Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

I'm in my early 40's, and I started in the 4th grade (around 1970?) by
playing bongos in a school production. The following year I got a
cheapie import snare and started taking lessons at school. Played in
school bands all the way through high school. I also played in a couple
bands, one rock and one country/bluegrass. A friend of mine owned a
small recording studio and I worked with him as a part-time studio
engineer and fill-in percusionist/drummer, which was fun and got me
interested in audio electronics. After that I went to college to study
electronics and now I'm an electronics consultant.

The two most memorable events playing in school were related to a jazz
quintet I helped form. We had a bass player (excellent, last I heard he
was still playing professionally and had played with the St. Paul
Chamber orchestra), tenor sax, trumpet, keyboard player and drummer
(me). We once played at a mother-daughter tea for our high school. We
were supposed to play for about a half hour, but after the tea was over
many of the attendees just stayed and listened for at least another
hour as we kept playing. A lot of fun!

The second was with the same group. We entered the district music
festival, but they had no category for us to play in so they let us
play as as a "demonstration" or something like that. We played Mile's
Davis' "Kind of Blue" and got 5 stars from the judges and a standing
ovation from them and the crowd. I have to admit, I got goosebumps and
to this day it's my favorite jazz song (maybe the best of all time).

I hadn't played for many years (although I still have my acoustic set)
due to living in a town house with attached neighbors. I broke out the
acoustic set occasionally to play with some co-workers at a previous
job but basically didn't play much for the past 15 years or so. I
finally got tired of not playing and decided to get the e-drums. Now I
play for enjoyment and mental health... :-)

That's my story. I would encourage anyone who shows an interest in
drumming to start early and see how it goes. Some people have a natural
ability and the only real way to find out is to give it a try!

Matt

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 08:13:05 -0800 (PST), robert barrie wrote:
>\ufffdI wish I had started when I was a kid, I'm going to get my nephews into it and see if they "stick with it". Have you played drums before you got your set a year ago? And how much have you progressed in a year. I just got my first (dtpress II a month ago) and love it, I played "air drums"\ufffdall my life so I figured it was time to finally get a kit,\ufffdshould have earlier though, I'm 37.\ufffd
>\ufffdLate, Rob\ufffd
>\ufffd
>\ufffdMatt Pobursky <ccsuser@...>\ufffdwrote:
>\ufffdYeah I looked a these videos a little over a year ago before I bought
>\ufffdmy Hart MegaPro set. I still have the Tony Royster video on my system,
>\ufffdI was impressed for sure.
>\ufffd
>\ufffdMatt Pobursky
>\ufffd