I’ve been taking drum lessons from Drumeo, an online music education program, since 2018. Students share videos with each other providing encouragement, trading tips and generally enjoying the camaraderie of the community. Dave has been a member since 2013. During the past winter, he posted a video of himself drumming with a band, and I saw ‘Maine Academy of Modern Music’ on a banner in the background. Hmmm… Me: Hey Dave, are you from Maine? Dave: I live near Portland. New England states aren’t very large. On a global scale, we’re next-door neighbors…
As we were planning this trip, I sent him my usual email. Me: We’re going to be in Maine and we’ll be near Portland, wanna jam? Dave: Yes. (I’m paraphrasing, here.)
We made plans to get together with Dave at his home studio. A drummer’s delight! Four drum kits, a keyboard, various amps and guitars, vocal mics and a great sound system. His only neighbors are a horse farm, and the horses like the music! We set up our gear and had the afternoon to play.
Dave’s drums – including his pride-and-joy John Bonham replica set (look him up if you don’t know) – were way too big for my short limbs to reach, so we couldn’t double up on the drums (at least, not without a lot more adjustments than we had time for). Because were playing a list of songs I mostly don’t know on piano, and I don’t sight read very well (yet!), I couldn’t really play along on piano. However, I was able to follow the chord chart and play simple bass patterns on Dave’s Yamaha keyboard. With Doug on guitar and vocals, and Dave on the Bonham kit, we launched into a session of classic rock, prog-rock, a little folk-rock, even one of Doug’s original songs.
The first time through the first song was a bit rocky. We revisited challenging sections, talked through the timing and chord changes, and by the 3rd pass we’d pulled it all together. Musicians with a clue! We continued that approach for the other songs. Dave picked out musical grooves that were just right and played super-solid time, and our ad-hoc trio was sounding more and more like an experienced jam band, all the way to dinnertime.
Jen, Dave’s wife, joined us for a fabulous meal at a local Thai restaurant. We enjoyed great food, conversation – music and otherwise – and just getting to know each other. It was fun to learn that Jen is also an artist – tattoos, graphics and photography – and a published author.
We love meeting up with other musicians and jamming! Thanks Dave for hosting us!