How I Went from “Okay” to 7-Time Tenor Drum Champion (or The Value of Sharing What You Know)

 

So anyway, I grew up in a very small Texas town northeast of Dallas, and literally the town had one stoplight, so it was pretty small. The high school at the time was classified as 3A—which, if you don’t know Texas’ system, they redid it a few years ago, and now it would be considered 4A. But just to give you an idea, my graduating class had 140 people in it, and we were the biggest class that had ever gone through the school. So it was a pretty small town. It’s bigger now, but that was the place where I was at at the time.

And the person who taught us percussion—he was a saxophone player. He did absolutely the best he could, but he just wasn’t a percussionist. And he did a good job bringing in some people every so often to help out with teaching drum set and different things like that at the high school. But anyway, I’ve seen the videos from earlier years and they were always functional and serviceable, but they weren’t really learning like what the best schools were preparing people for— to go on to college and things like that. So anyway, when I was in middle school, I was doing “okay” for—I was doing the best of what I knew.

But a guy named Rick Beckham just happened to move in to the town. And the band was doing some kind of fundraiser—at a gas station, I believe. And he happened to see them at one point, and he came and talked to them. And he had marched with the 27th Lancers and Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps. And he told the band director: “Hey, this is my background. Would you like someone to help work with your drum line?”

And so he was like, “Sure, I’d love that.”

So anyway, Rick started helping out. This was when I was in middle school. And the technique that they had learned and everything, it was—as I look back on what I learned, I had to unlearn a lot of bad habits.

So Rick started working with them, and I took lessons from him for a little while in seventh grade. And then in eighth grade, I started coming up to the weekly rehearsals the high school was doing. And of course, as an eighth grader, I was really struggling to keep up with those high schoolers. But it was a good kick in the butt to keep me moving and getting better. And I definitely got a lot better.

So my seventh grade year, when I first started taking lessons, I barely made the All-Region band. And if you don’t have that in your area,

it’s basically like all the schools in the area go and compete. They learn an etude—or several etudes— and then they perform and the judges sit behind a curtain and judge based on how you sound without seeing the player. And so I barely made the All-Region band in seventh grade.

And then in eighth grade, I actually competed in two All-Region contests, one for the small schools and one for the large schools. And I got first year in both of those. So I made a lot of progress in that first year.

And then in high school, Rick continued to teach the drum line for my freshman and sophomore year, and we got to be pretty good. And he decided to bow out after that. So my junior year in high school, I basically became the percussion teacher of the drum line. And I actually wrote some of the parts and all of that. As I look back on it, my band director gave me a lot of trust and responsibility as a high schooler.

But anyway, I did well at the All-Region bands. And then, in Texas, it goes to Area then State. And so, I was always one of the top three at Area every year. And then the last two years, I made it in the All-State band.

And so my senior year in high school, the Texas Percussive Arts Society decided to have its own drum line contest and individuals contest that fall, and I won the tenor drum contest. So that was my first big contest I ever won. And so that was pretty exciting.

So anyway, all of those things would not have happened if Rick had not just volunteered his time. He never got paid for doing any of that. And he put in and vested a lot of time into people. And just because he believed in helping people drum better. And so, I wouldn’t be where I am now if he hadn’t done that. So that’s a good lesson in just the value of teaching and the value of helping people and volunteering your time and bringing people things that you find joy in.

So anyway, I did that. After high school. I auditioned with the Marine Corps band program. And I’d actually wanted to get into the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, but they didn’t have any openings at the time, so they said it was easier to get in if you get into the band first—if you’re already in. So I went and did that, and I made it into that. And I did that for four years.

During that time, Colonel Truman Crawford, who had been their director for years—he retired, and they were in a bit of a transition time.

So I was not quite sure. And then, unfortunately, the last two years I was in the Marines, there were some leadership issues that I would just say were… rather toxic. And I got pretty burnt out on it. We traveled all the time—we did 300 performances a year, and it was just a pretty grueling schedule. So I was just like, “I’m done with music. I don’t want that for a job or anything. I just want to do something else.”

And so I actually looked into becoming a counselor. And so I went to school, and that’s actually what my bachelor’s degree is in; it’s in counseling. And so I did that. I got some extra training in life coaching and really enjoyed that. And I was looking at that as a career.

While I was still in the Marines, I started going to the DCA contest every year. And the first year, I got second place on tenors. And then every year I went after that, I won.

Again, that’s just thanks to the advanced training techniques that Rick Beckham taught me. And I started applying those to tenors and started building off of that. And so when I went to college, I was still going to the contests every year. Because in DCA, once you’ve marched with a senior corps, then you’re in for life. You can keep going to their I&E contest.

So I’d gotten married in college, and my wife was going to the drum contests with me. And after I’d started into all the counseling things, I was looking for the next step. She was like, “I really think you ought to take another look at music. That really seems to be your passion.” And so I thought about it.

Enough time had passed that I was able to look back on my Marine years with a little bit of perspective. And I really had a lot of dreams on wanting to teach a high school drum line and really build them up to do some things I knew a drum line could do at the high school level. But I hadn’t really seen a whole lot of groups even attempt.

And so I went back to the University of North Texas. I got some continuing education courses in music education. And then I got hired and I taught a couple of different places.

And my longest stint was at Paris, Texas. And I was really proud of the things we accomplished there. They were a 4A school, but the drum line had previously won the Percussive Arts Society drum line contest. And so I came and took that and kept building on it. We were going to contests where we were going against 5A and 6A schools. 6A is the biggest in Texas, and we were frequently in the top two or three at those contests, and we were doing really well.

And I never gauged success on trophies. Because you have up years and down years, and different factors, and judges who like you and don’t, and different things like that. I always judged: Are we achieving things?

And the last year we were there, the snare line was playing, like, 32nd-note paradiddles. We got the marimbas playing with six mallets—and not just block-chord things, but actually, like, manipulating them. And some pretty good bass splits and all that kind of stuff. So there were just different things I was always trying to build and push. And the last year I was there, the band actually made it to state for their first time in the school’s history. So I was pretty proud of all of those accomplishments.

I may post some of the videos at some point on those. But if you go check out Paris Drum Line’s Facebook page, there are a lot of videos on there, and you can see some of the things they did. My years were 2012 to the spring of 2017. So anyway, I did that, and I really enjoyed that.

In the last video, I talked about how I transitioned to running a percussion magazine for a while. And I had gone to teaching part time with a high school. I was just working their drum line after school and in the spring. But COVID came, and the magazine just—the funding just wasn’t coming through, because a lot of companies were struggling on finances.

So anyway, I went back to teaching full time, and I’ve shifted to teaching elementary music now. That way I don’t have quite as busy of a schedule. No after-school rehearsals or football games or Saturday contests or indoor drum line contests or any of that kind of stuff. So I’m really enjoying this now, and I’ve been able to focus a lot more on composing and arranging. And so that’s my big interest right now. So I’m going to be making more videos on that in the near future.

But anyway, I just wanted to tell my story. I thought some of you might find it interesting. And I think just the big takeaway on that is: It doesn’t matter where you came from. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a small town. It doesn’t matter what resources you have. If you have a lot of money, if you don’t— It really comes down to the people in your life—people who are willing to invest and help.

But also you’ve got to take advantage of those opportunities. So I will say when I first took lessons with Rick, I didn’t enjoy them. Like, it was— He made you work hard and build your muscles and a lot of chop building stuff. And I just didn’t like it. And I actually quit lessons for a little while. But then I started to see the difference. And so I got back into it, and I met with Rick throughout my junior and senior year.

I didn’t mention… Once a week we would just get together on Saturdays. And he was starting to go to DCA at that point—getting ready for it. And I was doing different contests. And so we’d play for each other. And he got me to a high enough level that I could actually know what he was doing—that I could watch him and give him some decent feedback. And that was pretty cool.

At Paris the last year I was there, I had a snare drummer who had gotten to the level where I felt like he could actually critique me well. And I actually had a couple of students. I’d play for them, and then they could give me feedback. And it’s cool as a teacher, when you see your students get to that level where they can thoroughly critique what you’re doing.

So anyway, if you’re considering teaching or helping people learn your craft, then I’d say go for it and see what you can do to help people. And also, if you have different opportunities come up, take advantage of those opportunities. If you’ve got an opportunity to work with someone who you admire—who has good skills or things like that, then definitely use that.

And find ways to be creative. I always enjoyed writing music, and I sought out different opportunities to do that. Like I said, I started in high school when I was writing for my drum line. If you’re a high school student, like, I don’t know, write a cadence or something. Just write something that people want to work on. And it may be terrible the first time, and that’s okay. But just work on it and get better at it, and you’ll learn and take feedback from people.

My stuff was always that I wrote it too hard at the beginning. So a tip: to start with something simpler, and people will like that and find it accessible, and then you can build from there.

Anyway, I hope you find that interesting and gain some good motivation from that to keep going. And I’d love to hear your story.

So post in the comments: How big was your school? What did you come from? Was your program any good? What helped you get better? Was it a teacher? Was it something— Now it might be of YouTube videos and stuff like that. There are a lot of resources available now that didn’t used to be.

So I’d love to hear different things that have helped you along the way. So share those. And let’s encourage each other to keep making great music, and get better at our craft, and just enjoy it.

So thanks for watching, and I will see you next time. Bye!