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Summary: Learn what to take to your first gig as a drummer in this free online music lesson on drumming for beginners.
Views: 730 | Tags: beginner, drums, drum, play, beginning, basics, instruction, drumming, musiclessons
About the Expert
Mike Schminke Mike Schminke has been playing the drums for over 14 years. A former member of the Blue Island Tribe, Mike now plays in the Bobby St. Vincent Project in Los A... read more
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Questions & AnswersAlright, so you've practiced, found a band. And now let's move on to your first gig. Okay, so you have a first gig. What do you want to bring? Okay, first of all bring more than one pair of sticks because you may never think you're going to break a stick but playing live, anything can happen. And I know I've broken enough sticks to learn my lesson a couple times over. So definitely bring more than one pair of sticks. I, whenever I play a gig, I bring at least four pair of brand new sticks. Because I've actually been in a show where I played hard enough to break all three pair that I brought, and I just didn't have sticks. So we had to cut the show short. So definitely bring a lot of sticks. Second of all, you want to bring some kind of drum tool. You can bring just a regular key, like this for tuning and for working your hardware, like your footwear, foot pedals and your high hat and things like that. Cymbal stands, so you can bring a regular key or you can bring your drum tool, which I really highly recommend. This has the regular allen head drum key for tuning, and it's also got a Phillip?s screwdriver, standard screwdriver and there's also got all these allen heads. Just for various things on a drum set. So it's just a really good tool to have. I mean even for other band mates, if they need something, you'll, all of you all will have this gig tool. So it comes in handy a lot. More than you would actually think. Also when you're playing, a problem that I've run into is when I'm playing, I'm kind of a hard hitter. So I play pretty tough. I kick the kick pedal and my kit tends to move away from me. Even if it's on a rug, so what I've done, I don't have it here with me, but I have. First of all you always want to have a drum rug. Because some venues may just be a wooden floor, so you want to have a drum rug. Because a lot of drum sets might actually scrape the floor and people aren't going to like that too much. So have a drum rug. But second of all, what I do, is I take a two by four block, maybe it's six inches across, and I'll nail that to the end of the rug so it stops my kick from getting away from me too much. And that's a lifesaver because during a song, if your drum set is escaping from you, obviously that's going to be tough to deal with, without having to stop the song and just ruin the energy of the show. And another thing that I bring to show is, I been playing for about fourteen years now, so I get arthritis sometimes in my wrists if I play more than two or three gigs in a row. So what you don't want to do is take aspirin. Because aspirin is a lot harder like on your liver and things like that. And if you're going to be drinking, you know the two just don't mix. It's a horrible combination. So what I would do is I take ibuprofen, because it really reduces the swelling in your wrists and for arthritis and things like that. If you're going to be taking ibuprofen, also watch the drinking, and drink a lot of water. And which actually gets me into my last part about gigging, is a lot of times alcohol is free. Which is cool, but really watch how much you drink because while you might think you're playing like a rock star, the people that are sober are hearing what's actually happening and it's not good. And it's not on beat, which is the drummer's number one thing. Is to stay on beat, and hold the rest of the band up. Because once the drummer gets off, the rest of the band has no one to follow. So your number one priority is to stay on tempo all the time. And drinking definitely does not help that at all.
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