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    Drum Roll Please: How Playing Drums Saved My Life
    Drum Roll Please: How Playing Drums Saved My Life
    Drum Roll Please: How Playing Drums Saved My Life
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Drum Roll Please: How Playing Drums Saved My Life

    By Jeffrey Summers

    ()

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    About this ebook

    I began writing this book as a journey back in time and soon realized it was a story worth sharing with the world. After three long years of writing and reliving some very painful memories, now the book is complete for all the world to read. Writing this book was the most liberating experience for me. I learned so much about myself, and most of all, I became one with my instrument.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNewman Springs Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateJan 20, 2022
    ISBN9781638817277
    Drum Roll Please: How Playing Drums Saved My Life

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      Book preview

      Drum Roll Please - Jeffrey Summers

      Chapter 1

      Oftentimes, when I look back on my life and drumming, I reflect on the journey that is my life…my drumming life. In 1965, San Francisco was the center of the love and peace movement across the country. My life started on a rainy April night. I came into the world loud and determined. My mother had no husband, no man to help her, other than my uncle Moe, who would become an inspiration to me as I grew up. As you can imagine, I wasn’t born into a musical family or an atmosphere where music was even important. Music for me, though, would be my way of communicating to the world.

      My homelife was my mother, my older half brother, and me. To me, growing up, my brother was just my brother, no half, no quarter—just my big brother. My early days in San Francisco were short; as I would soon learn, we would be moving a lot. From San Francisco, we moved north to Yuba City, California. We lived in a duplex, where I never saw the neighbor next door.

      My grandmother also lived with us. My grandmother was very much the heavy when it came to discipline and watched over my brother and me when my mom was at work. My grandma liked to watch old singing shows, such as Hee Haw, Grand Ole Opry, and yes, the Lawrence Welk Show! I didn’t pay attention much until they would showcase the band. I would stop what I was doing to listen and to study the musicians, especially the drummers. We were lucky because we had a large color TV. How mom was able to afford it, I don’t know, and most shows were still aired in black and white, but Grandma’s singing shows were in color, so I could pick out every detail.

      I was only five, but the sound and tempo would stop me in my tracks. I would try to mimic what the drummer was doing with a pair of spoons or anything I could use as a pair of drumsticks. I would run around the house, making pretend drum sounds. I think it was at that moment that I realized that the louder the sound, the cooler it was!

      One day, my grandmother took my brother and me to the park. As we walked through the neighborhood, we passed the Yuba City Fire Station 1. The engine was parked outside on the ramp, a beautiful white American LaFrance pumper, the chrome bell with an iconic eagle on top, shining in the morning sun. My love for the fire service began right then and there. The siren, which sat opposite of the bell, was a point of great interest to me. It had the letter F in the middle of it. What does the letter F stand for? I thought. Fire! Yes, it stood for fire! Later, I would find out that it stood for Federal, the maker of the siren.

      At that moment, one of the firemen came out of the station and saw my brother and me standing with our grandma, looking at the fire engine. He asked, Would you like to hear the siren?

      Before anyone could say anything, the siren—with the F in the middle that meant fire—let out a sweet, shrill sound that I would be trying to copy by running through the house, screaming at the top of my lungs. This sound, I thought, how wonderful! It screamed, Get out of the way, as the fire engine raced to a fire. Such a statement, this wonderful little machine called a siren made, like a crash cymbal: loud, abrupt, and to the point. My visit to the fire station would live inside me for the rest of my life.

      At about five and a half years old, we moved from Yuba City to Lafayette, California, into a two-bedroom apartment. My affection for all things big and noisy was satisfied by my neighbor, who drove a bus. He would bring the bus to the apartment from time to time and park it overnight. Its two-stroke diesel engine was loud, smoky, and I loved it!

      Music at that time was early 1970s pop on the hip radio station KFRC: Steely Dan, Elton John, The Beatles, and Fleetwood Mac (a favorite of mine). The couch cushions became drums, and two wooden spoons became my drumsticks. I would beat away on those poor cushions for hours, song after song. I found that being by myself, I was happier. I could pound away with my wooden spoons, pretending to be a famous drummer, or run through the apartment complex pretending to be that fire engine on its way to the biggest fire ever!

      Another birthday came and went and another move, this time to Walnut Creek, California, into a two-bedroom duplex. We lived down the street from my aunt, uncle, and three cousins.

      The 1970s could only be described as a decade with its bright colors, bell-bottoms, long hair, songs of love, and faraway places from the eyes of a little kid. My brother was in fourth grade and brought a recorder home. You all remember the recorder, right? The flutelike investment that wasn’t really a flute. It was the first real musical instrument in our house. My brother would practice after school. He would play the scales and some basic songs. He wouldn’t let me touch it, which suited me just fine because it wasn’t loud enough for me anyway! By this time, I graduated to pots and pans as my makeshift drum kit. My mom wasn’t pleased but recognized the pot beating as an outlet for me.

      One Friday after school, my mother came home and began packing for yet another move. This time, we would be packed up and moved out by midnight off to Concord, California, and into another apartment. I called these moves midnight moves, and little did I know at the time, but there would be more in my future.

      By this time, I was used to not making new friends and to being alone or playing with my brother. I was so used to changing schools that I never put my name on anything. Living in Concord would be different, however, because living in Concord meant drums, real drums! But I will talk about that later. First, I’ll cover the piano and piano lessons. The piano is a wonderful instrument, but it wasn’t drums. It is a percussion instrument but still not drums. My mother rented a small upright piano, which fit into our small apartment. At last, maybe one of us would become the concert pianist that my mom dreamed of having.

      Downtown Concord in those days was a world of apartment complexes, shopping malls, and mom-and-pop shops. Among the concrete jungle of downtown stood some original buildings dating back to the early 1920s. The music store where I took piano lessons was housed in one of these original buildings. It was a large white two-story corner building. It was made of wood and brick, and the bottom floor was the showroom, where all the instruments were on display: pianos, drums, horns of all types, all kinds of string instruments, and rows of shelves with sheet music and other music-related accessories.

      The first floor had a stale wood with a touch of old-carpet smell. In the corner, off to the right side of the main counter, was a large ornate wood staircase, which took you to the second floor. The second floor was a mixture of music rooms and rehearsal studios. The stale wood and old-carpet smells were fortified with the smell of stale cigarettes. The music instructors would smoke in their rooms prior to their students’ arriving for their lessons. My brother and I had separate lessons but with the same teacher.

      Our piano teacher was an older gentleman. He was short, round, and had very thin hair. I remember that he had a huge nose and a prominent French accent. He told my brother and me that he would make us concert pianists! I wasn’t so sure about me but my brother maybe.

      Step 1: scales and reading music

      I never looked forward to the lessons. I struggled to keep up; however, my brother excelled from day one. I had a learning disability that wasn’t diagnosed yet, so I would struggle at many things due to my learning disability. My fingers just didn’t want to work together. And trying to read the music at the same time? Forget it! It wasn’t happening!

      At home, my brother would practice on the rental piano. I stayed away from it, content to set up my makeshift drum kit with pots, pans, couch cushions, and anything else that I thought sounded good. After about four to five months and no real progress for me as a pianist, my mom made the deal of all deals. It would become the best deal of my entire life!

      Chapter 2

      I walked up the stairs of the music store for the last time. My last lesson on the piano ended with the piano teacher asking, Do you like playing the piano?

      I looked into his old but wise-looking eyes and said no, then I proceeded to tell him about the deal my mom made with me. The deal was that if I didn’t improve on the piano, then I could play drums. Yes, folks, real drums! Round and wood with bright white heads and real cymbals.

      My teacher smiled and took my hands in his and squeezed them. The meaning of the squeeze didn’t make sense to me until he told me to go down and send my mom up because he had something he needed to tell her. I waited at the counter downstairs

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