Should You Go To Drum College?
Hey, Brendan Jones here from H91 Drum School in Galway City, providing both online and private drum coaching. It’s just over ten years since I decided to go to drum college. My parents asked me to get a “proper job i could fall back on’’ before pursuing what they viewed as an uncertain career as a professional drummer, and after a five year carpentry apprenticeship (which, soon into I despised ) at the age of 24 I looked to London to further my education in Drumming.
Remember this is just the start of a recession roughly 2008/2009 there wasn’t much much opportunities. I would see adverts for these drum colleges in magazines like ‘‘Modern Drummer’’ and ‘‘Drum’’ but one always stood out to me, that was DrumTech in London. However at that time, there was no way I would be able to afford it, what with the recession. That was until the European Union announced a loan initiative for EU students to study in the UK.
My plan was simple, to get the loan to pay only the tuition and then when I was over there, Id get a job at the weekends to pay for rent, food, drumsticks etc. I outlined my plan in the loan application sent it off and hoped for the best. Now there was just one little problem, getting into the college. Id been drumming for 8 years at this stage but DrumTech was notorious for have a very high standard of acceptance, and they didn’t give much information on what would be asked of me in the audition.
My audition was some time in the summer of 2008 I don’t remember much about it only that it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. In a nutshell you needed to score 35 points to get into the Higher Diploma…….. I scored 36 ……. I didn’t care that it was a close shave, a win is a win. I had good knowledge of about 20% of the stuff they asked me to play, could get through about 40% of it, and not a clue about the rest. My flight home was that evening and later in the week I got a letter saying that my loan was approved, it was official …… I was moving to london.
I did the above video to help people who are thinking about going to any of the contemporary music colleges to study drums. It will give some insight to what it’s like and what you will study. I’ll also tell you from my experience, why it may or may not be for you. There are areas in the music industry that these kind of courses are unbelievably beneficial. Going to DrumTech was one of the best decisions I ever made. It helped me to become a professional musician, a career that helped pay back the loan for the college, and gave me advice that is still relevant over ten years later.
I hope you enjoyed this blog, please let me know if it did and if you have any question get in contact with me.
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Look after yourself and be nice to one another.
