Point of View

Drum Room Feng Shui

The Arizona desert has been at its peak of perfection for the New Year. Welcoming mornings with mild temperatures make starting the day an easy task. In contrast to the poor frozen souls of my hometown Chicago, I am in Xanadu. Despite the interruptions of a job, it has been like a permanent vacation of sorts that I never tire of experiencing. There is something magical about being surrounded by mountain peaks which stretch towards the heavens, like the open arms of a comforting mother, we always feel safe and welcome. This permanent vacation does make it hard to concentrate on the task of working with the sun beaconing from office windows all day long. Little day-dreams intrude and feed my flights of fancy of writing a story, furthering my drumming abilities, or finding a new part of the desert to explore.
These day dreams have inspired my new music room that was once my master bedroom. Living in a condo has created certain limitations for this little drummer-boy, as one might imagine. Not everyone has my zest for a smooth 4/4 beat with heavy bass and the crash of the ride cymbals every time I decide to pick up my sticks; which sometimes happens to be in the late evenings. So, in order to keep the home owner’s association from having meeting upon meeting about the insane musician living in B9, I emptied the master bedroom to the bear walls and started my music room plans.
I set about in my best feng shui approach to make a practical studio that would reflect my style and appreciation of music. The drum kit would have to take center stage and used them as the center piece of my new studio. I started in on the tedious task of tearing down the kit and transferring the parts and pieces on-by-one to their new home. My kit is an all electronic set which has a realistic look and feel but enables me to hush out the sound by wearing a set of headphones. I set up the thirteen inch snare on its stand and reconstructed the frame for the remaining drums to be hung around, above, and below in a semi-circle that would eventually surround me once seated on the little black throne. Neil Peart speaks about the “stage presence” a set of drums has just by their being placed there. The geometric shapes, the sparkle of the hardware, the reflection off the cymbals all add to the hypnotic allure that now fill my room. I stepped back to admire them as they sat idle in their new location and was pleased.
The remainder of the room fell into place in quick order with the hanging of various framed concert show books and ticket stubs, musical books would add to the theme, while carefully placed issues of Rolling Stone magazine would provide some reading material for any visiting guests. I hung my small collection of guitars in shadow boxes on either side of the drum kit to give the room a more dramatic feel and set aside a place to sit and strum if the urge struck me.
The studio was set and ready to properly break in. I switched on the amps and drum processor and slipped into a steady beat and day dream of another kind.