Otto Percussion Studio Posts

Those of you that read this regularly (for the two weeks the site has been around) know that this site came in part as an outgrowth of my work with Musician’s Notepad. Editing the site for the last year and a half I have had the responsibility of writing two ‘year end wrap up’ posts, and in both of them I have mentioned the idea of ‘Getting Good’ again.

My drumset playing has really fallen off in the last handful of years. One of the reasons I decided to go back to school was that the band I was in and was dedicated to had broken up. I was burnt out on relying on others for my musical destiny and needed to take matters into my own hands. Going back to school let me be completely self motivated, though those of you that knew me then also know that I can’t keep out of trying to make things bigger and involve more people.  I started to work on classical percussion, and got ‘ok’ at it. My kit playing that was pretty good went by the wayside.

During that same time I started picking up the guitar more and working on songwriting. I took this approach because I didn’t want to be in yet another group where I was not in control of moving the project forward. I could either be a solo act or have a band and no matter what I was in control of the destiny of the music. Eventually the band became just as important, and then more important, to the music as I was, and as most bands do it eventually fell apart. By the end of everything I had ignored my drumset skills for the better part of a decade.

For the last year since that happened I’ve been in a musical abyss. Uncertain of where I’m going or what I’m doing. Realizing there are aspects of music I have been working for that I do not want, and realizing that there are aspects that I should be chasing down. This past December I had a two conversations with two of my best friends in the world that really inspired me. A few weeks later, Musician’s Notepad missed its first Wednesday content release since its inception because I was busy researching where I want to take things and where I want to go. In the post I mentioned that it will be life changing for me. I don’t mean to be vague or coy, in fact I’d be happy to talk with anyone about it if they message me, I just don’t want my plans to be public yet.

I will talk about step one of this plan though, which is that I need to get back to being good. I feel that to be able to confidently step forward I need to be in the best playing shape of my life.

For the last three months I have been practicing drumset consistently. My feel has come back, my chops have come back, and I’m really happy with my playing. I think that my practice technique is better than ever and I am getting more out of the time I am putting in than I ever have. Mentally I am feeling much better as well. I feel less lost. An adult student of mine likened it to going to the gym. It goes good, it goes bad, it goes easy, it goes hard, all around it makes you feel better and you feel bad when you miss it. Three days in I got that musician’s high. You know, where it’s like something is playing through you and all the choices you make musically are the right ones. I hadn’t had that in forever.

So I guess the point is that I am on the right track. I’ll let y’all know how it’s going as it goes. Originally my plan was to use the fifth Wednesday of every month for these kind of updates on The Musician’s Notepad. As I don’t want to conflict with the standard release schedule of The ‘Pad I’ll drop one of these every 31st of a month. Thanks for paying attention.

Otto