Curtis Cunningham on technology, music, dogs, and life.

I’m starting to get the drumming bug after a couple months no playing.

I’ve had a lot of kind words, compliments, and encouragement from friends and family members that I’ve sat down and talked over my feelings on the subject.

Part of me is yelling grow up. Many other parts of me are yelling things like - I’ve invested 20+ years in this and countless hours honing the art. This is an art, which requires discipline. One will hit walls with anything practiced to a high level. I’ve clearly hit a complete bitch of a plateau.. am I going to knuckle down and work through it, or will I just bail and be a quitter?

To paraphrase the great Randy Pausch Last Lecture, walls are there for us to prove how bad we want it, and to keep out the undeserving folk who aren’t prepared to make the effort.

With that thought in mind, it’s obvious I must approach it differently. I need to give it the respect it deserves. Also I must make very conscious choices in how I spend my time playing alone, and put more thought into who I play with so I’m always moving forward. i.e. aim to play with folks out of my league as much as possible, to keep me growing.

Off topic, but related - I’ve had a really annoying cyst/lump on the back of my left hand for about 9 months and it’s not going away. It’s painful to do things like pushups, and it will be aggravated with prolonged drumming. I’d hope the break would give it a chance to subside, but it hasn’t. I’ve seen a hand specialist about it and he said they can aspirate it to remove it. I’ve booked an appointment for Monday morning to have that done. Ok, nuff gory stuff.

So.. yesterday I called my teacher and booked a lesson for a couple weeks time. That cranks things up a notch. I’ll also need to focus on getting my playing together to hit up some jam sessions.