Today I had a thought: hey, could I strum a guitar while working the pedals of a drum kit at the same time? And to my delight, I could! This is a breakthrough for me. As a self-taught guitarist, one thing I never learned to do is tap my foot to the beat while strumming. That was too many moving parts for my brain. The moment I tried to tap my foot, everything would fall apart.
But in the last year or so as I’ve been trying to learn how to sing and strum at the same time, I’ve been forced to learn how tempo, beats, and note divisions actually work. And it’s paying off. I’ve been able to reach a long-time dream of mine of performing live at open mics.
Now that I’m teaching myself to play drums, it’s starting to unlock more doors of limb independence. Here though I could only alternate between my feet, sorta like walking. If I try to do a double kick, it all falls apart again.
Anyways, here’s what my first jam this way sounds like…
This is a single mic, pointed between me and the kit. As demonstrated here behind the doodle.
