The Seven Pictures that were added to my Picture Collection 1124 Days Ago

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From a RPM rehearsal

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From a devastating Iowa mens basketball game loss

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LAMB OF GOD!!!

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Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil

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My Life in One Picture

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Vinnie Moore Discussion

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A Year Ago

I posted the following screenshot on 12-29-2021 in response to a question about if there were any drummers who like playing simple songs. I wrote the following in response:

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This is the video referenced in the screenshot above.

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https://youtu.be/ NYFNcUdhrgQ

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Today, a year later, it is Bad Rumor Gig Eve #2 or BRGE2. Tomorrow night, I will take my drums to Checkers in Cedar Rapids for our second gig - we play from 7 - 10.

Decision Day: Could I Commit for 30 Days to Improve my Drumming

 https://prhmusic.blogspot.com/2022/08/could-i-commit-for-30-days-to-improve.html

Could I Commit for 30 Days to Improve my Drumming?

$97, 15 minutes a day, for 30 days to improve my drumming. The obvious question is, "Could I commit for 30 Days to improve my drumming?" It's September 5th to October 5th. 

I'll set a reminder to return to this post on Thursday, September 1st. As of this moment, it sounds interesting and, frankly, it may be the right time to do this. As of today, Tuesday, August 16, 2022, R of RP is in CO and his return date to Iowa is not set. During the 30 days between September 5th and October 5th, I will play drums at Saint Thomas More 2 out of 4 weekends (September 17 and 24) - the weekend of September 10th, I will be in Elkader and the weekend of October 1st, I will be in northern Iowa at a wedding.

I'm not going to speculate further - sign up through the website - https://www.drumeo.com/drumshop/30-day-drummer/ - or don't. Decide.

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When will I Take my Drumming Seriously Enough to Play Better?

Within the past couple of years, I have been inundated with drumming improvement courses. I get emails all the time from reputable drummers that I know about through YouTube. Each of the emails promises, as a sales email should, to make me a better drummer in a specific area. The email from today led me to the Drumeo website where I can purchase a "Hands and Feet Bundle" for $200, which includes $450.94 in "FREE Bonuses" - by the numbers, a deal I cannot pass up.

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Or can I pass it up? My answer to that question is multi-layered.

1. I can easily pass it up because I don't have $200 burning a hole in my pocket.
1. Although, I have purchased dumber things that easily could add up to $200
1. I am not going to practice drums on a routine basis.
1. I have promised myself that I would practice drums on a routine basis, but when push comes to shove, I don't.

Obviously, I have been down this path before. I have a list of reasons why taking the initiative to improve my drumming won't work.

So, I sit in this loop, a hamster wheel.

1. I want to be a better drummer
2. I won't practice, which is what would make me a better drummer
3. Go to #1

What do I do to break out of that loop? For one thing, I need to have performances on my schedule. I didn't touch a drumstick until I knew that I was playing at 515 Mass on 7-16-2022 Saturday night. In the same vein, knowing that I am playing drums at 515 Mass on 7-23-2022, I will be motivated to sit down at the Yamaha electronic set in the den and play along to one of the recorded tracks in the drum "brain" for at least 10-15 minutes. Also, I reached out to Randy to jam on Wednesday evening, which is a tentative yes, depending upon whether Randy trades in his car, which if he does, he may be heading to CO, where he has family. This means that I will likely practice drums tonight, after work. I know we are going to go see Jurassic World: Dominion tomorrow night so I likely won't have time to practice drums. I thought empty-nesting was supposed to make life not as busy?

I am not going to purchase the "Hands and Feet Bundle" for $200, but I am going to practice drums tonight in anticipation of possibly jamming with Randy on Wednesday and, if that would not work out, for playing drums at 515 Mass on Saturday night. 

Legendary Band Reaches 20 Years While I Can't Reach 3 Year with a Band

It occurred to me that the longest I've ever played drums in a band is not even 2 years, which was Lou's Classic Ride. We got together in May 2012 and disbanded, roughly, in January 2013. No other band in my lifetime of playing drums has surpassed that threshold. My current project, RPM, or RPM, first got together in October 2019, but we also went through a long hiatus due to COVID-19 and as I look towards getting together with Randy next week, we also lost our bassist, Mark, due to health reasons. If Randy and I continue to jam up to October 2022, does that mean I'll have been in a band longer than Lou's Classic Ride? I guess I'll have to take it one month at a time. For the record, I sincerely hope Randy and I are jamming when October 2022 rolls around. The question is will I ever play in a band as long as 20 years, which is the anniversary that local Iowa City band The Diplomats of Solid Sound are celebrating, per this article https://www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-music/2022-01-05/the-diplomats-of-solid-sound-celebrate-20-years-together-two-years-later.For the record, I've never heard TDOSS ever and I've lived in the Iowa City area since August 1993, when I moved into the apartment Karen was living in off of Hayden Fry Way in Coralville.

While I'm relatively young (I turned 52 on 12-4-2021), the math sucks for me. In order for me to reach a 20 year milestone, I'd have to join a band in 2022 and play drums with that same band until I'm 72. While I'm always optimistic about the longevity of my drumming, the question I am asking myself is, "Has the ship sailed for me to reach a 20 year milestone with a single Ideal Band?"

This morning, when the high temperature is supposed to be 3 degrees, my best hope for reaching that milestone is equally chilly and, sure, about 3% likely to happen. The best scenario I can envision is to to retire and end up living in a Senior Living Center and being lucky enough to find other musicians in the Senior Living Center. Of course, if I play drums with the same group of seniors in a Senior Living Center and we never leave the place to play a gig, is that really a band?

That's a question I cannot answer today.

Do I Have Drumming Deficiencies?

That Time I Learned I Sucked at The Drums

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I commented on his post:

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Posted here: https://www.the8020drummer.com/blog/suck

I know what you mean - I sat in with the house band @ Buddy Guy's Legends on Beale Street in 2012 and while I think I played decently, after repeated viewings, I'm not entirely sure I'm as "in" the pocket as I previously thought I was. I know I flubbed up at the end, because I got caught up in the moment of wanting to make the ending of the tune memorable, but even before that, I can hear what you describe as "When you record yourself with a band, it's easier to "hide". Other musicians will compensate for you, and if the overall product isn't stellar, it's pretty easy to blame on the ensemble/room acoustics/etc. This explains how somebody can gig for a decade, and listen to gig tapes, and not know there's anything wrong."

I think one more aspect of all this is that our brains compensate for our weaknesses by finding some logical path from "what we intended to play" to "what we actually played." I was playing in a trio prior to C-19, and we were trying out having the guitarist play bass and the bassist play guitar. We started going through "Cortez" and stretched it into what I call the "Trippy 17 minute version" of the tune. It was such a perfect snapshot of what that trio were starting to be able to do together. Until that tune, we had not been improvising a lot - just mainly going through tunes that the guitarist and bassist knew - so in context, it was a huge breakthrough. Sadly, we last rehearsed on 2-27-2020 and are not going to reconvene again - bassist quit in May 2021 and the guitarist has other priorities - but at least I can use our "Trippy 17 minute version" of Cortez to respond to your post!

References:

Beale Street in 3-2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16qmKd4kr1E

Cortez - Trippy 17 minute version with Mark on Guitar and Randy on Bass: https://youtu.be/f6bZhneHxDY

Blog: https://prhmusic.blogspot.com/p/videos-of-me-playing-drums.html

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Another RPM Single in My Ears

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While I wait

The current status of RPM is that RPM kind of exists, kind of doesn't exist. We had a plan. We were going to jam on Monday, May 10, 2021. It was to be the first time we were going to jam after not jamming for 438 days (1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 6 days) - the number of days between 2/27/2020 and 5/10/2021. On 5/5/2021, Mark went to Randy's basement for a jam session. I wasn't there. Apparently, there was some sort of discussion that ended with Mark leaving that jam session unhappy. And then, the 5/10/2021 rehearsal was cancelled. I would like to jam with Randy in the future. In the meantime, I have videos like the following in my ears a lot.

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I Need to TAKE CONTROL

I want to learn how to edit videos as I want to be able to post individual tunes that RPM has played together - including original tunes that Randy wrote as well as cover tunes - in the hopes that we can play jam in the same room in the future.

I want to organize my cassette tapes as I need to know how many I need to convert - my self-made compilations and my "Jam Tapes" of me playing drums with different musicians lead this list - and how many I can locate on YouTube.com - the albums I purchased / obtained through purchasing at a store or by some other means.

I want to organize my External Hard Drives. Currently, I have 51.79 TB capacity and 31.07 TB used, which leaves 20.72 TB free across my 7 External Hard Drives. This is unacceptable. I outlined what I want to do in my personal journal, which is to identify exactly what is my data and, once I have that identified, I want to designate an External Hard Drive for the specific purpose of backing up that data. I also want to designate an External Hard Drive for being a "Sandbox" for projects I dream up, including renaming JPG files to not have a space in the file name as well as to create a single folder with all of my MP3s so that I can identify duplicate files. I also want to figure out - and decide once and for all - how I want to organize my files. On one hand, I have a need to organize by date while I also have a need to organize by topic. For example, I shouldn't have to remember that the Bayside concert at Gabes in January 2019 was on January 30, 2019 - I should be able to search for "Bayside" and have a folder display in my search results that includes the folder with the pictures and videos from that concert as well as any pictures and videos from the concert I attended with Megan in October 2013.  

And when do I want all of this figured out? Yesterday.

On another topic, today is starting my 33rd week of working from home.

Call and Respond

This was the call for ideas:

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This was my answer:

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The reference to "finding a bassist who would actually come to rehearsal was a struggle in the early days" is a blind swipe at the first bassist in the first band I was ever in - Assume - in the summer of 1989. The reference to "two guitars" is a salute to Kenny Schmitt and James Goodrich for the hours the three of us spent trying to hammer out tunes.

I used to think I was "good" at documenting my drumming, but I have come to believe I could have been better at it. I should have started a spiral notebook to document every time I jammed with a guitarist or took my drums to someone else's house for a jam session or took my drums to Saint Pius X in Cedar Rapids when I played in a group called "The Disciples of Soul." Doing that would have built a list to reflect upon, especially now when I can't go to Cedar Rapids and jam with RPM (Randy Paul Mark) in Randy's basement. I miss jamming "Cortez" with them. Skip to the 4:15 point in the video below:

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Walking Down the Street - Look Around

These are two originals that we're working on.
Second rehearsal we've tried them so I am still trying to figure out the structure and what rhythm I want to play in the verse and the chorus and the solo. Also, I want to edit this into 2 videos to eliminate the before and after talk.

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Tune 1:
Walking Down the Street
starts at 1:00
---- watch my face from 3:40-4:10 - THAT smile is why I play drums - I love the way I am looking at the other 2 to see if they noticed the difference in what I was playing.
Tune 2:
Look Around
starts at 7:25
Ends ~ 14:00
Editor's Note: Two different people have told me that they prefer "Look Around" to "Walking Down the Street," which is interesting, because I like "Walking..." more than "Look Around" - though I like them both!

Renewing the Chops

In an effort to renew my drumming chops, these three tunes have been part of my practice sessions on the Yamaha electronic drums in the den in this order. It's not a given that I play along to all three tunes as Saturday's practice session included going through the first two tunes due to a time restriction.

The current plan is to jam with RPM (Mark, Randy, and Paul) on Wednesday evening at Randy's house.

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Where I Went Last Night

Last night, after work, I went to Cedar Rapids. I dropped off a box of VHS, VHS-C, and Mini-DV tapes to Jim's Video and Digital Services. It is a business that converts media to digital. As a ballpark, Jim said early to mid-January before he is done. He said he had around 100 tapes to convert ahead of mine.

After dropping off the tapes, I went to Randy's house to jam with him and Mark. To me, it wasn't the best I've played drums with them. For me, the highlight was playing two of Randy's original tunes.

I got home around 9 PM and, by 10:30, I was in bed.

Announcing RPM

Length 00:07:34

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Length 00:06:02

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Length 00:04:54

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Length 00:04:46 - Moondance

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Length 00:11:33

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Length 00:25:42 - Skip to here

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