Nervousness and a little bit of fear hung on me as I walked into my very first drum lesson. I was a young 15 year old who had taken piano lessons for 7 years, but even those 7 years hadn’t prepared me for this new step out of my comfort zone. I liked the familiar, and I even thrived off of habit and consistency. But I’d known deep down inside for a long time that I really wanted to take drum lessons… one day… when I was older… when I was less scared of learning something totally new. One day I’d be more grown up and confident, able to take on a new challenge with ease and proudly join a band and be a great rock drummer. After all, that really had been my ultimate dream for a few years now. But now on this afternoon in May I found myself stumbling directly into this distant and even terrifying dream, and there was no turning back.

Armed with my SD1 drumsticks I’d purchased a few years before for a “junior drumline”...