The Beat of a Different Drum

I’ve always envied people with musical talent. Those who can pick up a guitar, sit at a piano, or pull a harmonica from their pocket and instantly produce that magic that is music. I’m afraid I don’t fit into that category. While me Ma sent me to piano lessons as a kid, it was pretty obvious that bash away though I might, Rachmaninov wasn’t going to have to lose sleep worrying about the competition. When I finally told my teacher I was giving it up, I swear a look of relief crossed his face. Only briefly, but it was there.

It’s a terrible affliction, to be blessed with the desire to create music, but not have a shred of talent to back it up. The movie "Amadeus" is ostensibly the life story of Mozart but told through the eyes of his contemporary Salieri, who desperately yearned to create the same beautiful sounds, but knowing he lacked the gifts to do so, drove himself mad in the attempt. I’m not even close to him in talent, (although I often have cause to question my sanity) but I can relate to his desire.

A couple of years ago, I joined the Colorado Isle of Mull St Andrew Pipes & Drums with a goal of learning the snare drum. As my attempts to self-teach had proven unsuccessful, (harmonica, tin whistle, bodhrán etc.) I figured that I might have more luck in a group setting with more experienced musicians around me. And to a point, that was true – it’s a whole lot better to be receiving regular guidance from those who actually know what they’re doing, rather than attempting to guess how things are supposed to sound. But, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s a lot harder to learn a musical instrument at age 40 than it is at age 14 and as the months ticked by it got harder and harder to hide behind my ‘beginner’ status.

The thing is; talent or no talent, nobody improves without practice and this is another area in which I’m challenged. With my work hours and commute, there isn’t too much time left in the day for things I need to do, much less the things I want to do. Many nights, by the time I’ve arrived home, eaten dinner and prepared for work the next day, it’s time for bed. Exercising, walking the dogs, paying the bills and of course, practicing my drumming all eat into sleep time and I’m afraid I’m not as disciplined as I should be about keeping up.

The shifting dynamics of pipe bands mean that over the course of a couple of years, several members come and go. Some leave to join other bands; others decide the genre isn’t for them. Right now, I’m the only beginning snare drummer in the band – the others are all playing at competition standard. This makes it harder for the teachers to spend as much time with me, focusing as they need to on working with the higher level performers. I can still bash around on my own of course, but it means it will be even longer before I improve to the point where I’m playing at that level myself.

So when, a few weeks ago, my drum sergeant Megan floated the idea that I might like to give tenor drumming a go, I wasn’t totally against the idea. Tenor drums are a very different animal to the snare. With a beat something similar to the base, the skill of a tenor comes from twirling the mallets clockwise, counter-clockwise, in spirals and loops, in front of the face, down to the side and back again. The tenor line has always been made up of girls during my time in the band but Megan sent me photos of Grade 1 drum lines where the tenors were all men. Big, burly men she assured me. I’m neither big, nor burly but fragile male ego pacified, I decided to give it a go.

"Don’t give up the snare" I was urged, learn the two together and you’ll find that developing your skills in one improves your playing in the other. OK, I can do that although I did feel a nagging worry that if I don’t have time to learn one instrument, how the hell was I going to manage two?

As it happened that weekend I, along with a number of other drummers from our band and others in the area, was already signed up for a two-day band workshop. Megan was teaching the tenors, while the snare was being covered by a drumming god being flown in especially from out of state. I decided to spend the first day with the snares, and try my hand at the tenor on the second. If ever I needed confirmation that I wasn’t going to make it in the snare world it came that Saturday. Oh, I was OK for the first few minutes during the warm up exercises but as soon as we got going into the harder stuff, I just couldn’t keep up.

"OK, let’s try this" he would say and off the group would go, while I’d flail around, not even close to playing the same beat. It was abundantly clear that even when I win the lottery (my retirement plan) and have an infinite amount of time to practice, there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to play at that level. And we hadn’t even started on the intricate stuff yet. So, the following day found me the only guy in a room full of girls attempting to master the art of mallet twirling.

I have to tell you, it’s a lot harder than it looks. The mallets are connected to your hands by means of knotted shoelaces wound around the fingers, which means that as soon as one attempts to spin them, they cinch up tight around the digits, cutting off your circulation and coming to a screeching halt in one swift movement. In time, I improved to the point where I could spin the things for several seconds at a time but still couldn’t help whacking myself on the wrists, the head and the face at frequent intervals.

I’ve still to pick up a tenor drum, but I am getting a little better at the twirling. I can now swing the things for a couple of minutes at a time before something goes wrong. Maybe this will be the musical instrument on which I finally discover talent. Although I haven’t yet noticed the promised improvement in my snare drumming.

Still, it’s got to be easier than marching around with a piano.