Talk about a surprise! I never even imagined the phone call I received yesterday just over an hour after posting my last blog update. I had posted on my drumline's Facebook page my desire to start learning the tenor parts mostly out of curiosity even while realizing the massive hurdle this represented. But apparently Jacques, my instructor and the drumline's director, had other plans in mind. A second member was starting to skip rehearsals for personal reasons and Jacques needed to know what was up. It turned out that this guy, bass drum #5 player, would be getting busier and would be stuck missing more rehearsals and that his future in the drumline was iffy. Jacques asked him if he was alright with having me replace him on bass drum #5, and a few minutes after the positive answer I received The Phone Call.
It must've have sounded pretty weird to any by-standers as we immediately started looking at the bass drum parts and started speaking in the "tap-tagadap, tap-tagadap" universal language of drummers! So in the span of two hours I went from bracing myself for the ultimate drum learning challenge to a slightly lesser challenge but still oh so rewarding. Of course now being two months into the schedule I have some catching up to do. The next time we all meet the drumline will be learning its fourth tune, and this one will be brand new for everyone because it's off Nightwish's newest album "Imaginaerum" which wasn't out last year. But not wanting to lose any time and still giddy from the fresh news I got on my practice pad as soon as I got home from work; good thing I had previously printed every drumline section's parts! As I had posted before in video format the first tune I had to learn was "Dark Chest of Wonders", and re-learned it I did. In one short evening I was able to memorize pretty much all of it; not bad for my first night as a bass drum player :)
What was even more amazing though was the torrent of congrats and support e-mails I received from my drumline mates and also from the outside. As I'm writing these words I literally feel like a million bucks and although I will practice a lot on my own, I simply cannot wait for May 29th, which will be my first drumline rehearsal on my new "instrument"... yeah we're still waiting for our drums. But at least I know I will be playing the biggest one :))
Fly loud
o7
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