I honestly cannot remember when or how I started playing the drums and why I love music so much. There’s no definite starting point pierced along a specific timeline. The exact age that I began hitting on stationary objects is a vapour to me.
One thing I do recall. There was often conflict at the dinner table.
There were three boys in my family. We were all four years apart, which certainly could not have been easy for my mother. Nonstop boys. She had my older brother when she was only sixteen years old and then inexplicably had two more children. Me, then my younger brother four years after.
Having birthed three boys without a daughter ever arriving, my Mom resigned herself to a portfolio of boys and vociferously issued a stop order to my father. She could see that the timeline for all three boys being jettisoned from the family home was way out into the future and chose not to risk a fourth infant arriving with a penis.
Supper time required mandatory attendance
In my 1960’s neighborhood, it was common for many mothers to be at home to raise their kids. My mother had gone to the effort of preparing something to fill our bellies, so supper time required mandatory attendance in our house. We could not be absent. This was my father’s decree.
To get us to the dinner table, we were all summoned either by my Mom’s relatively pleasant call or my father’s bellow. Quickly we would shuffle our little bodies into the kitchen and report to our allotted feed stations around the table.
Appropriate manners were expected at our dinner table in deference to the upbringing my father had received from his mother and there were zero exceptions regardless of cuteness or illness.
Drumming during dinner was certainly not acceptable
Naturally, tapping or drumming on the table edge during dinner was not acceptable. Humming and singing were not appreciated or encouraged. Grooving to a melody in your head while swaying to and fro could possibly get you killed.
Punishment for any such behavior came quickly with a verbal warning and if ignored, a butter knife becoming acquainted with your knuckles. The resultant sting was considerable.
I couldn’t help myself
With the gravity of my father’s retribution always a spectre, I cannot fathom why I would consider tapping my fingers on the edge of his dinner table. Yet I couldn’t help myself. Even upon receiving the dreaded “butter knife awakening” I would soon find myself alternatively shuffling my feet to some sort of rhythm until I felt an intense stare on my temple like a hot, angry sun refracting through a magnifier. Uh oh. Dad.
My parents realized how much I loved to drum by what I was willing to risk at the dinner table. So they empowered me with lessons and uninterrupted practice time. That is love.
Fast forward decades later, years removed from the fondly remembered family dinner table, the stinging butter knife and stern looks from parents and my ardent affection for playing the drums and the power of music still grows.
Where did it start for you? What are you so passionate about that you can’t wait to get at it again and even risk punishment to do?
Go ahead and begin. You’re older now. No knuckles will get thwacked.
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