Solo Drumming

During my marathon practice sessions of early 1997, I began to experiment with the concept of melodic ostinato solo drumming as taught by Terry Bozzio in his videos. I began very simply: at the end of each day's practice time I would work on playing over a simple foot ostinato. Six months later, I was playing club gigs all by myself, and my practice day had become 4 hours of working up new solo pieces. It was so much fun to create these "songs" on the drums and perform them live, just me, without a net! What really surprised me was that the audience got it and liked it. I always say that your average Joe isn't as dumb as most program directors, club owners and A&R guys think he is. On a Wednesday night, I could easily get 40 people to show up for a 9:00 gig, which isn't bad for Houston's inner-loop club scene.

I could be happy just working on that kind of music for the rest of my life, teaching drum lessons and taking the occasional freelance gig. I still perform solo drum pieces at clinics, and am working on new material for some shows, Atomic Opera's concerts, and hopefully my own CD.