Drums!!!

Gabriel is changing drum teachers.  We got a little fed up with Mr. Weldon at the music store because he was trying to work two jobs AND was flying to New Jersey every two or three weeks to perform.  We were stood up completely two lessons in a row with no phone call or anything.  Not acceptable.  Plus I didn't like that Mr. Weldon refused to listen to, talk about, or teach any type of music other than rock. And he never really wanted to take time to teach Gabriel to read drum notes on a page.

 

Very young Gabriel playing a practice drum.

So we switched to a place called Stage Notes which had been recommended to me by Joel's teacher from last year.  They teach piano, voice, guitar, violin, and drums.  It was a bit of a scramble to find someone to teach him drums, and when I saw the teacher looked like a 20 year old college student I had my doubts.  As it turned out, Miss Kristen was great at teaching Gabriel the beginning steps towards reading notes.  He had a book, and he practiced the songs she assigned, which were basically just rhythms repeated over and over.  The thing is, he didn't even touch a drum until the third lesson.  And only to play the songs from the lesson.  She never even bothered to see what he could already do.  When she came out and told Jav that she wanted Gabriel to practice on his legs with his hands instead of his drums until he got a little further along, that was the last straw.  We started putting feelers out to find a new local teacher who would both teach him to read music and let him play like crazy if he wanted to.  How else are you going to keep a six-year-old engaged and excited?  Sheesh.  There HAD to be a happy medium.

One of the people we asked was my brother's best friend from high school, James.  He is a drummer in a band, and had taught me guitar lessons for six months when Jav and I first started dating.  I didn't think he taught any more because he has a 5-year-old daughter now.  But the words I had been hoping to read came in the email, "Well, I'd love to teach him if ya'll are game for it."  I did the happy dance around the house for about 10 minutes.  James is a wonderful person, VERY funny, and super talented.

G with his first drum kit.

When we got to his house last week, Mr. James just wanted Gabriel to play for him so he could see where his skill level was.  I think he was pretty impressed.  It's something that has always come easily to G.  And I know Gabriel is going to love learning from Mr. James.  He has a full-size recording studio in one of the rooms of his house, a rack of guitars, and a brand new HUGE drum kit that he had just put together himself.  He does all of the music for the church where Gabriel went to and Joel currently goes to preschool.  I think his official title is "Technical Director".  Of course, all of his work there keeps him busy, and sometimes unexpected things come up.  Yesterday was supposed to be G's official first lesson, and Mr. James had to cancel on us.

BUT, already things are moving forward.  Mr. James had mentioned about wanting Gabriel to learn the Standard Drum Rudiments, which caused a big cartoonish question mark to appear over our heads (meaning that Mr. Weldon never even mentioned them).  James said they are the kind of thing that band directors eat up, and would be useful to Gabriel all through school for Stage Band and the like. So I looked them up and discovered they are 26 standard beats that every drummer should know.  I printed the first 13 out, and showed not only the printed page but a demo someone did on You Tube to Gabriel.  He was inspired to go and practice for about 45 minutes today!

We took a trip to Guitar Center last Sunday to get some new drumsticks for G.  We looked at guitars first, and the boy was practically drooling.  He wanted to hold several different electric ones, a mandolin, a ukulele, a dobro (kind of a steel guitar), and on and on and on.  When we got to the drum room, there was a set in the middle of the room that a guy was playing who was VERY good.  After he got done, I asked Gabriel if he wanted to play, not really expecting him to.  He said, "Sure!"  We got some demo sticks and Gabriel started playing.  The store clerk rushed over and said we had to switch to brushes, because he had no idea Gabriel was going to play them so hard.  The group who was with the original drummer formed a little crowd and wanted to know how old G was, and were all saying he was good.  Then more and more people started coming into the room and looking at each other.  He just kept playing and smiling.  I told Jav later that night that it was my favorite moment of that day.   G played in front of an audience with such confidence!  I was NOT like that at his age.  I was so shy and convinced that I wasn't good at anything.    I was really, really proud of G for knowing he is good at something and enjoying himself doing it.  And we gave ourselves a little pat on our backs too.  A small parenting success!

Music is always playing in this house.  When the boys were younger, if they had any spare time before going somewhere they used to ask if they could play with their little cars.  Now they ask if they can listen to music or play drums.  Both of them, two or three times a day.  And I almost always say "Yes".  When they become famous, and they're being interviewed because their band has had 12 top ten singles in a row, and the interviewer asks the wonder brothers the question, "When did you know you wanted to be musicians?", I can't wait to hear the answer:  "Growing up, from the time we were very small, our house was always filled with music."