Hamilton, ON – Drumeo live meetup

We had so much fun at the last Drumeo live meetup we attended in 2022 in Toronto, we knew we’d be back for another. We were disappointed to miss last year’s in Tennessee. This year’s meetup was held in Hamilton, ON, not far from Toronto. We were glad to see so many familiar faces – half the group attended the meetup in 2022 – and meet new Drumeo friends live. There’s something about all getting together in one place that strengthens those relationships we form online and heightens the sense of the Musora community.

A few of us started with drinks in the hotel bar, then a few more of the group joined us for a delightful dinner at a nearby restaurant. General get-to-know-each-other small talk (where’re you from?) quickly morphed into general drummer talk (how did you get into drumming?). As one might expect, with the general stuff out of the way our breakfast meeting let us dive deeply into serious drummer talk (how did you upgrade your Roland e-kit? what should I send for student review? what’s a better double-bass pedal? etc.) No one even tried to divert the conversation…

The heart of the meetup took place at the Main Stage Rehearsal Studios on King Street in Hamilton. The owners, Justin Dobbin and his wife Kelly Ng, clearly LOVE drummers! Kelly, herself, is a student of the drums and she joined us for parts of the session. The main studio Joy had booked for us was large (huge!), clean, air conditioned, and acoustically treated to perfection. It featured an awesome, pro-level stage packed with great gear, along with drum kits borrowed for our use from a few of the other rooms – and our own dedicated sound engineer to run all this gear. Once we got down to jamming, James, the sound engineer, masterfully found a good sound mix between all 5 drum kits and various combinations of backing tracks, guitars, bass and piano. Also a drummer, he sat in at one or another of the kits for a few songs.

First up on the agenda were 2 clinics led by Drumeo’s own Doctor of Drumming, Aaron Graham. The first focused on making practice more fun – how to use your favorite songs to practice drills and exercises. Fortunately, the schwag offerings were a drum pad, a pad stand, and a pair of sticks, so we were all set to practice along with Aaron. And learn about his favorite songs. The second gave us a few warm-up strategies that help with timing, to improve skills with rudiments, and generate fun – you guessed it – done to music.

The evening was set aside for unstructured playing featuring a number of options. Folks could play along with a specific song or backing track. This could be a song they’d prepared for performance, or a song they liked, or a song selected by Joy, our fearless organizer. Drummers could play alone, or more typically with others in the group playing along on other kits and/or any of the other instruments. There was plenty of jamming along with other live instruments, without any backing tracks. There were a few times where all instruments were being played – 1 piano, 1 guitar, 1 bass, and 5 drum kits. And 1 chair. 😉 Just imagine the sound!

Thanks to Joy who once again organized this wonderful event along with Aimee and Ronnie. Thanks also to Brammie, Marlene and Christine A for arranging to keep us well fed. Thanks to Aaron for the clinics. Thank you Justin and Kelly for going above and beyond at Main Stage and to James for making us sound good. And thanks to sponsors Drumeo and D’Addario for all their support.

Here’re lots of pix…

For anyone who’s interested, click here for more pix (and better downloads…)

Looking forward to the next meet up!