Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Ok, so I seriously need a teacher, like ASAP! It's been a year since I took my last lesson and I am having trouble reading the music. In my last drum lesson, (the marking made by my teacher on my vol. 2 snare book is dated 8/11/09) I was working on the 9 and the 13 stroke roll. Well, I'm getting my quarter and eighth notes mixed up, so I don't think I'm playing any of this music right!! I can't find my vol. 1 snare book so I'm having trouble figuring this out. I'm pretty sure that the way this one particular confusing measure is played is using a quarter note, but it looks like a friggin eighth note to me!!! But to play that note as an eighth note along with the 9 stroke roll doesn't make sense, at least to my less than musical brain. I don't want to keep playing it if I'm playing it wrong because it will get etched in my brain that way and will take forever to get it out!

So my challenge for the day is to find a teacher. But I just don't want any teacher. I want a teacher like the Karate Kid had, but for drums. I want a mentor. That would be easy if I came from a musical family. But my drummer brother is in another state and nobody else in the family plays any instrument. I could call my former teacher, but I will look like an idiot because I wasn't exactly the star student in the past.

I started drum lessons in the spring of 2007, a few months before my marriage fell apart. I did pretty good with lessons for those 3 months. Then in one day my marriage was over. Well it didn't exactly happen in one day. Things were going on that I didn't know about. The day that I found it all out was the day it was over for me though. I didn't exactly deal with it well. I didn't want it to be over, but I didn't make the choices that ended it. I couldn't fix it because I wasn't in control of his choices. So I chose to leave the marriage physically. But I didn't leave it mentally or emotionally. I was a torrid wreck for about 3 years. It was like a really bad roller coaster ride through the dark that doesn't stop long enough for you to get off. Anyways, I continued my lessons, but I wasn't focused and practiced sporadically. Somehow I finished vol. 1 snare, and started vol. 2 in 2009, but I quit last summer. I have talked to my former teacher a few times since then, but he is really busy playing in a new band now and will probably have to stop teaching because of the band's tour schedule.

Find a teacher. That's what I must do today, so I can figure out the difference between my quarter and eighth notes. Because they are never always written the same in a measure. The note synonyms are what gets me confused a lot of the time.

But my teacher has to be special. Someone that I can connect to and not make me feel stupid. It is already intimidating enough being my age, being a girl and walking into a music store full of young guys and asking to sign up for drum lessons. Believe me I know, I've done it twice. Guess if I'm going to do this thing I better make some calls. Hey, I know, there's a nearby college that has a music program. Hmmm, maybe this won't be as hard as I thought.

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