At one point in my life I was a real busy drummer. I was in a blues band, big band, and played regularly in the community concert band and symphony. When the kids came along adjustments needed to be made so I set aside the big band and the symphony. Then a couple of years later the blues band fell apart. There were many years where my only drumming was for the six week concert band season. Each year I could feel myself getting rustier and rustier and it was discouraging.
When I joined the church I'm currently at, I eventually got the opportunity to sit in on drums once a month or so, which was both helpful and sometimes more discouraging, in certain ways. Even after a couple years of that, and even considering I spent some time practicing at home when I could, I still felt rusty...Obviously there have been some big "ups" (the biggest being the first entry in this blog) but there have also been many "downs" along the way.
Late last summer, the main drummer at church took an extended leave of absence and I was called on to fill in. Let me just preface what I am about to say by saying that I would gladly trade every positive thing that has happened for him not needing to take that leave, but circumstances are what they are.
Playing every week has its challenges. But I do enjoy it and appreciate the opportunity to serve. Not surprisingly, doing this for a few months now has really helped in a lot of ways:
- I can feel the rust has pretty well kicked off.
- I now feel like I've gelled w/ the rest of the team. With multiple guitarists/bassists it can be hard to get in synch playing just once per month. Weekly helped me get there.
- Playing enough of this music I've "found" myself as a Christian music drummer. There are some nuances to worship playing that are slightly different than straight-up rock-n-roll, and I think I've picked the important ones up.
Now to how I see God working in this. Just as playing every Sunday was becoming too burdensome, a new family joined the church. Their 16 year old son is a drummer and in fact has come in to give me some relief. We now share the load 50/50 which is fine with me. After helping with the kids' ministry it gives me one week per month to just attend a single church service with no extra commitments, which is really nice.
The other interesting thing that has happened: my "phone" has been ringing off the hook. The big band I used to play with? Their very reliable drummer retired at the end of last year and so I will be playing with them again. I've also received calls about playing with the local Chorale (which I had to turn down) and to play in the pit band for the high school's musical (Grease, should be fun!). I would have been too afraid to take them on with the way I had been playing before, let alone the fact that I wasn't even getting the calls. That they came after the rust had been knocked off and during a time when I scaled back my commitments at church would be called "coincidence" by some. Not me though...
