New Cymbals = Nice!

I got to play with my new cymbals last night, the China is great, and the 10″ Splash fills in a nice little gap and is so much better than the 10″ Pro-sonix splash I used to have.

I like the 2002’s because to me they have a very definitive sound.

New Cymbals

I bought a couple of new cymbals this weekend. Well, they were new to me anyway. A Paiste 2002 10″ splash (to compliment my 12″) and a Paiste 3000 18″ China Type. The splash is great, just sounds like a smaller version of the 12″ I already have and love.

I’ve never had a China before though, so I’m not really sure where I’d use it, but I will be taking it to band rehearsal tonight so I can get an idea of what it sounds like and where I might use it. It is a beast though; I hit it with the flat of my hand and even just with that it was very loud!

Suit You Sir!

So, we went suit shopping this weekend. Katie has got two work Christmas parties this year, due to the fact that she changed jobs recently, and one of those requires either a suit or a dinner suit. We looked at hiring but we discovered that it’s possible to buy something for not much more money.

Now I’m not good at shopping at the best of times, but when faced with the task of buying a suit—which is something I rarely wear—I’m even more useless, as Katie will testify! After fair bit of toing and froing we finally found one that I felt comfortable in and that we both thought looked nice.

Snow!

The first snow of this winter has started. It’s quite heavy, and hopefully it’ll still be snowing in December. A white christmas would just about make my year!

Phew!

Ok, well that went better than I expected! I was a little bit nervous to start with, and I think it showed, but I soon relaxed into it and I think everybody enjoyed it. The only problem really was that I cut out a couple of things – one of the warm-ups and one of the rhythm’s that I was planning to do – because I didn’t think I’d have time, but as it turned out I had time to spare.

The other workshops were good too, everybody did very well.

Soundskills Assessment

I’ve got my Soundskills assessment tonight. I’m planning to do a hand drumming workshop with a Soca. Wish me luck! It’s scary… This will be a real test of my people skills.

Some tips from my lovely girlfriend…

1. Smile (and have fun!)… If everyone can see you’re enjoying what you’re doing, they’ll be more receptive
2. Talk slowly, it’s amazing how you can speed up when you’re a bit nervous
3. Take time to ensure everyone knows what they should be doing. Your audience is a bit different but some people are VERY slow to catch on!

New Snare Drum

…has been ordered! So hopefully at the end of the month I’ll be replacing my old Pearl steel shell with one of these.

Hello world!

Just another WordPress.com blog eh? Well I guess you could call it that. I stumbled upon WordPress.com this morning completely by accident (not that much by accident, PixelHum.com runs on WordPress) and seeing as I have a compulsion to have a danbee account anywhere I can get one, I just had to sign up!

Anyway, I’ll probably just use this to post random rants and stuff, things that don’t really fit on PixelHum.