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As my regular readers know, short is my height, not my strength, so you can imagine the look on my face when, about a thousand words into my post about my drumming experience for the Live Off Groupon challenge, I happened to double-check the application and realized the word restriction was 300-500 words. Jeesh. I have a hard time saying hello in less than 300 words! But I did it. In fact my actual word count was 440 (a savings of 60 words that I hope they'll apply to my overage of 45 on my Why I Should Be The Groupawn essay :-o) The submitted post is below. The REAL post - you know, the one where I find the meaning of life in a Rockband drumstick will come later this weekend. I think the video turned out pretty well considering we had about three hours to put it together and edit it. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, at least watch the first couple minutes. You'll get a laugh. If you do have time, a comment on the Youtube video would be greatly appreciated!!!
Having discovered a delight for the drums on RockBand a couple weeks ago, I just couldn’t pass up the Side Deal that cloudy
Thursday morning, hiding in the Google Ads next to the Power Yoga Deal of the
Day: $35 for Two 30-Minute Drum
Lessons with Jeff Hennen at Drum-Jitsu.
Drum-Jitsu? That should be
interesting….
Jeff’s picture on his website looks
a bit like a Ninja convert from Hell’s Angels wearing rock star glasses, so you
can imagine my surprise when this clean shaven man in a baseball cap greeted me
with a thick drawl and a hearty hello. Jeff
is one of those rare people so filled with genuine warmth and a down to earth
character, that you are immediately comfortable in his presence – even if you
are about to make a fool of yourself, on video!
After a quick tour of his studio
space – Universal Rehearsal
(having once managed a rock band, I can tell you it was definitely one of the
nicer studio spaces I’ve seen) - we squeezed into his percussion practice nook
(the number of drums in that room denied the laws of physics, I’m sure) and
began my first lesson. Jeff made me feel
immediately at ease. Well almost all of
me – my left hand was actually quite irate that it was expected to do something
more difficult than typing e’s and r’s which is its only real skill, but with
Jeff’s patient coaxing and easy way, even my left hand eventually got into the
groove.
We started with the basics, how
to hold the sticks (lightly between thumb and forefinger), allowing them to
rock loosely with the wrists. Despite my
inability to comprehend how you hold LOOSELY something you are trying to HIT
with, by the end of the session I was rocking out a snare-cymbal,
double-foot-kick, combo move - TO MUSIC!
I must admit, I was pretty proud
of myself. My
boyfriend-dubbed-videographer-for-the-Groupon-challenge, declared if I wasn’t
chosen for the Groupawn, I could become, like the drummer for Pantera. Okay, so he was just being nice, but really, I
surprised myself – though I’m sure it was actually more thanks to Jeff’s skill
as a teacher and his easy-going way.
As my regular readers know, short is my height, not my strength, so you can imagine the look on my face when, about a thousand words into my post about my drumming experience for the Live Off Groupon challenge, I happened to double-check the application and realized the word restriction was 300-500 words. Jeesh. I have a hard time saying hello in less than 300 words! But I did it. In fact my actual word count was 440 (a savings of 60 words that I hope they'll apply to my overage of 45 on my Why I Should Be The Groupawn essay :-o) The submitted post is below. The REAL post - you know, the one where I find the meaning of life in a Rockband drumstick will come later this weekend. I think the video turned out pretty well considering we had about three hours to put it together and edit it. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, at least watch the first couple minutes. You'll get a laugh. If you do have time, a comment on the Youtube video would be greatly appreciated!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Having discovered a delight for the drums on RockBand a couple weeks ago, I just couldn’t pass up the Side Deal that cloudy
Thursday morning, hiding in the Google Ads next to the Power Yoga Deal of the
Day: $35 for Two 30-Minute Drum
Lessons with Jeff Hennen at Drum-Jitsu.
Drum-Jitsu? That should be
interesting….
Jeff’s picture on his website looks
a bit like a Ninja convert from Hell’s Angels wearing rock star glasses, so you
can imagine my surprise when this clean shaven man in a baseball cap greeted me
with a thick drawl and a hearty hello. Jeff
is one of those rare people so filled with genuine warmth and a down to earth
character, that you are immediately comfortable in his presence – even if you
are about to make a fool of yourself, on video!
After a quick tour of his studio
space – Universal Rehearsal
(having once managed a rock band, I can tell you it was definitely one of the
nicer studio spaces I’ve seen) - we squeezed into his percussion practice nook
(the number of drums in that room denied the laws of physics, I’m sure) and
began my first lesson. Jeff made me feel
immediately at ease. Well almost all of
me – my left hand was actually quite irate that it was expected to do something
more difficult than typing e’s and r’s which is its only real skill, but with
Jeff’s patient coaxing and easy way, even my left hand eventually got into the
groove.
We started with the basics, how
to hold the sticks (lightly between thumb and forefinger), allowing them to
rock loosely with the wrists. Despite my
inability to comprehend how you hold LOOSELY something you are trying to HIT
with, by the end of the session I was rocking out a snare-cymbal,
double-foot-kick, combo move - TO MUSIC!
I must admit, I was pretty proud
of myself. My
boyfriend-dubbed-videographer-for-the-Groupon-challenge, declared if I wasn’t
chosen for the Groupawn, I could become, like the drummer for Pantera. Okay, so he was just being nice, but really, I
surprised myself – though I’m sure it was actually more thanks to Jeff’s skill
as a teacher and his easy-going way.
If you happen to be in the Dallas area with a yearning to master the art of black-belt drumming (Jeff is a black belt by the way), or if you’d just like to polish up your skills to beat your friends on RockBand, definitely give Jeff a call. He’ll pull rhythm out of you in no time!
Jeff Hennen
214.457.DRUM (3786)
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