Viva la Resolution!: You know who would make a great leader? My right hand.

It's Thursday, which means that yesterday was Wednesday. Which, of course, means that I had a drum lesson with Harry last night.

I was so determined to show him my dedication in practicing that I did not fear when he wanted to jump right into trading fours. With confidence I kept the beat up, and he did notice my definite improvement. I was feeling great about things.

He decided he wanted to focus on fills for a while. Remember what fills are? you can recall them Here. I asked him to go over some basic fills with me, since I wanted to continue my practice, but was kind of at a loss what to do when I was alone at home. So we went over something called "Sixteenth notes"

We started out with just the snare (this is also something we kind of went over last Wednesday, when I was first learning of fills), but eventually Harry wanted me to incorporate more of the toms into the fill. This proved to be pretty frustrating for me. Often, I can do things when Harry is right there playing it with me, and I can hear the correct way, and then I just choke when I have to do it on my own. I had to explain to him about how my brain works in that super special way that I don't learn things slowly, but rather not at all until I get that epiphany and I just get it.

So we're drumming, and I'm sucking at it, and he notices something. I'm leading with my left hand. (Leading, for those who are like 'say, what?' means I'm hitting the first note with my left hand, as opposed to starting off with my right.) Which is odd, seeing as I'm right handed. This is making ALL of the difference. He seems a little nervous about this, because if I have a tendency to always lead with my left hand, things are going to "get really ugly" later on down the line for me. Harry's the kind of teacher who doesn't want to interfere with the creative process for an individual, so he didn't want to outright say that I had to break that right now. But I said it. I'm already pretty sure that I'm super slow at learning already, so I don't need anything else slowing me down.

Even though I learned of my subconcious handicap, I thought yesterday went pretty well. The bad news is (even though it's awesome news for Harry) he got an apartment that he's moving into in January, and I'm going to have to give up my beloved practice kit. (rightfully so, they ARE his, after all.) So I may not be getting the Wii for christmas after all in favor of my own practice kit so I can continue "rocking out."

and now, obligatory pictures:

Evil Left hand