DRUMMER CAFE - Community Forum

so i'm sitting here in biology class and we're reviewing karyotypes(for the THIRD time, booooooring).  so i start up a simple beat tapping my right hand on my laptop for a hihat, my left hand on the desk for a snare, and my heavily booted feet on the floor for bass... now i'm layin down this simple beat and everyone around me starts looking incredibly amazed, but that's not the point, does anyone practice like this? it's helped me alot.

 all the time :), at school at home, wherever.  its like ive got ADD or something and i cant stop moving ;D

You sure it wasn't your makeup they were staring at?

They were probably trying to concentrate...wait, what was I thinking, this is hs right?

The Doc Martin kick drum... cool. Of course, over here on the West coast we have the very popular Birkinstock kick drum. Do you have piercings? You could shake your whole body in time and sound like a tambourine. That'll make you more popular in school too.

You know, a biology book is great for band names. Start a goth band called Golgi Apparatus and the Cytoplasmatics.

Sure, I used to drum in class, though I don't recommend it.  I brought my practice pad and sticks to school almost every day, and I liked the practice time it afforded during passing time, lunch, etc.  Sometimes the pad would come out during class when it was free time, so to speak, and most people generally didn't mind the soft tapping.  Drumset technique was practiced at a minimum because I was mainly worried about my hands at this point in time, and half the time I was in high school I didn't own a kit anyway.  And never did I practice while a lecture was being given.

It's kind of a drummersfreak - syndrome, ticking on everything :) People find it irritating in my class and said in must "@$%# stop and buy a drumkit or something".

And what's this now, you've got a laptop in high school?!  I missed the digital age by this much (holds fingers a hairbreadth apart), I'm telling ya....

Well, I should add that I wasn't alone in my desktop drumming endevours.  Some less coordinated kids, to accompany their R&B-style singing, would pound out the rhythm using the side of their fist for the bass drum, and knock on the table for that cross-stick/piccolo snare sound (which is it, anyway?).

I would have replied earlier, but I was still in the 2nd chorus of my beat when i finished reading this thread.    :D

(bear with me, this is on topic) at work i spend a fair amount of time just checking through hundreds (sometimes thousands) of images making sure they are good enough to go on our site.  i use a thumbnail previewer called acdsee.  and what i do is just use the down arrow key to select through a big batch of files which are then brought up in a prevew window as the file is selected.  (heres the connection) i often pick my music according to what im working on.  this one vendor sends us thousands of small easy to load images that are pretty much all good.  so i can click through 'em pretty fast.  put on some slayer and go to town.  my index finger plays the down arrow key as a kick drum, etc.  makes the work more entertaining.  not really much good as practice though  ;D

Hey, if you have technique, anything can be practice.

^{Musical context practice, that is.....}

Yeh, I used to do most of my "school" drumming in detention.  LOL.

THis is a VERY common thing for me. I actually have ADD and I can never concentrate on anything EXCEPT drumming. I gotta take 3 different pills to keep me normal!!!  All the teachers in my school know me for doing this and my current teachers have to tell me to stop air drumming or drumming on my desk or doing foot rudiments like 3 or 4 times a class. ANd i've gotten plenty of detentions because of it!!! it's pretty funny. DRumming is the only thing that keeps me going through the day! THat and women!!!
I guess i'm just a freak!!!

You guys are funny.  Thanks for the laughs.

I do the whole tapping and foot thing all the time.  I can't go a day without doing it.  :)

Tom

i also have ADD!  no piercings...sorry guys.  ummm i wasn't wearing any makeup that day felix!!!

2 things come to mind:
 1- I went from a period of time without my kit/snare/anything without being able to play even a moderatly fast shuffle beat.  Spent a lot of time working this out on the steering wheel of my car, desktops, table tops, thighs, chest, what have you.  When I got back to the point where I had access to my drums again- I sat down and was able to do it like I'd never been without that ability.  Don't know why it translated from tabletop to hihat /bass/snare so easily BUT it DID.

 2-  As time goes by, its not the things you practice on that change... its the people you annoy in the process.
Put another way- my wife, Kristi, before meeting me had sworn she'd never marry a guy with 3 specific traits:
   A- Never Marry a guy named Mike (HA!)
   B- Never marry a teacher (I'm currently not employed as a teacher, but when we met I was getting my degree in secondary education and taught for several years before switching to medical technology)
   C- And probably most emphatically NEVER was going to marry a drummer  (God laughs)
So its no longer my parents who are annoyed- its the little woman and occasionally my youngest son- as I tune a drum in front of the TV while his show is on- Oh yeah- the oldest son- 6th grade- he's started drums in school (and at home) this year.  He's not even been at it a whole year and he's already discovered the table tops, etc.   Sorry Kristi- but NEVER say "never" ;D

I sometimes practice songs on my way to a gig on the dash of my car, or steering wheel, it really helps me keep the parts in my head, especially if I'm covering for someone and don't fully remember the songs.

i do that a lot... but people always tell me to shut up :'(
then i go cry in the corner of the room

In the elementary school where I teach, the 5th and 6th grade students are provided with laptops in language arts classes.  
Also...they have just implemented a new program that provides laptops for the special education students to sign out to take home.
When I was in school we had to buy our own notebooks.  :(  (and walk miles barefoot... ;) )

i'm in henrico county and.... apple*shudder*. stupid ibooks!  they break at least weekly.  they need to take them all back and get rid of them.