I decided that I should learn to play the drums. Figured that if I could ride my bike from one end of the country to the other, I reckon I can learn to independently move my four limbs.

After all, Jackie had bought me a drum kit for Christmas…I’d batted around on it a little bit…but it was gathering dust and I didn’t want it to become another one of those things that had been bought and not used. You know, kinda wasted, like the guitar that I got a few years ago, or the guitar that I got in Houston, or the guitar that I got when I was 8. You get the idea?

This time it’d be different. This time I’d crack it. It’s not a guitar for a start, and I’d also made the decision that I needed professional help and finding a drum teacher would give me the motivation to get going.

The affectionately named ‘rat den’ is where I have my lessons. Quite an interetsing place really…an old mill in Ancoats, Manchester. Up on one of the floors are a bunch of rooms that bands rent out as rehearsal spaces. Very rock ‘n’ roll, I’m sure you’ll agree. Salubrious it ain’t and there are no groupies hanging around, so I guess that’s where the glamour ends.

Anyway…I’ve had a few lessons now and I’m really enjoying it. Great to get your teeth into something new and challenging…and to accept that something that looks and sounds easy really isn’t. I get so bloody frustrated sometimes that I’m sure Jack wonders what the hell he’s let himself in for. The rest of the time he probably laughs at my ineptitude and then shows me how easy it is by jumping on the kit and rattling off what I’m struggling to get to grips with.

Believe me, independently moving each limb, out of sequence with each other isn’t that easy. Yesterday we were looking at 6/4 time and Jack said (actually he didn’t say but he showed me…and this is something like how it looked):

“OK, it’s a count of 1 – 2 – 3 -4 – 5 -6, so high-hat (left foot) on each count, one the 1 – 2 I want 2 beats on the tom (both hands) plus a beat on the bass drum on the 1 (right foot), on the 3 and 4 I want one beat on the other tom (both hands), on the 5 I want a beat on the floor tom (right hand) and a bass drum (right foot) and on the 6 I want a flam (both hands).”

I could do all that bar the beat with my left foot on the high hats. My leg just wouldn’t move. So, I’m going to have to break it down into smaller parts that I can do and then build it up.

And I’m just at the beginning. Fitting in the paradiddles, double paradiddles and triplet-double paradiddles that I’ve got sorted will come with time.

In other drum related news, I sold my acoustic kit and went electronic with a set of Roland HD-1′s. Love ‘em – just plugin, stick the iPod in the input and play along. Well that’s what they say on the website…be a while until I’m playing like this: