Practice Pad
Technology, Programming, Music, Percussion, Drums and Stuff

The Blue Wailers (web|myspace) were featured in last week’s Flipside magazine, a Park City local music scene publication. Clickety-pop for full size, and check here for upcoming shows.

30 minutes cardio, worked on my arms and chest and back some more.

When I was 15 and a half I became a certified SCUBA diver. 6 months later when I turned 16 my “Junior” certification expired and I never got the adult certification. I never dove again.

3 weeks ago I went to the class and got certified to perform CPR. There had been a choking incident at the daycare and, while the staff were all certified, it turned out that very few of the parents were, so they brought in a trainer to do a class. Seemed like the prudent thing to do, so I did it.

Today, the American Heart Association has changed the procedure. No more mouth-to-mouth, they’re saying chest compressions only is just as effective. Sounds good to me. The chest compression part of the procedure is straightforward and fairly obvious, whereas the mouth-to-mouth seemed to me to be the clunky part of the task. Open the air way, close off the nose, 2 big breaths, watch out for puke, and hope you don’t get a blood or saliva-borne infection.

Not that a 90 minute class makes me any kind of expert, but I’m all for this change personally. If any of you folk keel over, I’ll thump on your chest all day and night.

/w

I’m trying to exercise more. Today I got 40 minutes on the stationary bike (the last 15 of which were fairly excruciating, thank you), and some work on my arms and back. The gym at the VA opens at 6am, and I’m going to try my best to be there then.

I just updated rebecca.willyrayconsulting.com and www.willyray.net to WordPress 2.5. Pretty smooth and easy update, really.

A lot has been happening since last I posted. Not sure I’m going to be continuing with music school, for one. Lots of reasons. It’s just not designed for a person with a career to do it. We’ll see what happens. Anyway, here’s to more blogging, I guess.

No-Money coffee shop jam session we put on because otherwise we’d be jamming in a private room up at school. Therefore, no penalty if the kit didn’t work. I didn’t even take a real bass drum.

As you can see, I added the 10″ tom from my Premier Artist Maple kit and a left-side ride. Cymbals: 21″ HHX Raw Dry Ride, 19″ Armand “Beautiful Baby” and 14″ HHX Groove hats.
I’ve found my new gigging configuration. Man, this thing performed great tonight. No problems. I let somebody else play it, and sat back and listened. Just how I imagined it (except the kid was a little unsure what he was supposed to play. Straight No Chaser: Not a shuffle. )

Woo.hoo.

/w

I really should have swept before I put it down…

Here are a couple clips in honor of Max Roach who passed away today at 83.  As anybody who knows me knows, Max was a personal hero of mine.  It’s a sad day for drummers.  Max showed us the way.  Now it’s up to us.

Alright, I have some stuff to blog ’bout so I’m going to get back on it.

Here’s the recent happenings:

We have a weekly jam session happening every Thursday night at Bada Bean coffee shop on 1300 S 500 E. It’s been pretty fun. I’ve enjoyed being able to get my old man buddies together with my new school mates. The hard part about a jam session is it can be difficult to maintain momentum. The first time the session goes down as a bass-drums-alto sax trio can be pretty discouraging. We missed the piano last week. Hopefully that was a one-time thing. We’ll see.

I have a rock band. No name yet, but it’s a bunch of good players, everybody’s excited to get going. So far we’ve had some really good rehearsals and just a touch of the usual band-friction. Like, it seems like we all want to play slightly different styles… I say “Fine, let’s play different styles.” Currently the priority is to get a bunch of covers of good dancing music together to take into the clubs. We’ll deal with the rest later.

I have an audition with a band with a very light rehearsal schedule. They have a bunch of tunes that they already know and are replacing the drummer. Should be a pretty easy pick up for me. I’ll write about how it goes.