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Illustration by Drew Shannon
“You want to learn the what now?” my husband asked.
“The drums. I want to learn the drums,” I replied.
He was speechless, understandably. Because in our 35 years of marriage, I’ve shown almost no interest in music, other than occasionally saying, “Can you turn that racket down?”
But I’ve spent my career working on variety television shows like The Grammys and The Voice and somehow that made me “drum curious.” I would walk by a drum kit backstage and feel this inexplicable pull to start banging away.
I saw recent research that said playing music can preserve cognitive function, so with the kids grown and my work slow I finally signed up for a free drum lesson. Immediately I became anxious about it, so I made up a backstory. I was a writer researching for a character in a book.
The sight of my teacher only worsened my nerves. He was a 20ish musician type who ambled in 30 seconds before my 3 p.m. class looking like he had just gotten out of bed. But he surprised me with his enthusiasm. “We get people of all ages,” he insisted. I ditched my cover story and admitted, I just wanted to play the drums.
He taught me the individual drum names, how to hold the sticks and how to count beats. Then it was time to attempt a rhythm. “You’re going to hit the hi-hat with your right hand and use your right foot to hit the kick drum, then the right hits just the hi-hat, then the left hits the snare while the right hits the hi-hat and then…”
Easy there! I anticipated that drumming would be physically demanding, but had no idea the levels of co-ordination required. For someone who was never good at sports or dance or even walking, this would be a challenge.
I tried to do a simple combo of hitting the hi-hat (the two cymbals) together with the kick drum on the first of four beats, but kept messing up. I would complete one bar okay, but then botch the second. It was frustrating. I toyed with running from the room while screaming, “This was all a terrible mistake!”
But my teacher smiled patiently, though likely inwardly he was questioning his life choices. “I got an MFA for this?”
Finally, I drummed a few bars correctly. “Good!” he said, with the enthusiasm of a proud parent when their toddler finally puts the right piece in the shape sorter toy.
As I drummed a basic rhythm, I started to lean into it a bit. It was fun! But then I got self-conscious. How silly, a woman my age trying to learn the drums. The more self-aware I was, the more I messed up. At the end of class, he said I did great and added that I could now jam along to any AC/DC song. It was not really a goal, but okay.
I left the class feeling happy. I wasn’t delusional. I had no fantasy of one day sitting in with the Foo Fighters. At least, not this year. But I liked drumming, so I signed up for more. Then realized I would need a drum kit of my own. Luckily a friend’s nine-year-old had just listed his electronic drums for sale. We arranged for a handoff after his little league game.
For my first paid class, I was paired with a new teacher. I spotted her in the lobby chasing after a student scolding, “Drumsticks are not weapons!” I took note.
She had me focus on the rudiments, or patterns of hitting the sticks on a pad at various tempos, then quizzed me on the names of the drums. For my knowledge I got a sticker! That night she sent an e-mail detailing what I had learned. It was obviously a progress report meant for a parent, but I didn’t care because she wrote that I had a natural sense of rhythm, a revelation that made me downright giddy.
Eager to advance, I watched online drum videos at home. Below the lesson links, I found dozens of comments echoing a similar sentiment: I’m 57/62/65 and learning the drums for the first time. I was surprised that I was not alone in trying this. But perhaps they were, like me, eager to prove that we can still learn things, that we’re still alive, that we can still make noise.
Also, as much fun as I was having, it was hard to shake the feeling that the lessons were a bit of an indulgence, especially after a lifetime of denying myself frivolous things. Music, dance and art classes were for my children, not me. Knowing that others my age were taking classes suddenly made it feel more okay.
At my latest class, I hit patterns of quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes … and got two more stickers! My teacher said she was proud of me. I surprised myself by replying that I was proud of me, too.
Then I went home and practised more. Because you never know when Dave Grohl might call, needing someone to stand in for him for a few songs. I wonder if the Foo Fighters give out stickers?
Kristen Hansen Brakeman lives in La Canada, Calif.