Sam Ash's "Best In Drums"

On Wednesday August 10th, I became one of the store champs for Sam Ash's national drum competition called The Best In Drums Contest.  It was overwhelming and completely surreal.  I've done several drum competitions in my music career and although I've usually done well, I'm a New Yorker and I've been in LA for five years now so I'm used to competing with the hungriest groups of drummers in America.  I've seen GREAT drummers lose and I've seen drummers win who really made me scratch my head and wonder what the judges wanted.  In any event, they don't call 'em competitions for nothing - it's COMPETITIVE out there!  It felt great but also humbling to know that I'd convinced the judges (all of which were long-time, well known pros) that I was the right choice to go up against the best in the Golden State.

As for the actual competition, Best In Drums is a little different from what I've done in the past.  Usually the words "drum contest" mean that it's a drum SOLO competition in the style of arena rock drum solos, where the drummer plays the kit without being accompanied by other musicians.  This particular competition requires the drummers to download some pre-recorded drumless tracks from the Sam Ash web site.  Each drummer then prepares to play along with the tracks live in front of a crowd.  The music is run through a PA system and the drummers get a set of headphones and two channels - one for the music and one for a click track.  The drummer can hear the click but the crowd only hears the music and of course, whatever the drummer plays on the kit.  Although the drummer is playing with accompanying music, he or she is the only one actually on the stage, performing for the audience. The challenge is that the drummer only gets one shot to play the thing right - no stopping, additional takes or do-overs. 

My biggest musical goal these days is to play as well as I can in any particular situation.  When I made the commitment to this competition, I made preparation for it a serious part of my practice schedule.  I knew that this was not a contest for beginners right away because you had to put a lot of effort into getting the tracks, loading them into your computer/phone/iPod/whatever and of course, listening to the click track and using the song as the guide for your performance rather than just playing a collection of grooves and fills at whatever tempo is comfortable for you.  On top of that, the tracks for the competition were selected by Mike Portnoy (for those who don't know, he's one of the biggest names in drums) and the tunes were NOT straight ahead pop/rock songs.  One track was a jazzy ballad, another was a fusion rock song and the other was progressive metal.  Guess which one I picked? :)

Even though I was fortunate enough to have a track in one of my strongest styles, the music was NOT easy!  There were a lot of meter changes and the feel of the music changed quite a few times as well.   My P.I.T. training had prepared me for this situation though, so I immediately started charting the song and figuring out which parts of the track were repeating, what the musical themes were and of course, where the transitions were happening.  Once that was done, I had to make some choices about dynamics and how each drum and cymbal could accent the guitar parts and also lock in with the bass and keyboards.  Since this competition was clearly designed to encourage good musicianship as well as great drumming, I wanted to make this track sounds as much like an actual metal song as possible.  Once the song structure began to take shape, my next step was to work in some cool visuals for the performance as well.

All the work I put into it actually did pay off.  It felt great for the obvious reasons (winning anything is awesome, the prizes were cool, etc) but the thing that made me happiest was that I won this not just for me, but for all the working class drummers and ESPECIALLY metal drummers that put so much time and dedication into their music.  Unless it's a speed contest, it has become increasingly rare that metal drummers win these drum competitions.  No disrespect at all to the unbelievably talented fusion, jazz and gospel drummers that win a lot of these competitions - they all work just as hard and deserve it.  I just felt really proud to represent my genre and my "team," so to speak.

Now comes the biggest challenge yet.  The next round of the competition is just over a week away and I'll be going up against the Best In Drums finalists from all over California.  The winner of that round goes to Las Vegas for the national finals and Mike Portnoy himself is going to be the judge there.  I'm happy that I made it this far and no matter what, I'm glad I rose to the challenge.  It is an honor and a privilege to continue to the regional finals, flying the flag for metal drummers everywhere.

As for now, time to get back to practicing.  Someone cue the training music from Rocky and The Karate Kid for me....