Beans in my Drumsticks

Really, I think there are jumping beans in the tips of my drumsticks; they won't stay still! I'm in a brass and percussion methods class that meets four days a week, essentially two days brass and two days percussion. Anyhow, we're working on rudiments and sticking right now, having gone through all the pitched percussion instruments in, oh, a week, and there's never a time where I don't want to play. That is to say, I always want to do something! Sound like any percussionists you know? Sound like your whole percussion section?

Anecdote : I taught a day of percussion this summer because we were down a teacher. They were playing wipe-out, and I was trying to get them to understand that if they practice the solo slowly, they'll be better when they speed up. You can imagine how a bunch of 6th-graders took that. :)

The funny thing is, though, my whole class is like this. Even in brass methods, these fine college musicians lost all sense of basic things like rhythm when they got a trumpet in their hands. It was like we were all 5th-graders again.

This has really got me thinking about how much we criticize our beginning students for doing things out of turn or for making annoying noises; the fact of the matter is this : it's a lot of fun to make new noises, whether you're 10 or 100. I know that it's a matter of courtesy for people around you and for the general good of the order that we restrain ourselves, but gol, it's fun to just play around.

I'll write more about this insane semester when I get a chance.
Peace out,
-Greg