drumming secrets

Last summer I was fortuned enough to play on a festival in the pre-show of Dutch Motown artist "Waylon". Assuming I would see Waylon's regular drummer Bram Hakkens again, I saw Juan to my amazement. Knew who he was, what he did, I admire him for that, but I never saw him playing live or talked to him. Later that day I saw him play and spoke with him for a while.

In pursuit of that I contacted him a few weeks later asking him if we could meet for a drum lesson.

After a few emails we decided to meet in a few weeks and do a two hour lesson. De great thing was that he was willing to come over to my place. So I set up two drum kits in a rehearsal space nearby and arranged a college drummer to take a one hour lesson and we split the travelling costs of Juan.

About a week before the lesson I told Juan that I wanted to talk about timing/feel, sound and the preparation for raid jobs. I was interested in Juan’s  thoughts about that subjects and it are the things were I can still get good profit of.

We started the lessons talking about timing. Especially we discussed the shuffle-feel. The history, the evolving and how which kind of shuffle-feel is meant to be used in band settings where things we discussed.

After an hour or so we took a break from de drum set and started talking about how he prepares and how much time he takes for it. He also showed me some lead sheets he'd made, so I had the change to check what kind of things he writes down.

After that we end up playing grooves with alternative sounds. Playing with different sticks and on different elements of the drum set. Here Juan listened to me from a singer-song writer point of view and let me adapt to his comments.

The midday with Juan really was a inspiration for me. He took all the time that was needed for every subject, is super enthusiastic and he teaches to your playing style, needs and interests. Besides that it’s great he is willing to come over to your place of comfort where you can be the best you can.

Sjors Ooteman / Drummer