Percussionese

Last year, I discovered a new and wonderful language, "Asianese". Asianese refers to the way one of my guard girls, Asia, speaks. Well, this year I have been introduced to a new language: "percussionese". I am learning how to play the snare drum and our percussion staff and students are trying to teach me different "rudiments", which all have hilarious and ridiculous names. Just listen to some of them: paradiddle, flam, flamacue, pataflafla, swiss army triplet, ratamacue, and paradiddle-diddle. I mean, really? How can you be a grown up saying things like "Get set for the pataflafla exercise"?! And I thought percussionists were tough. ;-)

So, with lots of help from Keith, David, and our snare player, I have learned the extreme basics of playing snare. I've gotten some extra practice with the tips, videos, and audio files at www.vicfirth.com. It's been nice to be able to practice at home with the practice pad and sticks that Keith is letting me borrow. I don't know that I'm getting a whole lot better, but I'm having fun! I do have a very specific goal in mind for measuring my success, so that will be helpful in keeping my "eye on the prize", but only time can tell if I'll be able to keep up (or if my stinkin' left arm will hold me back)! Keep Brad's sanity in mind: he is having to listen to my incessant tapping as well as my frustrated complaints! But, he's being such a trooper (and spending quite a bit of time in his shop for some reason).