I realised something very important: drummers need to learn to be comfortable playing on unfamiliar drum kits.
 
You can’t always take your own kit with you, especially when you’ve just started out and you’re playing support slots in dingy London bars.
 
Other people’s bass pedals are weird. Tall drummers have incredibly low seats. Some long-armed musicians have cymbal stands locked in place at a higher altitude than Mount Everest.
 
Before a gig, I would get really, really nervous. Not so much about getting on stage and playing in front of people, but nervous about what the equipment is going to be like.
I quickly learnt that you’ve just gotta suck it up and get on with it.There was one time where there were not enough stands for the amount of cymbals I use. I only had one crash where I would usually have two. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but because some of the songs were so engrained in my muscle memory, I tried to hit a non-existent cymbal on a few occasions during that gig!
 
I learnt to get over the fear of the unfamiliar drum kit by making myself play the same drum beats to my band’s songs on different parts of the kit. I would play the song using less cymbals and think about the pattern of drum fills rather than the actual drums that were being hit. That way I knew if all else failed, I could play them just on the snare and not put any other band members off.
 
Once I let go of having my cymbals in a certain place, and putting up with it if my seat was an inch lower than I usually had it, I realised I could get through any gig regardless.

Laura Barnes 
PD Student

It took me a while to pluck up the courage to throw myself under the bus in search of a band. I was fearful of replying to adverts looking for a drummer. I had that constant terror that I wouldn’t be good enough, that I was somehow a fake and would be found out… “Call yourself a Drummer!”

​Having a demanding full time job, a family and that Irish guy I mentioned! didn’t make it easy to fit drumming into my life but I guess when you love something you magically just make time.

I am currently a happy member of the noise pop outfit called Bedlam Motel.​We are constantly busy with emails, rehearsal times, gigs, carrying stuff, uploading recordings, reschedules, bookings, updating Facebook pages and endless debate about the name of our band. To some this may be a chore but to me it's all worth it.

​After a long hard day of work, the tiredness of dragging yourself, and in some cases your kit, to rehearsals or a gig may seem a chore but any misgivings soon disappear within minutes of immersing ourselves into the glorious racket we create. 

"About 15 minutes before the end we will do a rendition of one of our “old classics”. Songs are created out of these jams which we record and pour over and dissect over the following few days until next rehearsal when we might be ready to stitch it into something… or not!

​I look forward to my commute the morning after a rehearsal, where I can re-live the evening (including chats and comments but also all the mistakes and "bad beats"). Sometimes, it all comes together when I am about to reach the office entrance and then I have to walk once around the block to get a couple more minutes of joy before grown up life begins.  

We'd like to record and album but this takes time. There should be a couple of songs printed on tape this year.It still brings a smile to my face when I arrive at a rehearsal studio or a gig, or by simply walking in the street with the guys carrying guitars, and I think, I am not with the Band, I am IN the Band.

Aurea Garrido
Planet drum student

All of these artists have at one point used a specific rhythm pattern that is so identifiable you would recognise it even if you have never heard the original title song.
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At just 6 seconds long it is the most sampled rhythm in the history of drums.

The Winstons, below, were an American funk and soul band who were not very well known, (their drummer G.C. Coleman even more so) and they released a song in 1960 titled ‘Amen Brother’, listen below! Little did they know that a sample derived from the drum solo in this track would become the ‘Amen Break’ - the most sampled rhythm in the history of drums.

The Amen Break is a loop of 4 bars that was popularised by the drum sample album ‘Ultimate Break and Beats’ released in 1986 for the DJ population. Since the sample was created it has become a prominent feature in mainstream music, featuring in a host of famous songs such as; Oasis - ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’, Nine Inch Nails - ‘The Perfect Drug’, Slipknot - ‘Eyeless’ and Björk - ‘Crystalline’.

Blog post by Planet drum teacher, Sebastien Solsona

to be asked to supply the Planet Drum Studio with our Practice Drum Pads. Planet drum joins a long list of teaching studios in the UK that use our products. We have been manufacturing practice pads since 1973 and have supplied top drummers and teachers with our pads for over 40 years.

We use a special drum feel rubber which is very quiet and doesn't wear out. That's why every year schools and studios research other pads that are on the market but always come back for ours.They know our pads will give a lifetime of use. In fact it was only last week I saw one of our original pads that's over 30 years old and still being used on a daily basis.

We offer a full range of pads to include Button Pad/Mini Pad/Brush Pad/Snare Pad/Dual Knee Pad/Pads on stands and our highly successful full practice kits. We can simulate any drum kit arrangement into a practice kit format so you can practice drums at any time. No electronics to go wrong. No headphones.

Next time you are at Planet Drum check out our practice pads. It could be the best investment you will make in your drumming career.

For special prices, reference 'Planet drum' and contact me direct on wsanders@hotmail.co.uk Tel Mob: 07778 288783 or see our full range at:

www.practicedrumkits.co.uk

even if the rhythm is so abstract the drummer is the only dancer in the room.
While there are some instances where being the only dancer in the room makes (sort of) sense, free improv, ambient, or introducing rhythms that are exotic and whose kinetic potential takes time for the audience to understand, rhythm is at its most powerful when it is able to infect a room with a pulse that compels you to move.
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Notwithstanding the inertia-dictating set-up of most jazz venues today, jazz was created as dance music, not as music for chin-stroking-intellectuals, unwilling to even move to tap their feet.
As dance and music evolved from jazz into a myriad of styles, those who were firmly stuck to their seats took refuge in an academic approach to listening that froze their bodies even further.

It seems that some people have taken Beckett's line as confirmation that it's impossible to do both at the same time, a perfect excuse to not move and look down on dance music as self-evidently 'thoughtless'.
However, thought drives action, and in her book Unthought, Katherine Hayles describes how certain impulses bypass the mind to work directly on the body. Rhythm is one such impulse and can go straight from the source to your body. A stubborn insistence on filtering rhythm through the mind before it's allowed to twitch your muscles merely breaks the direct link between reality and experience; the synergy between performer and audience.
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The result of such broken synergy is often a room full of people gasping to understand what is happening on a stage where a band is too busy playing to themselves to notice they have an audience.