I am a smart person. I know that. My friends know that. My employer knows that. And I am a pretty coordinated person. I mean, I can chew gum and walk at the same time. I can multi-task as well as anyone. I can balance home, work, motherhood, soccer games, writing, and my checkbook. Heck, I even played tennis in my younger days. So why shouldn't I be able to play an instrument?
Okay, when I was about nine years old, I took guitar lessons. They lasted nearly three years, and I don't remember a thing. I can no longer read music, and the best sound I can make on that old guitar is something akin to screeching tires. So maybe I should pick a different instrument at this later stage in my life. Let's see… Sax? No, I don't have the lungs for it. Piano? My arms are too short to reach across all 88 keys. How about the drums, I thought. How hard could that be? You listen to the music and just pound out a beat. Yeah, the drums. I can do that!
So, I get the drum set and start right in. The sound I heard was more like a bag of microwave popcorn gone wild! No rhyme or reason… just beating on those drums and cymbals. I then decided that it's time for some help, but at my age I couldn't take lessons. That would be an embarrassment. So I turned to the internet for assistance. I found some great instructions.
Step 1: Count the beat in fours: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. Put your right foot on the bass drum pedal and your left foot on the high hat pedal. Whoa! High hat pedal? What's a high hat? I know what a top hat is, but not sure about this high hat. Well, maybe it's a kind of cymbal. Let's go with that.
Step 2: Keep the high hat pedal pressed down while you play. Begin with the music playing and use only your right stick on the high hat. Hit the high hat once for every syllable in the chorus. Keep this steady rhythm throughout the song. Okay, one foot and one hand. And my foot doesn't have to move, just pressing the pedal down. Woohoo! I can play the… well, I can play the high hat.
Step 3: Add your bass drum pedal on beats 1 and 3 when you can keep a steady beat on the high hat. Add the snare drum to complete the beat. Okay, so now it's a little more complicated. Somehow I can't get my other foot to keep in time with the rest of me.
Step 4: Use your left stick on beats 2 and 4, which is when you might naturally clap to a song. Try playing your rhythm throughout an entire song without a missed beat. Are they insane? An entire song? My feet were moving like polar opposites. My sticks were beating out beats that no one could possibly sing along with, and the more I tried to add in a snare drum, the more I seemed to get tangled up in myself. Is this drumming or Twister?!
So once again I give up on an instrument. The drums are definitely too complicated for me. I will leave it to the talented and coordinated men and women who wow me at concerts. They make it look so easy and so fluid, but I know first hand that drum playing is way too confusing for me!
-Bonnie Schendell
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