Drum Phil

I must have some unconfessed pride in my life right now because I usually get brought down a notch when I do. The instrument of my humility on this occasion was the medley of songs we played in our church.

To understand this fully, you will need to know a few things about me. First of all I’m an introverted perfectionist. So this basically means I like to think about my expressions before expressing them. I want everything I do to be perfect, which of course it never is, and so usually by the time I’ve come up with the right thing to say or do the moment has passed forever. A great deal of everything else I regret. I will lie on my bed at night and sigh about something minor that happened decades ago.

Music of course is expression and with most musical expression the average listener will allow a middling musician to arrive at a note a ½ second early or near perfect tone but that doesn’t really work with percussion. If you’re not perfect everyone knows it and I am the imperfect percussionist in our worship team. At times I struggle with a song or two but can usually do well in general.

Sometimes, to enhance the message of the song, the worship leader will change the tempo of the song. My personal favourite is to slow the tempo down at the end of the chorus real worshipful like and then to start the next verse at full speed again. This is fun for the drummer because he has to guess how to slow down with the group and then read the leader’s mind to figure out when to start again and at what tempo. If the drummer doesn’t get it right he will usually add a half bar of kick beats in to get back in step. But if he loses his cool he sometimes starts to play chaotically or he stops altogether. It happens.

I’ve changed the drummers name to protect what’s left of his confidence. We’ll call the poor fellow… Phil.

There was no logical explanation for what happened. Before practice Phil was relaxed and joking with the other musicians.

“How can you tell if the stage is level?”, The Euphonium player asked Phil.

“I dunno”, says Phil.

“There’s drool on both sides of the drum kit. Haw! Haw!”, he laughs.

The Euphonium player’s wife, who was in the kitchen getting the coffee started, overheard the conversation and stuck up for Phil, “Hey, what about Euphonium players?”

“Yeah, the only drool I’ve seen is from your instrument”, Phil shot back.

All joking aside, practice before the service went off without a hitch. Phil felt comfortable and played all the songs with ease. All the songs were 4/4 no 3/4, no 6/8 or 7/4. Simple.

The worship leader started the first song and Phil kept time for precisely two bars and then something horrible happened. He began to drift from the beat. Phil and the song were like two windshield washers moving at slightly different speeds. Dragging slightly then rushing ahead but never quite matching the song’s tempo. Sometimes, there is a split second when you realize that you’ve added something extra or left something out and it feels like a great fingernail scratching across a blackboard in your mind. But one extra beat or the lack of one no one else will notice, as long as you come back when everyone expects you to.

But Phil didn’t come back when anyone expected him to.

“One and two and three and four and”, Phil counted to himself and stared through the ceiling up to the heavens above.

In every congregation there is a group of people who can’t clap. Yes there is. If you don’t know this you’re likely one of them. These people, if they’re loud enough, can be an annoyance to a drummer. Today, even the off-clappers were looking at Phil wondering what was up. They stared as if to say “Hey we may not be clapping on the 2 or 4 but we’re clapping around the 1 and 3 and we can’t even tell what you’re doing”

He continued to play but didn’t get any better. Rattled and wanting to run, the blood was leaving his extremities and rushing to his head and chest. At this point even if his mind could pick up the timing of the song and resume sending instructions to his limbs they couldn’t do what they were being asked to do with no oxygen.

“Oh God please let this song be over soon”, Phil prayed

The song ended but the beat went on. Phil’s instructor had once told him to visualize something when he plays. If you’re playing something light and beautiful think of something beautiful like a silver moon hanging in a starry sky. If you’re playing something funky maybe think of an old growth tree with gnarled roots in a mossy forest floor. When Phil closed his eyes he saw the same thing as when they were wide open, a darkening red vortex spinning counter clockwise. In the calm before the next song he took a deep breath and recalled his mantra for this scenario “Keep it simple, no fills, no extra 16th notes, quarter notes on the hi-hat and ½ notes on the snare and kick”.

There may be a day in the future when Phil would play every beat in perfect time, every crash of the cymbal eloquently placed, but it would not be this day. This day Phil was like a boat adrift on the ocean and there was nothing he could do about it. The rest of the group bravely soldiered on but they had clearly lost faith in Phil’s timing. Phil searched for someone in the mix that was keeping time that he could grab onto and fall in beside.

There was no satisfactory conclusion for Phil, there were moments when he got it right and sometimes he strung several moments together to make up a few bars but barely. I’m not sure if he’ll ever recover from this. He may never play in church again. You may think him melodramatic but I can tell you that I can imagine exactly how he must’ve felt. To be subjected to that for 30mins and not know why or when it will happen again. I certainly wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to go through that again.

Apart from God I can do nothing. I think that’s the lesson for me. So often I say to God “I’ve got it from here” When really I need Him every day. Even for the simplest things. Maybe instead of “Oh God please let the song be over” the prayer should’ve been “God please give me your strength to get through this”. I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him. - 1 John 5:13 – 15

Contend, O LORD with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. Take up shield and buckler; arise and come to my aid. Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me. Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.” – Psalm 35:1-3