece in Ruby Fade with every bit of hardware, every cymbal, and every single part I needed to start with a huge kit for $800.

So I power-washed my house and my deck over the course of the following summer to pay it off.

Now here I am, in a band, in my high school's drumline, and still as passionate about drumming as when I started.
 
Started in 75.

Mostly just aimed to groove and swing with a good vibe and a few ideas until 87. Every now and then I got it right.

Started again, low key in 88 and remained low key - playing without practising until 1998. Stopped again. Every now and then I got it right.

Played keys for a year in 2007 and started drumming again in 2008. I still mostly just aim to groove and swing with a good vibe and a few ideas. Every now and then I get it right.
 
Started when I was 3 - parents got me drums and I've always played. Studied alot, did drum and bugle corps as a teen, studied jazz music in college, held various positions as percussionist for various people and companies. Still playing today professionally in a dubious anonymous fashion.

Along the way I learned how to be socially acceptable and became a photographer and audio engineer too.
 
Abbreviated version:

Always into music, got really into Rush and The Who.
Got signed up for lessons, started working in the drum shop I was taking lessons in.
Went to PIT.
After school, joined a prog band.
Worked in two other music stores selling drums.
Did a bunch of free lance gigs around the San Francisco bay area.
Moved back to Los Angeles.
Joined a band; spent 3 and 1/2 years playing for every record company in existence, had a lot of interested, but never quite got there.
Worked in another music store selling drums.
Formed a new band, spent the next year playing for every record company in existence, got offered a deal, but band broke up during negotiations.
Did some other gigs.
Took some time off bands.
Formed a new band, did an independent album, didn't sell many copies, but the few copies we did sell were sold to points all over the world.
Had two kids (well, my wife did), so took a break from actively being in full time bands
Began writing my own music.
Still doing that, and jamming with assorted people on the side.
 
Coldhardsteel said:
Rockband. My friend had Rockband, and at first I didn't want to play it. My brother was playing drum, and he wasn't too good at it, so when he got fed up with it he handed me the sticks, and from then on I was pretty much stuck to drumming..........Now here I am, in a band, in my high school's drumline, and still as passionate about drumming as when I started.
Click to expand...

Wow, do I feel old after reading this :)

Me? Midlife crisis directed me towards lifelng passion for drums. Every great band of the 60s and 70s would have been not much without a great drummer right? Who, Beatles, Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, The Carpenters (Karen or Hal Blaine?). Anyway, got a Gretsch kit a year ago and here I am. Just a hobbyist though but it is a great stress reliever.
 
Shortest version I can muster....
My older brother got a drum set when I was about 6. I idolized him and wanted to do everything he did. So I started playing. Stopped from about 8 years old to about 15. Then there were girls. I was told girls liked drummers. I started playing again to be a rock star. At 18 I realized I really didn't care to be a rock star so I went to school for music to become a real musician. Now I love the musical expression of drums, and the conversation between all the instruments.
 
Some buddies got me into playing guitar in high school. Eventually found that if I threw a stone, I'd hit a guitar player. Started playing bass guitar, not too seriously, just to facilitate jams without too many guitars. One day said buddies got me over my "I can't play drums" protests and actually got me to play drums. So it was. I learned to play drums on a super old Sunlite crap kit with heads falling off and no real cymbal hardware, just yardsticks with nails at the top, candle holders, snare was on an old literal cardboard box that a termite sprayer came in... Anyhoo, we did this for a long time. Buddies put up with my lack of real skill because I have a good sense of rhythm and restraint that didn't step on their ideas. Eventually, people started saying I was a "awesome" drummer. I guess that means I can play a bit now.

Like many of you, we're now working towards playing music instead of going to the office every day. My fingers are crossed. Almost done with our first non-demo album and recordings of songs we've been playing for 10+ years. Will be nice to move on. Wish us luck!
 
Well, I am ADD and wanted to get laid...so drumming seemed like the proper decision.
 
4th grade instrument lessons in school, Dad bought me my first kit at 13 - used from the drummer in Dad's band. Played in middle school and high school bands including concert, marching and jazz band. Took over as the drummer in my dad's band at 15, Country and Southern Rock mix..played in a Big Band and Dad's band throughout college. Stopped playing for about 25 years (for no real good reason except family and jobs). Started again 6 years ago and have played ever since. Play every week at church and several times a month at outside gigs..never enough but fits into my schedule ok for now.
 
I was 10 when I saw this amazing drumming in the junior high school jazz band and I ran home and told my parents I wanted to do that too. So I started 6th grade band playing drums and they got me private lessons. So all the way through junior high I played because I loved it. Then high school band and lo and behold....I found GIRLS actualy loved drummers, so I got to bang drums and bang...well...you get the idea.... LOL
 
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