Watercolor Ghost Town

Picture post today!  Click on pictures to see the full-size version.

I ended up going to a show on Saturday.  One of Erica's bands by the name of The Blueflowers (formerly Ether Aura) had a CD release party - they had two bands open for them then played a bunch of songs from their new CD.  The CD is called Watercolor Ghost Town.  

I met Erica at her house so we could meet up with her friend Erin and head to the show (since I had no idea where it was).  When we hit the road, the conditions were not so great.  My poor car is below:

Erica (on the right) getting ready for her show, along with Erin (on the left).  If you look closely you can see the Blueflowers' lead singer Kate in the background:

This is the stage at The Belmont in Hamtramck, where the show was - if you click on the picture you can see that the first band is chatting on-stage and getting ready to start their set (it was pretty dark in there):

Two opening bands played - they were both pretty good.  The first band didn't have a drummer though, which I can't condone.  Then the Blueflowers started their set.  Below is their song "The Reason", recorded by my camera:

After the Blueflowers played their show, they were handing out posters.  I bought a copy of their new album (on the left) and they gave me a free Ether Aura CD (on the right) to go with it:

The time on the clock when we left the Belmont - 2:35 in the AM.

We made a quick stop at Mickey D's on the way back to Erin's place.  After all, it had been ~7 hours since I last ate.

The time on the clock when I finally got home - 3:18.  I really wasn't that tired for some reason, but I went to bed anyways:

Quite an eventful night.  I hope I have more chances to do this kind of thing!

The Proud new Owner

Short post today - just wanted to say that I bought some equipment so I have officially invested some money into drumming now. I bought an HQ RealFeel practice pad and some Vic Firth 5AN sticks to play on it. They are shown below:


Not surprisingly, the practice pad has WAY more rebound than my RB2 drum set. It's more like a real snare drum in terms of rebound. If I practice a little on the practice pad, then switch to RB, it's like I'm playing with lead sticks. I guess that means the practice pad is doing its job.

The sticks are also nice. They've got nylon tips, which I didn't mean to get (newbie mistake). They just feel great - they're really smooth and feel well balanced somehow.  I must say though, they're somewhat similar in terms of weight and balance to my RB1 sticks (which I still use for RB now). Good job by Harmonix picking good sticks for RB1.

Just as a last point - if you are thinking about learning to play the drums, get a practice pad! It's allowed me to practice much more often, especially since I don't own a full drum kit. You can watch a tv show and drum along with the sound track or just do some rudiments during commercials. It's great - I feel like I can practice a lot more now without putting too much effort into it.

Learning songs (part 2)

While playing Rock Band, you don't really have to learn songs. There are skills to learn (like fast drum rolls and using the bass pedal), and there are tricky parts of songs to learn (like complicated drum fills), but the notes scroll in front of you so you never have to memorize songs (that is, unless you're like this guy). It's a totally different story on a real kit. I am responsible for keeping the rhythm and memorizing my part of the song. Sort of. It's more like 3 parts memorization, 1 part improvization based on how I feel like playing the song at that given time.

At any rate, I do need to learn and memorize songs. I used to search for Guitar Pro files and practice the sheet music that was contained in the files. This method has some pros and cons.

Pros

You see the exact sheet music for the song.

Most of the files you find are good quality.

Cons

This is someone's interpretation of the song, and it is not necessarily perfect.

You may not be able to find a GP file for the song.

You have to own a working copy of Guitar Pro (eventually).

Occasionally I ran up against the second con - I was never able to find a good drum tab for Linger. Eventually I ran into the third con - my trial version ran out and I didn't have a spare $60 for a full version of GP. So what you see below is my current method of learning new songs:

My new approach now is to listen to a song a bunch of times on YouTube and take notes - what the drum part is for the intro, verses, chours, bridge, etc. I also tend to play along with the song in RB freestyle mode after I've heard it a few times. I think it's helped quite a bit. I'm supposed to learn Alone by Heart for next week, and after listening to it a few times and taking notes, I'm pretty confident that I could sit down at the kit and not totally screw it up. That's a good start, I think.

The cool thing about playing on a real kit is that you don't have to be perfect. There are certainly things you should try and get very good at - keeping a steady rhythm, playing your drums at a consistent volume, etc. Technical things. But when it comes to covering a song, you can tailor it to your own skills. For example, 99% of the audience probably isn't going to know if you did a single kick instead of a double kick during the chorus (unless you're famous or playing a really well-known song or something like that).

It depends on how hard the song is, my skill level, and how well I know the song, but in general I can just play a simplified version of a song and it sounds fine. It's almost like playing on Hard rather than Expert on RB, and I get to decide which notes to hit. It's a good way to start playing and start learning songs.

Sitting on the Throne

A lot has happened since the last post!  I've had the chance now to play on a real drum kit a couple of times, and it is amazing.  I'm in a band now (no name so far) and we're learning a couple of songs to play as covers.  The songs we've started playing so far are:

• Linger by The Cranberries
• Connection by Elastica
• Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie
• Down by the Water by PJ Harvey

So it's...I guess you could say early 90's pop music? It's not really my preferred style of music but at this point I'm just so happy to actually be playing that I don't care.  Besides, these are pretty simple drum songs, so it's nice to start off with something easy so I can get the hang of playing on a real kit.  I'd say the one that's the most fun so far is Connection.

Here is the drum set that I've been playing on:

As you can see, it's pretty standard except it has a ride cymbal where you normally see the middle tom and a second crash cymbal where you normally see the ride cymbal.  The previous post, "Getting Started", shows the standard setup for a basic drum kit.

Anyways, I've learned a couple of things so far.  First, playing Rock Band helps immensely when it comes to keeping a steady rhythm and limb coordination.  I was able to play songs with basic beats (like Soul Meets Body minus the intro and bridge) with no problem at all.  Second, there are some things that Rock Band doesn't teach you.  Left-foot usage (on the hi-hat pedal) is definitely something I have to work on.  Right-foot usage (on the kick drum) is much different, since the drum has a lot more rebound than I'm used to.  Playing "around the kit" (hitting a bunch of different drums/cymbals in rapid succession) is also more difficult since each piece is bigger and spread further apart.

However, I know that Rock Band has helped.  To quote Erica (my band's bass player), "I would not be totally embarassed to step up onstage and play those two [Connection and Down by the Water] live."  And that was after just the second time playing on a real kit!  I'm not trying to claim that I'm awesome or a prodigy or something, just that drumming in Rock Band actually does translate into real drumming.

Now that I've played on a real kit and am learning songs (more on that next time), I am starting to feel like a real drummer.  This is how I see the world now:

Getting Started

I've come to realize there's a slight problem when you want to learn how to play the drums - you have to have access to a drum set. Now this may seem pretty obvious, but the drums aren't like many other instruments. If you're learning to play the guitar, you can pretty easily just carry it around with you. You can play acoustic when you don't want to wake the neighbors. Keyboards are pretty similar in that regard. Drums are just obnoxiously large and loud - or as drummers would say, awesomely large and loud.

So the up and coming drummer has a few options-

1) You can get a real drum kit of your own. 

Probably something cheap; you don't want to invest too much money until you know that drumming is something you want to stick with (no pun intended). Problem: this requires you to not only have space for a drum kit, but also a sound barrier between you and your neighbors. I live in an apartment, so this option is out.

1-a) Buy a drum set and play / store it somewhere else. If you're in a band, this can work. You can play it in your bass player's garage or some kind of a practice studio. For someone like me who's just starting...not really a good option.

2) Buy an electronic kit. 

There are some pretty good ones out there, but most of the ones that I've seen are pretty expensive. For someone on a limited budget (like me, and let's be fair, 99% of all aspiring musicians), this doesn't really work.

3) Play somebody else's drum set. This is awesome if you have friends that are musicians. One of my coworkers, Erica, plays bass for a couple bands. One of her bands by the name of Ducksicle practices in her basement. What this means is that the vast majority of the time, there is an unused drum set in her basement. If you're anything like me (cheap), your first instinct is - "hey, can I play your drums when you're not?"

4) Practice at your local college / music school.  This has pros and cons.  Pros: Don't have to own your own equipment, teachers are available if you need help.  Cons: It's like leasing or renting anything - you pay money to use somebody else's equipment and don't end up owning anything at the end of it.  If I didn't have a drum set available to me, this is probably the route I would take (depending on how expensive time/lessons were).

5) If none of these work, you're kinda screwed. You can (and should) buy a practice pad, but this isn't a substitute for being able to play on a real kit.  Make some friends (this can be hard for a drummer), buy a house (hey, it's a buyer's market), do anything you have to do to be able to play on a real kit (ok, not anything).

So I followed my own advice and went with option #3.  It looks like I am going to get a chance to play a real drum set after all.  The problem is, I don't know any songs.  I mean sure, I've played In Bloom and Dani California in Rock Band so many times that I just about have the drum chart memorized, but that's not quite the same.  I actually have to learn songs so that I can play them without the notes scrolling down a screen in front of me.  This is uncharted territory (pun intended) .  

Learning songs

I've asked a few musicians that I know how they go about learning new songs. Not songs they wrote, but doing covers of pre-existing songs. Some good advice I got was to get a trial version of Guitar Pro (GP) and then try and find the GP files of your songs on Ultimate Guitar. It turns out that a lot of these GP files have the charts for the entire band, not just the guitar parts.  You'll often find songs with the drum parts included.  The problem here is that when the trial runs out, you either have to purchase the full version ($60) or give up on this method.  What I did was download a few GP files, open a song in GP on my laptop and play along with the song on Rock Band freestyle mode (insert your drum set / electronic kit / practice pad here instead of RB if you so choose).

So now I'm starting to learn songs, and pretty soon I'll have a chance to play them.  Things are looking up!

A Brief History of Time Signatures

Hi, my name is Aaron, and I'm a drummer.

(Support group: Hi Aaron)

I am going to make the transition from fake drummer to real drummer. Let me explain why this is significant. I didn't grow up with music. My high school was too small to have a band. I never really had any interest in music until college. I don't even own an MP3 player. So as you might imagine, it's a pretty big surprise to me that any of this happening.

A bit of background on how this all came about -

A friend of mine named Reuben got the video game Rock Band about a year ago. In case you live in a cave and haven't seen this game, it lets you play popular rock music on fake plastic instruments. The picture below is a Rock Band drum set:

So Reuben invited some friends (Anderbra, James, and me) over to his house and we all fell in love with it immediately. I played guitar a little (having played Guitar Hero in the past), but as soon as I played the drums, I knew that was my instrument. I quickly moved up to Medium and then Hard, then stalled out a bit. Eventually, I got the game myself and started drumming more often. I moved up to Expert and ending beating all of the songs. Soon, Rock Band 2 came out and I had more songs to satiate my passion for percussion (275 songs and counting!).

It wasn't just about the game, though. There were many times when I would watch Rush or Dream Theater on YouTube to see their phenomenal drummers in action. I was always drumming along with whatever was on the radio or in my head. Recently, I made the decision to try out the real thing. I would love to learn how to play the drums for real and someday join a band. This is the ongoing story of how I make the transition from fake drummer to real drummer. Hopefully it will be informative and entertaining, and maybe you'll get some laughs out of it.