What got you started playing drums?

When I was 11, my parents gave me and my brother a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, and two years later, I received Guitar Hero: World Tour for my birthday. When my family and I played it together, I normally played lead guitar, as I was taking guitar lessons at the time, and my mother played the drums. My mom would sometimes "fail out" of the songs, so I tried my luck on the drums one time, and I realized I had a knack for it. When I was 14, my instructor moved his job to the local Sam Ash, and I had my parents drop me off a half hour early so I could fool around in the drum department before my lessons each week. The following year, I accidentally cut the tip of my left index finger with my then-new Winchester clip-folding knife. My finger otherwise healed fine, but the scar was right on the place where I would press down on the guitar strings, so I had to quit taking guitar lessons. I then played even more drums in Guitar Hero, and as I became more of a confident player, I began to play harder, and I eventually broke the drum controller. My parents said that it was probably about time to get me a real set, and that Christmas, I received a 14x6 Pearl Steel Shell snare, and after playing rudiments on it for a few hours, I said "I really like this snare, but where's the rest of the set?" A month later, we bought a (heavily) used Tama Stagestar set from a church friend, and three months later, I was in a band playing "Dammit" by Blink-182 for the high school talent show in May 2011. We also played in the 2012 and 2013 talent shows, the last one being days before my high school graduation. I used the Tama set faithfully until I scored an 8-piece PDP Double Drive kit plus hardware on September 27, 2015 for $650.
That was a beautiful story, man.
 
Music-
It was summer and my father was tired of listening to the "old bad memories music", so he started listening to Pink Floyd again, he always used to listen it alone in his office... but for the first time, he was listening to it at home.
I was just 9 years old, I started liking the music and I didn't even know what band or artist was. After asking I couldn't believe I was finally listening to what I believed to be the "crazy band that only get's listened in his crazy office". Since, I loved it.

Drummer-
Still about Pink Floyd, after listening PULSE while having a great barbeque lunch that day, I said him I also wanted to listen to it. Few days after he showed up with one song he believed was "On the turning away" but turned out he didn't remember the title correctly so he found "One of these days" instead. He still showed it to me and I got obsessed with Nick Mason. Suddently I wanted to also be "Nick Mason". So guess what.. that's how it started.

Person-
After I was copletely obsessed by Pink Floyd, Gilmour and Mason, meanwhile I was getting my first band, but I was the guitarist. One day, the drummer of my band came to me with a DVD he promised I would love. That was a DVD of Mike Portnoy, Liquid Drum Theater. I watched that DVD like 20 times and was introduced to drum theory for the first time in my life.
That's how I decided I was a drummer and not a guitarist.

Style-
You probably got it. I am mostly headed towards everything that is prog, from classic to Djent. I play prog and worship, however I love other styles too. I consider myself very open minded on music genres, but I always fall back to my beloved prog.


Inspirations-
Well.. I think I have mentioned that already, however a big change after the DVD was a gig we had and I got to play drums for fun and quite some people came to me after saying I should play drums instead. LOL.
 
My Mom and Uncle both played in bands (Never together interestingly enough)so there were always instruments in our house, including a drum kit left behind for next weeks jam. My Mom taught me to play waltz before I could reach the kick drum using the floor tom and snare, while she played along on electric organ.

I'm a guitarist/ bassist who has always appreciated drummers, from Ringo Starr to Neil Peart with Roger Taylor and Brueford/White in between. ( And who's that "standing up" guy from the Brian Setzer Orchestra? WOW! )

I never took it seriously beyond noodling a bit on the kits in bands I was in, until I got MY kit at a garage sale a couple summers ago. A Ludwig "Accent" 5 piece kit with Rototoms for $100 and I figured if nothing else I could sell the Rotos for more than $100 Of course, after getting them home and seeing that not only was everything there they didn't sound half bad, I decided to keep em. My drummer friend turned me on to a set of new heads and he showed me how to install and tune them (tuning is a pain and I still suck at it) He gave me an Evans head for the kick with a foam ring

Now I'm teaching myself to play, and my own recordings have improved greatly because I can play REAL drums instead of trying to program electronic ones through Reason software. PLus, I'm semi disabled and can't work like I used to, so playing the drums (always ending with my "solo") is like a great cardio workout. I tell my wife it's cheaper than a treadmill.

I will add this...After improving my kit with some new hardware and a couple symbols, I can say with all confidence that DRUMMING IS EXPENSIVE!
 
I grew up in a musical family. My father is a retired professor of music and my mother was a French horn player. So music was just part of life. When I was in middle school, a friend asked me if I wanted to check out a local drum and bugle corps. I joined. Had a lot of fun and then went on to join a DCI corps. Did a lot of percussion through high school and then college/career took over. About ten years ago, my son asked for a drum set for his birthday. He didn't play it much, but I did...

Since then I've worked on getting back my chops and learning a lot of new things and now play a lot of jazz gigs in the city where I live.
 
1970, elementary school "talent" show, there was a Partridge Family lip-synching skit, and I was talked into playing the part of Chris Partridge, the drummer. I guess I looked a lot like the kid in the first season of the show, but he was replaced quickly.

I got to pretend to play a drum, wearing the stupid vest and pointy-collared shirt while we pretended to sing "I Think I Love You", which was fun enough to want to take lessons and join the school bands. I still enjoy telling people the Partridge Family is one of my "influences".
 
I wanted to start playing drums because everyone in my family played guitar. I wanted to be different so I asked for a drum set instead of a guitar in 5th grade. The rest is history!
 
I got my music bug from my mom. She had a record store when I was a kid, so she'd always have a ton of records playing at home. One day, I asked my mom for guitar lessons, and went on from there. I got pretty good at it. Joined bands, did gigs and stuff.

Last year, I bought a larger home with a full basement. After we moved in, I sat down my guitar stuff in one corner, and my bass stuff in the other, and thought to myself, "this room needs a drum set." Went out and bought a drum set with some help from my drummer friends, and that's how I got here.

Been drumming for 3 months, taking lessons, and I'm having a great time.
 
I come from a long line of musicians on both sides of my family, but I got my start in drumming from playing Guitar Hero: World Tour with my brother and my parents. I played electric guitar for two years, so naturally, I usually played lead guitar in the game, and my mom played on the drum controller. My mom was very bad with the drums, and we would frequently "fail out" of the songs because she would miss notes or hit too early. One time, after we failed out of "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World, I insisted on taking over on the drums and playing the song again, and from that day forward, I never played anything but drums when we played Guitar Hero.

After about a year of this, I got my first snare drum for Christmas of 2010, a Pearl SK900C 14x5.5 steel, and my first music books, Stick Control and Joe Morello's Master Studies II. On January 2, 2011, I bought my first drum set, a Tama Stagestar, from a friend of mine from church, and the rest is history.
 
Ok here we go then....

Music- Started getting interested in music when I was still in elementary school when my sister have a guitar and she used to play it. Also the tons of cassette tapes she plays. After that reaching high school got hook on Metallica since a classmate of mine always plays their song. From their I listen to all sorts of metal and heavy metals bands and the upcoming alternative rock music 'Nirvana". Then so on as the times goes and so are those music genre evolves, I also went with the flow.

Drummer- Lars Ulrich from Metallica. Bought all of Metallica albums and plays almost all the songs I can play at that time. So yeah the guy started it all for me to play drums.

Person- My classmate who always talk and plays Metallica songs. Also he's a drummer in a band. So everytime they have a jam session or a gig or a battle of the bands I always come and watch. His influence made me a drummer from the start

Style- Heavy Metal =) then rock song like "Bon Jovi", rock ballads songs like "journey" & the likes, alt rock "Nirvana", dance both 80's, 90's & present. some techno song like "The Chainsmokers", Reggae "some Bob Marley" & those modern reggae bands & some fusion, they call it variety so I guess variety then. As long as its not Jazz, Bossa Nova, and progressive music, still can't play those, kinda its beyond me as of now.

Inspirations- What inspires me is that, I know I'm not the best and alot of people out their is a better drummer than me, So I strive more to improve my skills and techniques. At the same time to stay humble and help those new drummers also who are struggling, like me before. My family is also a source of inspiration. My wife who is always...always supportive in my music and finally God who gave this gift of playing drums.

So that all of it =)
 
Hey all :)

Music- All types of music! Whether it was the radio or watching MTV when I was younger I always wanted to be the guy that made the boom bap behind the songs.
Drummer- Travis Barker
Person- Nobody! My family tried to discourage me for a long time but eventually gave in and got me a drum set for my 11th birthday. It was a 'flats' drum set without resonant skins to save space.
Style- The sort of bands I enjoyed listening to when I was 11 were Blink 182, Sum 41 and Linkin Park. That sorta thing!!
Inspirations- Every drummer on a stage when I watch live music. Still inspires me!
 
It was like magic... I was already interested in playing the drums, I had traded a couple of guitars for a Roland TD-17 and was watching YouTube videos. Right now I only know a simple rock beat using the hi hat, snare, bass and the crash. So the magic happened when I went on a girls trip to Denver to visit a friend (there were 5 of us) and we went out to a Jazz club. I was watching the drummer get all of these sounds out of his ride and I could not stop watching. That was the moment that got me. I figured before I started learning bad habits I should take some lessons. I signed up for Drumeo last week and will begin this week-end!
 
Honestly? I couldn't seem to learn anything else lol. As a kid, all my uncles and cousins played multiple instruments (guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer...you name it). I tried several times to learn stringed instruments, and just couldn't seem to wrap my head around them.

I got turned on to drums in junior high and high school, because we had great marching band drum lines. About this time, three or four of my buddies and I who all loved music decided to put together a band. I jumped at the chance to be the drummer and bought my first set - a five-piece Apollo set complete with cymbals and hardware - at a local pawn shop. Had a set of CB 700s a little later, too. I always had pretty good rhythm, so after a few months of getting my sticks/pedals coordination down, I started loving it!
 
I played piano at the time. My girlfriend's dad is a veteran drummer, the first time I saw him play a gig sparked an interest.

Then to ignite the interest, he made a comment about John Bonham during some random discussion, in which I ignorantly wondered "who's this John Bonham guy?" After some hardcore Led Zep research, I bought a kit a few weeks later.
 
I was 11/12? At a buddy's house. He had a small angled drum pad, wood, neat looking. . .I said, do you care if I try? And, it just came naturally. I wasn't Buddy Rich in a second. But, I had good grasp of what I was doing, having never held drumsticks before. The next month school started. I joined band, and within 2 months made it to 2nd chair. That was, 1983? Rhythm. Always been a part of me. Mom loved music and danced around the house. Dad loved country and old soul. I had a good foundation. (y)
 
Myself and my friends mimed to T REX, Get It On at the 1973 end of year assembly in Middle School. The other three made some electrics from stiff card and I was left with "drums" comprising a couple of hand drums......boy was I mad.
So teacher fires up the record player and the three amigos start jumping about etc etc, now what do I do?....so with no tuition at all I start banging and suddenly find myself doing 8ths on the drum to my left and a snare pattern on the drum to my right...it sounded brilliant and the "three" amigos looked around, they couldn't believe it...fast forward,

So played bass for years and recently figured, well how hard can it be?...I mean I was the cool kid 40 odd years ago in Middle School....ha well it's not too easy but I'm having a blast now.
 
Music- I came late to the drums. They might have been an optin if my parents thought about it, but it was first organ, the saxophone and then guitar for 25 years of school, pro and then teacher. My first musical hero was probably Bob Marley. I was 4.

Drummer- It's been Vinnie for me, but I've always followed Paolo Vinaccia who I also got to know personally through friends in my late teens. Got to know Vinnie through Joni Mitchell, Mike Landau and then Sting.

Person- Couldn't tell you. My first inspiration was my 10 year older neighbour who played saxophone. He got me listening the David Sanborn and as a consequence I learned to recognize Steve Gadd for his hi-hat sound. There are drummers I've grown up with, hung a lot with and learned a bit about drums from, but their influence isn't all that big.

Style- It's jazz, funk, fusion, soul big band.

Inspirations- I was a teacher and it was a small school where I also had to teach drums. I didn't play the drums and unlike other teachers in the same situation I was humble enough to know and recognize that. I started working really hard 5-6 hours a day on just technique and then going to the school to practice on the it on the weekends. Then I started getting up 4:30 so I could go practice in the morning. Chances are I'm the only one in the country who can do what I do, but the world wasn't completely ready and the consequences to me are not fun. Currently working on suing several of my previous small town employers for defamation and long term narcissistic abuse.
 
When I was around 14/15 I was approached by Friend who I knew played in a Band. The Drummer wanted to switch to Bass and they asked me to fill the drummer spot. They had a Kit ready, the new bassist gave me her sticks, said "repeatedly count to four, on 1 bang here, on 3 bang there..." LETS GO!

and then it kinda snowballed into a passion I didnt know I had. Had to give it up for a while there due to Knee surgery and a toxic PoS Girlfriend, but I found my way out and started playing again. Have been with the same Guitarist since the beginning. We went through a bunch of different setups of rooms, Bands and overall weirdness, but now we have our own room, its all for ourselfs, we can come and go when we want because its a damn Bunker from the World War and no noise comes out no matter how much we try.
Its mostly Melodic Metal, with some sprinkles of Slayer or Meshuggah in it, but we try to keep it civil. :D mostly due to my complete lack of Theoretical music education and beeing a mediocre drummer on a good day at best. But we have fun and doing this as a hobby for that exact reason only.
 
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