It happens to me all the time. Let’s suppose I have a song to play. I’ll first listen to it. Chances are I will write it down. Once written, it’s ready to be played. Then I’m done. I throw myself on the drums and I start to play. I never go back to what I wrote. I usually do not listen to the tune again, trusting my memory. And I shouldn’t. That’s the questionable part, the reason for this blog. Now, my batting average is not too bad. I would say that I am right about 90 per cent of the time. Meaning what I heard and what I am playing is matching pretty good. But what about the 10 per cent left? Oh, well, yes, it can be embarrassing. Especially coming from a private drum teacher who advocates his students to double check their assignments. Do as I say kind of thing.
Shame?
Yes, shame.
But not so fast. I am human. I do make mistakes. Also, I am the one who will make a fool of myself once I step on stage with the wrong part perfectly prepared. Actually, not quite. Because I do check one last time before I go play whatever it is I will be playing in front of an audience. The train wreck is always averted, but it can be stressful nonetheless to have to redo a part on the fly a day before the concert.
What I do after that is that I swear it’ll never happen again and I check and double check everything… For awhile. Let’s say three weeks. Then I forget to check and I trust myself, and, well, you can finish the thought yourself. And you can do that because you’ve probably done this kind of things before.
That’s good, no really, it is. It means we’re all humans. Flawed, maybe, but, at least, we’re trying.
