Drumming it up

FOR the past many Saturdays, I have been spending time at the Grandstand, a mall on Turf Club Road that's perhaps only busy over the weekends. It is the place that parents take their children to for all sorts of enrichment lessons: fine arts, gymnastics and even Lego building.

Me? I go there to play the drums, an instrument that has long been on my to-learn list. Actually, to use the word "play" is stretching it. What I have been doing, really, is learn how to bang on a drum set to a new song each week, while looking at - get this - pictures of drums and boxes on a television screen.

It is a teaching concept said to be unique to Drum Tutor (the drumming school that I attend) and part of Downbeat 101, an easy, casual course by Drum Tutor for total adult beginners. Instead of traditional music notation, images of various drums (bass, snare, hi-hat) and boxes are used to teach the basics of drumming.