Guitar Center Drum-Off 2007

I entered the largest drum-solo competition in the country with nothing but a cloud of pessimism and doubt weighing on my shoulders. "Why bother?" I asked myself. I am simply not a soloist...I've never given a solo in public outside of the pretense of being in a band, and all of my practice revolves around drumming to music, with musicians, or as some means to an end with a band. In this case, I was on my own from the second I took the stage.

The competition, run by Guitar Center, starts store-wide, then goes to the district, the region, and finally the national competition (only 6 drummers make it that far). As I arrived (late) at the Guitar Center in East Brunswick on Wednesday, I was clammy and scared. What if I choked? I had been drilling myself hard for weeks to get my chops up to speed, but what if I just hadn't been able to grow quickly enough? Would I embarrass myself? Would anyone even care that I had played?

I looked around at my competition. A middle aged Russian man, a 300 pound mullet-head, a 19-year-old, a pear-shaped punk drummer, a nice guy named Chris (no complaints about Chris), and an African-American fellow named Ahmed who just exuded confidence and nastiness behind the kit.

Russian guy dropped his sticks twice, mullet was surprisingly agile for his size...and now my turn.

I rolled into the funkiest of grooves, riding the hi-hats and snare with my right hand, the bell with my left hand, and keeping a hip-hop beat with my bass drum. I started out nice a soft, and slowly built up and traded 4s with myself, then 5s, and all the way through 10s until I was crashing on the cymbals every other beat. The crowd went wild, started clapping, and then I stripped it down to a cascara beat (thanks Alejandro), then some Afro-Cuban on the cowbell, and eventually a quick samba. This Latin section was my plan all along, but I wasn't feeling it so I quickly moved on. I know this is all very technical, but the point is, I used some variety and got the crowd going. The solo can only last 3 minutes, and when I am in the zone it's hard to get out. I missed my 30-seconds-left signal, and was brought to an abrupt stop about 10 seconds too soon...before I got to my grand finale of a drum roll on 2 different drums at the same time. A crushing blow!

I spent about 5 minutes after my set crying in the bathroom...no not really! I was disappointed about my poor showing during the Latin section and my lack of finale, but after that wore off I was thrilled! One Guitar Center employee told me I "really brought the funk." Did I have a chance? I don't know, but I was nervous as hell...5 drummers left, and I had raised the bar for them all.

19-year-old was solid, but clearly 19 (3 years makes a big difference), pear-punk did a one handed drum roll (impossible!) and not much else...but Chris and Ahmed blew me away. Great groove, solid chops, original solos. There was no way I could be in the top 2 and advance to the store finals...or was there?

As the judges tallied their votes and I sat satisfied but not confident with my fellow competitors, my nervousness melted into pride. I had given myself a chance...way more than this non-soloist had thought of himself a few weeks ago. Even that morning as I practiced the general ideas that I planned out for myself I couldn't seem to capture the essence of what a solo should be...full of tension and control and finesse. Once I got behind the Guitar Center kit, though, the adrenaline just took over and brought me to my happy place.

As the winners were announced, I wasn't at all surprised to hear that there would indeed be no advancement to the store finals for me. But I was surprised that I wasn't bitter or disappointed (well...only a little). Instead I felt impressed that I had even had the balls to get up there in the first place!

Ahmed and 300-pound-man came in first and second, respectively. Fat guy? Really? Well, OK judges, but I thought this was the Guitar Center Drum-Off, not the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. I would've been fine getting beaten by Chris, but fat guy? No, I'm not feeling bitter at all.