Tales From the Pit: My Career as a Professional Drummer
Mesa, AZ
So. I’m going to assume that you’ve been trying to eke out a living doing what you love to do, while holding on to the last vestiges of your confidence and pride. You have come to a point where anything, ANYTHING, will be helpful to get you out of that next shift at the Burger Hut. Chet, your 19 year old boss, frequently complains that the rhythm of your patty flipping is slowing the “line flow” to an extent that your 16 year old peers are messing up the order of condiments. Chet knows rhythm. In fact, his emo-nerd-prog-zydeco-funk explosion recently broke up because the lead singer’s girlfriend “managed the band’s finances” to the point of extinction and he’s chosen to take it out on lucky you. Maybe you are waiting for Stevie Wonder to hear a clip of you on You Tube and say to himself, “Stevie, I gotta have that guy in my band and pay him ten million dollars a show!” Or perhaps, you are like me and a great deal of my musician friends stuck here in the middle, trying to make things happen and having decent success, but at a loss as to what the next step may be or how to make the most of opportunities at hand.
Fear not, dear reader. There are thousands of us out here. But there is work, Some of it rewarding. Anyone who has the skills, personality, and ambition to take the necessary steps to shed that scratchy, polyester Burger Hut uniform and invest the time and energy can make a go as (dare I say) a professional musician.
Mine is not a archetypal story in the labyrinthine halls of this industry. Luck and timing played a large part in where I find myself today. I am a resident percussionist at a theater in Phoenix and have been for the past seven years. Atypical in the fact that I have a yearly salary, benefits including health and dental, and a 401k that, in light of recent economic developments, will allow me to retire at age 93. That said, I have been incredibly fortunate to arrive at this point but it didn’t come without a modicum of preparation and a certain level of musical and personal ability.
I have worked in many facets of the industry including regional theater, national tours, cruise ships, club gigs, casuals (i.e. wedding bands), industrials (i.e. corporate gigs), and all things in between. I have taught privately, for stores, and for school districts fairly extensively over the past 15 years. I hold a BM (worth about as much in the real world as the more famous acronym for those letters) in Percussion Performance from a state school in the Midwest. I had a cup of coffee in graduate school but did not finish. This is not to disparage the value of education, but I have yet to be asked to produce a diploma before being hired for any gig.
So how, you might ask, did I get from there to here? My story starts as a small town son of a music teacher who for whatever reason was drawn to the drums at an early age. I started playing in 5th grade in the concert, “stage”, and marching bands. Throughout those years until I went off to college, I was the sole individual in the percussion “section”. This was helpful in my later years as I often have to synthesize percussion parts into one grand score. My mom got me my first gig playing “Brigadoon” for a community theater that she was involved with in the summer before 7th grade. No pay, but a gig’s a gig at the tender age of 12. Methinks I was pedigreed to be a theater musician. I ended up playing all of their shows and made connections that landed me my first paid gig a few years later. $125 for 7 rehearsals and 6 performances of “The King and I” for a community theater in a larger neighboring town with “huge” budgets.
Now the money’s just rolling in! Next stop, Broadway! Or at the very least, Motley Crue is gonna need a new drummer. Who woulda thunk that Tommy Lee would last this long? But I digress…Growing up, I was extraordinarily fortunate to attend a life-changing percussion camp at a nearby college which I would later attend. For one week a summer I was awash in some of the greatest musicians in the world who took the time with myself and others to teach music and life. I studied with some of the best in the biz and decided then and there that music was the deal for me.
At 15, through a friendship with one of the instructors, I was given a full scholarship to attend a music festival in Houston. This is a case in point of the importance of fostering connections in this business which I will touch upon later. I was woefully unprepared for what was to come. Eye opening does not begin to describe this experience. It was a festival of classical music. I was the youngest attendee and was thrown into the fire, so to speak, with some really amazing musicians. However, my knowledge of classical music was limited to playing the opening motif of Beethoven’s 5th on my mom’s piano.
First day, first rehearsal. Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite”. You know, something light and easy to break in. I was an absolute disaster drawing the ire of the conductor who was nice enough to say “My dear Bass Drummer” before berating me in front of the 80 piece orchestra. Super great times. Wait, but music is supposed to be fun. C’mon guy! I’m 15. Excuses never helped nobody, and certainly did not help me in that situation. Welcome to the real music business. That night, I spent hours in the music library moving the record (yes record) needle back to the bass drum entrance that I had not hit yet. The next day, I still didn’t know what the heck I was doing, but I nailed that entrance. Which led me to my next pillar of musical belief. Classical music is hard ya’ll.
So. Off to college. The school I attended had a bevy of good players and a great faculty by in large. Had to find my groove. Had to learn to read actual notes while playing in actual time with actual rhythms with other actual people actually listening. Enter: Stage Fright! My program was geared towards being a well rounded player on every instrument. Specialization was something you did on your own time. For the first 3 years, I owed my soul to the marimba. Yes, that wonderful instrument upon which there are lo, so many gigs to play. I also was involved in drumline, percussion ensemble, wind ensemble, orchestra, African ensemble, Latin ensemble etc. etc. My last two years (for those of you counting that equals five years in undergrad) I took every jazz course I could. By some miraculous alignment of the stars, I won the top big band and top combo. Out of all the classes and ensembles that I was in, the jazz stuff is what I found to have helped me the most as far as real world applicability.
Needless to say, I was headed in exactly every direction. Somewhere along in there (likely after I failed my second Junior Standing jury), I decided that I couldn’t do it. It was all just, well, too hard. I called up a mentor of mine that I had met at the percussion camp years earlier who is a world renowned jazz drummer and told him the news. What he said to me left an indelible mark and has gotten me to where I am today and where I hope to be in the future. He said, “Work on your person. The music will take care of itself.” Heavy. But wait, is he saying that I’m a bad person? Knowing myself, maybe. But what I took away from it was, you can be the greatest musician with the greatest of talents and gifts, but if you’re not a decent human, nobody will hire you anyway. Unless, of course, your name happens to be Barbra Streisand. Once, after many years, I started to understand this, the music did start to come online. Not only did I practice becoming a good musician, but I also practiced being a good person. This is something that is oft neglected in this or any business.
That said, if you’re the kindest, most generous, well rounded, giving, caring, benevolent of souls, and you didn’t learn your rudiments, scales, history, and every other facet of your instrument that you could, chances are, you won’t be playing “The King and I” at you local theater for $125. Talent can take you far, but hard work, practice, networking, and just plain luck are the things that will carry you through your musical career.
So. I’ve gotten through the rocky part of college and have to figure what to do with what I’ve learned so as not to rock the polyester at the Hut whilst living at my parents’ house. Undergrad gave me technical facility on the instruments and opened my ears a great deal. Now it is time to take that blind leap into the unknown world of application as opposed to theory.
Let’s talk timing + luck. A great friend of mine from school recommended me for a summer stock theater gig about 30 miles from the college. I had “tons” of theater experience at that point (a solid 10 or so shows under my belt. The word, I believe, is “expert”…) If memory serves, I was making $300 a week plus housing. Come to find, this is a professional theater stocked with professional actors, technicians, staff etc. Much bigger deal than I signed on for. I grew up in the area, and was aware that this theater existed, but didn’t think it was such a big deal until I got there. Crash course. Sondheim. Hard stuff. Hot seat.
We did two week runs of five shows over the course of ten weeks. The band consisted of myself, trumpet, trombone, woodwind quadrupler, and our music director who played piano and ran the recorded track and click track. These guys were great players. I was, not for the first or last time, out of my league. Our little pit usually had 3 days of rehearsal before we were thrust before an adoring yet judgmental audience. At the time, I was cavalier enough (read: young and dumb) to think that I could fluff over the hard parts. Who was really listening anyway? I thought that this was a play date with my friends. Keg stand anyone? First of many GIANT misconceptions about the real world. Most people may never truly know what constitutes a good musician, but they surely know what a bad one sounds like.
I made it through, but looking back I coulda and shoulda taken the whole thing a bit more seriously. This taught me an extremely valuable lesson. Ready? Always play like you’re at Carnegie Hall and be as genuinely nice to everyone you meet as you possibly can. In this business, you never know who’s gonna help you out. My story plays out like this, thankfully and oddly to my advantage.
I played the summer gig and went off to grad school. I was stuck in the world of academia where consequences were a B instead of an A if you sucked. At the time, I was either gonna be the next great “young lion” of the jazz scene or play timpani for the New York Phil. So many tough choices for someone so blissfully ignorant of their skill set. Little did I know, there are tens of thousands of people who are after the same thing and who are taking it exponentially more seriously than I. Sometimes I look back at the me of the past and say, “Wow.” as I shake my head and giggle softly.
Grad school for me turned out to be a weigh station. I had no idea what I was going to do with what I had learned thus far and was frankly scared of the real world. So, why not tread water for a bit longer? I put in my time but that was about it. It’s hard to imagine approaching burn out at age 23 but it was starting to happen. I no longer wanted to practice and the fire was dying. Scary stuff. In retrospect, I couldn’t see where any of this education and hard work would lead. In all honesty I was ready to either hang it up or get out there and see if I could do it. Then my phone rang with another offer to do another summer gig.
Come to find, the MD (music director) of the summer stock wasn’t all that impressed with me. He had hired the rest of the band for a major national tour after the first summer, but was content with me disappearing into the halls of graduate school perdition. The second summer, he gave me another shot, though I owe the trumpet player for talking him into using me again. There were some heavy drum books that year and he wasn’t sure that I could pull them off. I had made my decision to leave grad school, so this time around, I took the gig seriously. Not leaps and bounds better, but my intention was headed in the right direction.
Skip to the end of the summer. OK. I’m not going to school. I have to get a gig. Any gig. Shit. I go to the MD and tell him I’m leaving school. Does he know of anything? ANYTHING? A couple of weeks later, he hires me for the same national tour he was on the previous year. No audition. Great salary and per diem. Four months on the road. Hotels paid. Lucky? Most def.
Point? You can regain your reputation. It’s not impossible but try not to put yourself in that situation. Luck, to me, is when preparation meets opportunity. Had I taken the first summer more seriously, it wouldn’t have been such a stretch for the MD to hire me the next season and ultimately for the tour. This is when I started to figure out that often the people who do the hiring look and hear past the latest Dave Weckl lick you can throw over “I Could Have Danced All Night” and into what it’s like to work with you. There are tons of guys who can cut the gig. Probably better than you. Or, more specifically, me. I went to school with these guys. I watched them in the clubs. However, preparation met opportunity. I showed the MD that I could pick things up in a hurry. I made solid musical decisions but was malleable enough to change things up when they weren’t working. I stayed with the click track. I didn’t waste time in rehearsal. I didn’t show up wasted. I was easy to get along with on and off the bandstand. I was becoming a professional.
In Part 2 of this article I will wax (and wane) philosophically about life on the road, cruise ships, and (hopefully) how to negotiate the tenuous halls of the entertainment racket to your advantage.
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Good article man! Maybe you should pick up writing to augment your salary…and pay for the lawsuit from Barbara Streisand’s camp hahaha. But seriously, good info.
11/2/2008
GREAT article! Congratulations. I really enjoyed reading it (even if I am in it! LOL!)
11/3/2008
I like pizza
11/4/2008
god bless you ’cause spoke the truth!
12/22/2008
hilarious and on-the-money. Thanks for sharin!
2/6/2009
Nice writing Dave…More!! Really good down-to earth..and intelligent writing. I’m a bass player, about to do (ANOTHER) cruise gig….your comments are spot on about that bizarre line of work….which, as you pointed out is far from perfect (way too many SAX GUY IDIOTS (of all instruments) losing their perspective about how easy this job is compared with…laying concrete or something. yes, trying to fire a collegue over a HARMONIC dispute! Unreal. Anyway, good to see someone who IS keeping it real. More! Don, NYC.
3/6/2009
Great article Dave. I am always inspired to here from other drummers who at a young age had the vision to look down the road and see themselves on stage doing what they love to do, with the drive and a hard work ethic to get them their. GREAT STUFF!
I would like to ask you some questions about my personal experiences and knowledge to find out if there is any hope for a guy at my age to make a carrier playing drums
peace,
6/16/2009
Awesome, thanks for keepin’ it light, loved it!
1/11/2010
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