So Sam Ash has these drum offs every monday that end in an elimination final round where they give away some pretty nice prizes at the 3rd week of the month. Anywho I've really been wanting to jam and see how i place, its pretty casual, nothing like the GC Drum Off. I'm not huge into the whole competing thing but I really love playing for people and seeing what others are doing.
Finally I'm home from Oxnard for three weeks starting on the 1st so I went today to compete. I was a bit nervous because I had absolutley nothing planned and had not practiced. I'm not a person who concerns himself with solo'ing so I really have no default plan for solo'ing.
I got started today just trying to give myself an hour or two to plan something, I thought about using what I used last year for the GC drum off but decided to just start out with mozambique which i can play variations of in my sleep and then move into a shuffle type feel then play some grooves. The drum off was at 7:30 tonight so I felt really under prepared.
As I expected when I arrived there wern't many competitors only three, one little kid who was barley off the ground with his playing and a girl who played in a heavy church style, she really kicked ass and could skate a pedal like no ones business. She had alot of good ideas and I really dug her style, but I felt like I was on her level and in some areas of playing was more together.
As i sat down on the drums everything started how I wanted it...then it all fell apart...it was SOOOO embarassing. First I missed my hi hat splashes under mozambique, then i missed turning on the strainer, then I missed my grooves and then my triplet fills had no volume. I was contemplating just getting up, appologizing and forfiting but I ended up just ending it on a crash.
To my surprise the workers who were juding were having a hard time choosing and had some nice things to say about my playing. I told them "you know who you should pick that girl deserves to take it", so she was announced winner and they told me I could compete again next monday.
It was like I mentally digressed 3 years in my playing, I totally choked. I don't choke when I'm working with other musicians. I hope I can do better next monday.
Another thing I noticed was i got to play on the size of drums I've really been interested in getting in the future (8",10",14",16"). I try to never blame the equipment i'm using for my poor playing but tonight I really felt the sizes of the drums threw me off a bit. I really thought I wanted to get into playing smaller drums but quite honestly I found it very hard to get a impressive and full tone and volume out of them, let alone how much harder it was to hit them. It was a beautiful kit though, a used champange sparkle kit supposedly owned by Chad Smith. Guess I'll stick to bigger drums.

Here's your key to success next time. Plan something way ahead and practice it ALOT.

Thanks guys, I do feel I handled it appropriately, shook everyones hand and was really happy that girl won, she deserved it. I think it was the nerves to a certain extent but what was scary was i couldn't even play a decent mozambique which is something I can do anywhere usually, its really my go to groove. I had like four months of practice for the GC drum off and I got totally nervous and played too loud but in the end I hit everything I wanted to do and made it through. I'd like to play quieter but i always play too loud.

Thers always the guitar center drum off in sept/oct, find a guitar center near you and start practicing your routine.

Hey man-sometimes regardless of how much prep we put into something-it just doesnt pan out!  Sometimes, we can get away with playing really great-w/o ANY preparation and diving in head first.  But its cool-sounds like you arent trippin' about it.  Go blow 'em away next time man-

And you are a good man for giving it to the girl and admitting that she beat you!!!!  Now thats really cool

This totally reminds me of when I used to do theater. I was fine when I was in a play, never screwed up a line in 25 shows, but a couple times a year our college theater group had a night of scenes where everybody'd do a couple or three scenes on stage, and I screwed up every time.

Yanking a piece out of a play and trying to give it life on its own is HARD. I'm thinking this solo competition might be the same kind of thing.