THE BEAT GOES ON!

            I was struggling a bit with the decision concerning my next blog topic recently. It suddenly came to me while I was on the treadmill at the gym listening to “China Grove” by the Doobie Brothers on my smartphone. You may know this tune has a great beat--truly classic rock. Anyway, my earbud cord was stretched a little tight to the phone which was resting on the control panel of the treadmill. I have this unconscious habit of “air drumming” with my hands during certain really good parts, and caught the earbud cord, pulling the phone off the panel. The cord pulled out of the phone which hit the running belt and shot back behind me. I reflexively turned sideways to catch it, lost my footing, did a face plant on the belt and shot right back onto the floor beside it, much to the surprise of all the people on surrounding treadmills. It was kind of a humbling experience.

            You may be wondering what this has to do with a blog topic. Well, I got to thinking about why I was “air drumming” prior to this event, and it reminded me of when I learned to play the drums. Part of my blog goal is to work a little bit on my memoir. They say a memoir should talk about those key moments in your life when something happened and your life was never the same afterward. Turning points they call them. Well, I definitely consider learning to play the drums to have been a turning point.

Not long after starting the fourth grade, they gathered all of us kids in a room and said “Pick an instrument. You are all going to play in a band! Won’t that be fun?” I can’t say that I remember being overcome with joy. They let us try a few different instruments, just to see if anything particularly struck our fancy. Some kids already knew what they wanted to try. I remember contemplating trying to blow on a clarinet after Janice had slobbered all over it and deciding to try a French horn which nobody had yet picked up. I cannot for the life of me remember the music teacher’s name, but she was very encouraging, so I wound up taking it home. The plan was we would get familiar with the instruments and then have an appointment with the music teacher to begin some lessons.

After a couple of days at home, Mom requested that I take the French horn back and try something else. I tried a trumpet, a tuba, a trombone, and maybe a couple other things. Over a period of a few weeks it became clear that I had a mental block of some kind about reading music and a physical inability to hold my lips in the proper shape to blow into any kind of musical mouthpiece. That’s when I was ultimately assigned to the percussion section with all the other losers.

For the rest of that fall, I dutifully met once a week with the music teacher for 30 minutes to learn how to play a drum. It was better than the French horn in that I didn’t have to practice with a real drum, just some rubber pad that was much quieter than the other instruments I had previously looked at. There was a lot to learn: sheet music with all its notations and funny words and symbols, rolls, paradiddles, riffs, rim shots, and rests. I remember struggling quite a bit.

In the new semester after Christmas, we were informed we would join the Horton Grade School Band which was mostly made up of fifth and sixth graders. As lowly fourth graders, we were promptly told to sit back and watch our masters. I learned that playing the snare drum was a real prestigious position to which I would not be entitled for some time, if ever.  Instead, I was relegated to playing the bass drum and sometimes the cymbals.  These were considered simple enough for a lowly fourth grader like myself to manage.  One person was deemed to be so lacking in talent that they got stuck with the triangle.  The upperclassmen were accorded the snare and “tom tom” drums, as well as anything else they chose to play for a particular piece.  Naturally, there was one guy who considered himself to be the second Gene Krupa, and he did whatever he could to make my life miserable. Anyway, the Horton Grade School band practiced together twice a week in preparation for the annual spring concert.  Thinking back on it, I now have tremendous admiration for that music teacher; she clearly had the patience of Jobe or else she wore earplugs or something.

Time went on and we eventually became the upperclass big shots in the Grade School band percussion section. I continued to have weekly lessons with the music teacher, but don’t recall any moments of brilliance. We were always a bit in awe of the Junior High and especially the High School Bands who we were told regularly won various State Band Contests. The true cream de la crème, though, was the Stage Band. This group was comprised of the best of the best, and actually had a “trap” drum set, just like the rock n roll bands had on the Ed Sullivan show. They played really neat music by people like Glen Miller and the Beatles, not a bunch of marches and weird sounding symphonies.

The guy who played drums in the Stage Band was a Senior who, for some reason, hated having to play the drums. He was kind of a rebel and I don’t think he liked the music teacher. Anyway, one day he was not available and I was asked to sit in for him at Stage Band practice. I showed up early so the teacher could try and give me a little private instruction before the others arrived. I still remember the sense of excitement and fear I felt as I eased myself down onto the seat in the middle of the trap set. I had never done this before for real. Now there was a hi-hat, ride and crash cymbals, three tom toms, a bass drum and snare all around me. I was shown a few real basic routines and got to practice a bit. Then everybody else showed up and we started. I remember it was the “A Train”. LOW AND BEHOLD, I COULD DO IT!!!!!!

I wasn’t great, but I could hold a beat and hit a crash cymbal when the band director cued me. I had the time of my life. Afterwards, the teacher asked if I would like to join the Stage Band permanently and Voila! There I was, a sixth grader playing drums with a bunch of Juniors and Seniors. Suddenly, I was a Big Man on Campus. After years of being teased because I wore glasses and was crummy at sports, I was finally COOL (or so I felt).

From then on, I practiced whenever I could. I got pretty good if I do say so myself. One time when I was in the seventh grade, my dad got a phone call asking if I could substitute as a drummer in a band playing out at Edgetown (a local dance hall with questionable reputation). He said yes, and that night was very educational for me. Looking back, some of the things he allowed me to do still amaze me. As a senior, I was selected to play in the Kansas All State Jazz Band; we did a concert with Doc Severinsen (The Tonight Show Band Director) as the conductor. That was a great experience.

Another big thing about playing the drums was the Marching Band. As you may or may not recall, the percussion section is usually playing pretty continually in between songs in order to provide the beat everybody is supposed to be marching to while wearing those funny uniforms that never actually fit anybody. Football season always meant halftime shows, which always meant endless hours of rehearsal after school. By that time, the music teacher was a poor lady named Mrs. Wasserman. I always felt kind of sorry for her, standing up on that step ladder on the edge of the football field in the rain, waving her arms and trying to keep the trombones from running into the clarinets. Band trips were another source of memories; everybody on the bus singing “99 bottles of beer”, flirting with the flute section, etc. On special occasions, there were often parades that had to be marched in. These were sometimes exhausting affairs ending with sore feet and blisters on the hands from the drumsticks.

But the Stage Band was the real highlight. It represented the point in time where I shifted from being a bookworm nobody wanted to hang with to one of the “in crowd”, at least in high school. Then I graduated and went to college.  That’s where I learned another lesson: no matter how good you may be, there will always be somebody better. Upon joining the band at KU, I found myself back playing the cymbals, just like in the fourth grade. There were some really, really good musicians there, and it was the hardest one hour of credit I ever took. Two hours a day during the week and three on Saturday mornings when there wasn’t a home game.  It was still fun in some ways, but I didn’t stay with it.

In later years, I played a little bit in some pickup groups. My sister-in-law Sonja and her brother sang once in awhile as a warmup group for local concerts. More recently, I played with some friends a few years ago at some flea markets and a company Christmas party. As I got older, my drum set seemed to get heavier and grow more pieces. There was definitely a sense of envy for, say, those who had chosen something small and light, like the flute. Hauling all of it around to practices got to be a heck of a lot of work. Finally, I injured my back somehow and quit playing for good. Eventually, I gave my drum set to a nephew (mostly just to irritate his dad) and have not played in a long time now.

One of the things I am interested in about moving to an active adult community is the possibility there will be a group I might be able to join. After all, it felt pretty cool to be one of the “in crowd”, even if it was only in my own head. Maybe it would feel that good again. Until then, “air drumming” on the treadmill is as close as I guess I will get.