Published today in Globe and Mail – link to full piece below
“You want to learn the what now?” my husband asked.
“The drums. I want to learn the drums,” I replied.
He was speechless, understandably. Because in our 35 years of marriage, I’ve shown almost no interest in music, other than occasionally saying, “Can you turn that racket down?”
But I’ve spent my career working on variety television shows like The Grammys and The Voice and somehow that made me “drum curious.” I would walk by a drum kit backstage and feel this inexplicable pull to start banging away.
I saw recent research that said playing music can preserve cognitive function, so with the kids grown and my work slow I finally signed up for a free drum lesson. Immediately I became anxious about it, so I made up a backstory. I was a writer researching for a character in a book.
The sight of my teacher only worsened my nerves. He was a 20ish musician type who ambled in 30 seconds before my 3 p.m. class looking like he had just gotten out of bed. But he surprised me with his enthusiasm. “We get people of all ages,” he insisted. I ditched my cover story and admitted, I just wanted to play the drums.
He taught me the individual drum names, how to hold the sticks and how to count beats. Then it was time to attempt a rhythm. “You’re going to hit the hi-hat with your right hand and use your right foot to hit the kick drum, then the right hits just the hi-hat, then the left hits the snare while the right hits the hi-hat and then…”
Easy there! I anticipated that drumming would be physically demanding, but had no idea the levels of co-ordination required. For someone who was never good at sports or dance or even walking, this would be a challenge. Read more here
Kristen Hansen Brakeman 
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