Today marks my 6th year anniversary playing drums! I started at the ripe ol’ age of 33 and I’m still going at the intermediate level. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re too old to start something new (unless it’s your career in hockey, you might be too old for that sorry).
When I started learning people would tell me “it’s not about how many songs you know,” which is totally true. It’s a lot more about coordinating your limbs and having a good memory. You have to be able to repeat things and count measures and remember when stuff switches up, and also what it switches up to, and move your body accordingly. I’m usually good with the moving my body part, but not so great with memory. Or practicing.
Even though it’s not about how many songs you know, I’m still going to try to list out all the songs I’ve learned in order. Unless otherwise noted, my drum teacher sounded out or wrote out the songs for me, then used them in our lessons to help teach me techniques and show me how to practice to perfect those pieces.
- The Cranberries – Zombie: First song I ever learned (during drum lessons), it was probably above my level at that point but it pushed me and that helped a lot. I still can’t play this at speed, it’s exhausting.
- Metallica – Nothing Else Matters: First song I sounded out on my own, it took a few weeks of intense focus and now I have it imprinted on my brain.
- Brand New – Can’t Get it Out: First song I learned by watching someone else play it on YouTube.
- La Dispute – Such Small Hands / Nobody Not Even the Rain: Combination of these two songs. I can still play it but only with music in front of me.
- The Flaming Lips – Bad Days: I can play it at about 75% of the speed! If I practiced more often and practiced this song a lot I would probably an EXCELLENT drummer now, but I never practice, so I’m at the same speed I was at 2 years ago.
- Converge – Under Duress: I can play most of it at 75% of speed but really need to work on a few of the more complex bits.
- Jeff Rosenstock – All This Useless Energy: This one is so much fun, and I can play the full song at 75% and most of it at full speed. I used to use this song to warm up and during that time period in my life I was really good at drumming.
- The B52s – Love Shack: I learned this to play in a live band for one of my friend’s weddings! This song was my first performance. I did pretty well. I’ve since completely forgotten this song, though I could probably play it again with the music in front of me.
- Filter – Hey Man Nice Shot: I downloaded this one from somewhere, learned all I could on my own, then brought the rest (mostly the fills) into lesson to workshop. I can play this one at full speed but only with the music in front of me.
- Toadies – Possum Kingdom: I downloaded this one from somewhere, but we went through it in lessons to learn it. The sheet music is something like 32 pages long because of the way it was spaced out, which is impossible to handle while you’re playing something. Four pages is hard enough to deal with. By necessity, I memorized this one — and my teacher used this as an opportunity to show me how to chunk musical phrases and remember what order they go in. It didn’t fix my memory but it did help me understand how I could be thriving.
- The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army: This is a really easy one I learned recently to use as an alignment exercise while I’m warming up.
Songs I started learning and may still some day finish:
- Stick to Your Guns – The Suspend
- Converge – Empty on the Inside
- Citizen – The Night I Drove Alone
- Metallica – My Friend of Misery
- Nine Inch Nails – Every Day is Exactly the Same