When I first started playing drums with other people early in high school, one thing terrified me most and caused a great deal of anxiety every time I had to do it.

The count off.

Whether this was a “pshhh pshhh pshhh pshhh” on the hihats or a “ting ting ting ting” on the ride, nailing the count off for a song was an important necessity. (After all, you screw this up and the whole band’s gonna fall apart, right?)

I first started playing drums with the high school worship band at my church when I had just begun my junior year. This was the first time I’d ever really played drums with people, and this was especially the first time I’d played in front of a crowd. I’d been playing piano recitals and concerts as a kid since 3rd grade, but playing drums was an entirely different beast. It was way out of my comfort zone when I first started.

One Sunday morning, probably just a month or two into my drumming-in-public debut, I had to count...

This is one of those short, simple, yet catastrophic stories I bet many of you can relate to. I was on a gig one time where soundcheck went smoothly, rehearsal went great…then the unthinkable happened just before showtime. The "psychological trauma" (spoken mostly in jest!) reminded me of something really important we always need to remember as drummers.

I was playing this particular night with some folks I always enjoyed playing with. We were set up in a fairly large venue on a big stage, and we were all using in-ear monitors. The front of the drum set was covered by the typical clear, heavy drum shield that prevents cymbal bleed into vocal mics. We were fairly spread out across the stage, and guitar amps were in iso-boxes offstage on either wing. Bass was running direct to the house, as were keys and all vocals. Maybe you can guess why I’m telling you all of this…

Rehearsal was a blast, and we played through all the songs for the night. We even...

Whether we realize it or not, we all form expectations around everything. We may not consciously think about it, but our mind has already decided in advance how we think something will go. Then after the event is over, our perception of “how it went” isn’t so much about how it actually went. It’s more about “were our expectations met?” This is totally true with gigs.

A few years ago I was called last-minute for a gig with some people I’d never met. This was going to be a simple three-piece setup with just drums, bass, and electric guitar - plus a singer. I was booked for the gig two days in advance, but I didn’t know the setlist until a few hours before. As I listened through the songs, I discovered that the opening tune was an original by this artist. Great…I’ve got an hour to learn and perfect a song that happens to be an original. Better not mess this up…

The bass player was the one person in the...

This is a story I bet many of you can relate to. Have you ever had one of those "not-all-that-you-expected," "almost-lame," "less-epic-that-it-should’ve-been" kind of gig? This exact scenario happened to me recently, but the sleepy, less-than-epic night was redeemed by something unexpected at the very end of the show.

On a rainy, winter night in Georgia, I was playing a cover gig with three other musicians. We were playing for three hours at a nearby restaurant that’s often packed with a late dinner crowd (who are often generous with their tips for the band). The thought of a bustling crowd tossing twenties and fifties into the jar is always exciting. Unfortunately, someone had forgotten to bring the container we normally used for tips. That was a little discouraging, but we started playing anyways, hoping to maybe rig something before the second set.

We soon realized, however, that our lack of a tip jar didn’t matter anyway. There was hardly anyone in the...

I played a gig about a year ago that really tested my inner “type-A,” “always-well-prepared-in-advance” habit. Now that’s a great habit to have as a musician, but every once and a while a gig comes around that offers you no opportunity to prepare. And you never no what additional challenges might come into play on top of that.

It was Thursday afternoon, and I was literally sitting at my computer waiting for an email or text with the set for the gig (which was scheduled to happen in about 3 hours). A fellow musician had called me about a week before for this one-off special-event sort of gig. I really didn’t know who I was playing with, and I didn’t even know much about the event itself. I just trusted the guy I knew who connected me with this particular event.

Sure enough, the evening rolled around with no communication from the bandleader or singer. I showed up extra early in hopes that maybe there’d be some charts on the music stand...

When I was in high school, I played a battle of the bands at a friend’s school. What never occurred to me until the middle of the show was that I had forgotten the most essential piece of gear that a drummer could have. Not the snare, not the bass drum pedal...not even the cymbals. More important than that.

We loaded in that Friday night, hauling in the black and gold Gretsch drumset from the church where my friend and I both played. This was a pretty nice kit, and though more suited for jazz, it held up just fine for Sunday mornings (and the occasional battle of the bands at a nearby high school). In addition to the sleek drumset, we had a whole stack of the ZBT “rock” cymbals ready to go. I could always count on those cymbals to make enough noise. But as a precaution, we also borrowed the large, folding drum shield from the church as well. Hopefully that would win the battle with the ZBT rocks.

Myself, my friend (who played bass in the high school worship...

In my 12 years of playing the drums, I’ve had to work on a lot of things. Whether it was technique, coordination, timing, or any of those essential basics, I’ve had to do lots of practicing.

But when I started to go beyond those things and ask questions like “what’s the key to recording well?” or “what’s the key to playing the right parts?”, simply practicing was no longer the answer. This is where some additional strategies had to come into play...

The thing that helped me grow the most musically as a drummer was hearing recordings of myself playing with a band. The first time I ever heard such a recording of myself, I instantly knew everything I was doing wrong. I was hearing sections in a song where I knew that groove wasn’t quite right, that fill wasn’t the best fill, and I shouldn’t have gone to open hats at that spot in the song yet. More importantly, I was hearing what I sounded like in...