katakat.com bytes from a participant observer

I was visiting brother Dom today, and he was jamming in his studio with a high school friend, Joel, who recently moved out here too (with wife and family). Dom was on drums and Joel on electric guitar, and since I was just standing there, I was handed a tambourine to be useful. Dom's been teaching himself to play drums for a few weeks now, and is quite good at it. After a little while, Dom and Joel switched instruments. We were playing children's songs to hard rock music, like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "B-I-N-G-O"; I was laughing the whole time. And then Dom said to me, "Here, you play drums. Do this..." and showed me a few moves. This was the second time I'd tried to make sense of a drum kit, the first time not even knowing how to hold the sticks, so I was a little leery of doing it again. This time, however, something clicked rather quickly, and by the time Dom had his electric bass guitar in hand, I was already able to keep a steady beat with high-hat, snare, and bass drum. Needless to say (but I will anyway), Dom and Joel were pretty impressed that I'd picked it up so quickly, and we jammed for a little while before Joel had to leave for home. Brother Nick stopped by soon after Joel departed, and upon hearing me play, commented, "Too bad you wasted so many years playing clarinet." Actually, I think piano lessons helped, since playing piano requires hands and feet doing completely separate things. Um, that, and not thinking too hard about what I was trying to do. Guess I'll be adding yet another instrument to the repertoire... though practicing on a kit in my condo would be completely out of the question! Those drums are really LOUD.