San Diego Drum Lessons
Drum Teacher in San Diego? San Diego Drum Lessons offers one-to-one drum lessons in the San Diego area. Please click on the contacts page to get started today!
Thank you for checking in! This year has been very interesting on the playing front for a number of reasons. Firstly, my entire calendar was thrown up in the air when I was hospitalized in April with a niggling back complaint that required corrective surgery – completely unrelated to drumming, I should add. This meant that I had to turn down a number of shows that I would loved to have done, including Annie The Musical (Moonlight Theatre), Hairspray (Moonlight Theatre), Cabaret (Cygnet Theatre), A Chorus Line (Lyceum Theatre), and A Year With Frog and Toad (San Diego Junior Theatre). To further rub salt in the wounds, I had to pull out of The Marvelous Wonderettes at Moonlight because during rehearsals for Hairspray (The one show Idid do) at San Diego Junior Theatre, I felt that my playing was not going to hold up so soon after surgery…. although that concern turned out to be unfounded.
Once again, it was a privilege to work at the Prado Theatre in Balboa Park, for the San Diego Junior Theatre production of Hairspray, which closed last weekend after a four week production run. For this show, I was part of a 15 piece orchestra, playing a musical book that was just written for drums! And, a lot of drums. In fact; I don’t think I have ever been kept so busy during a show – which often seemed more of a physical work out then a musical – but in a good way! So while this was challenging physically during rehearsals so soon after surgery, it actually helped me build my playing to where I started to feel much stronger again – and I totally started to regret pulling out of The Marvelous Wonderettes. I guess the body really is an amazing thing! I also had the pleasure of playing Hairspray with prominent local percussionist Chuck Elledge – one of San Diego’s first call players – and it’s not hard to see why. It had been a long time since I played a show with a percussionist, and it felt great – and I learned a lot from Chuck, which is always one of the main aims of any show I participate in. You never stop learning – that’s for sure. I’ve attached a YouTube link of the show, so check it out!
SDJT Production of Hairspray. August 2011
And, neatly segueing into the subject of learning, I have been studying jazz drumming with Dr Dave Whitman these past few months. Many of my students seem surprised when I tell them I still take drum lessons – but I have a teacher, my teacher has a teacher – and on it goes. One of my first drum teachers told that me learning drums is a “lifetime of study”, and he was certainly right. That’s not to say that you can’t be as good as you want quickly with the right instruction, but moreover, that you will never know everything. And to be honest, it’s that very realization that keeps me going – the wonder of what I will learn next, and the privilege of being able to share it with others. Back to Dr. Dave though, before I go off on a complete tangent. Dave Whitman is the San Diego State University (SDSU) Aztecs Drum Line Coach – and if that doesn’t impress you in itself (which it certainly does for me), then I can tell you that he holds a Doctorate in Percussion Performance – a qualification that I didn’t even know existed until recently. So, it has been very interesting playing the role of the student again, and having to practice my homework. (Something I apparently never had the time to do when learning the piano recently).
So what’s up next for me? Well, as of now, I don’t know. Teaching, of course is my priority – and we’ll see what comes in show-wise over the next few months. Shows are a bit like London buses, you wait forever for one to show up, and then three turn up at the same time. That is the nature of the business. Thanks for checking in!
