Danny's Beat

We have finally found our home

Its taken a while to find, but we have finally found a new home here in calgary. The house is in the Cliff Bungalow area of Calgary. More stuff about the area can be found here... http://www.calgaryarea.com/sw/cliffbung/Heritage%20Committe/cliff_heritage.html.

We have managed to get another 3-storey town house, all nice and open plan and with plenty of spare beds for people to come and stay. It might take us a while to get everything sorted, like beds and blinds. The house deserves the best

Here are a few pics of the house, also we have a pair of birds nesting in the tree at the front

...it takes sweat, determination, and hard work. You can be and do anything you want if you are prepared to work hard.

It s been a while since I got behind a kit, as I have been waiting to buy a new electronic kit. I've gone for the Yamaha DTX950K, which I am really pleased with, and I'll write a full review in a couple weeks once I have got to grips with it.

Spending time away from the kit and practicing only with a pad has been a really useful experience. Firstly, I never really got the practice pad thing, but I do now At times it can be very relaxing working on the pad, especially working on repetitive hand exercises. Really concentrating on the stroke and the drum stick movements.

Secondly, I've also found how sticking pattens unlock a number of advantages when you come to apply them on a kit. Being without a kit for over two months I've had to use my imagination when working on grooves and only having a pad has made me understand how sticking pattens help with playing the drums. It sounds stupid but the better hand I get the better at playing I get.

Which brings be back to hard work... I had a jam with a few guys the other day, really good musicians, and I wish them lots of luck. For me, I was able to learn a song only on the pad.

My goal to practice 3 hours a day this year is really good, adding a good hour or so on the pad is going to help me a lot......it seems the better I get at playing the drums the more time I spend practicing and listening.

I've been playing along to the sound track of Grease the movie... OMG, I can hear the different time signatures and the different groves and things that I would never have heard before. It's really interesting and fun, but I still have trouble getting fills and things.

So things going well all in all, and soon I will have a great place to practice in

Over the last couple of weeks we have been house hunting in Calgary. We have managed to secure a rental apartment in the Lower Mount Royal area, which is cool, although we had to sign a six month lease as it is difficult to get a month on month lease apartment here

We have seen a lot of houses which has helped us identify the areas which we would prefer to live in. We did find this really nice house in an area called Cliff Bungalow and another super modern house is the same area. Here's hoping we can find our way through the purchasing process!

We have been staying at our friends Brett's while we got the new rental sorted out - which is very nice of him. Thanks Brett.

We have now moved into our rental apartment, just awaiting our funiture and things from toronto, which should arrive next week

I also saw Orion's belt in the sky, from our window which was cool.

I was back in the UK the other week and had a lesson with Pat Garvey. Other than some sound advice on practice methods, we had a great talk that really challenged me to make a step change in my drumming.

I have been thinking about the lesson and feel that I need to leave my structured learning and focus more on just enjoying playing the drums. This includes getting out more and playing with other musicians and to beginning to find who I am as a drummer. I'm thinking I should be playing more to my favorite tracks, putting more passion into my playing, and sing out loud as I drum forgive me world I have to become a musician, not just a lover of music.

I've a load more ideas but just do not know were to start. So for the next while I'm going to pleasure myself with my music and do the things I want to do... play a long to Queen Innuendo album and not care as along as it's in time, musical, and fun. There are lots of old albums from back in the day that I want to play along to but I've never done so because I focused on "learning the songs". Now I just want to play along with them, sometimes it will be good sometimes not so good.

Oh btw, my singles have improved, 130 bpm for 5mins which I am really pleased about

I have some good news... Last week we got the email which told us that our applications for permanent residency in Canada had been approved

They requested we mail them our passports, but as I am due to fly back to the uk we decided to tavel to Canadian Consulate in Buffalo in person and "land" in Canada on the way back. We have been waiting 3 years for this so we really wanted it over and done with as soon as possible.

So the crazy trip started on Wednesday afternoon with a flight from Calgary to Toronto and then a 2 hrs drive over the US boarder to Buffalo. The following morning we went to the Canadian Consulate that has been dealing with our applicaion to get our papers and things stamped. When we arrived there was about 40 people ahead of us I thought we would be there for hours but no... 1 and 1/2 hrs later we were back on the road crossing the boarder and "landing" in Canada Then it was a drive back to the airport and a flight to Calgary for a skiing weekend to Golden BC with some friends. So in the space of a day we flew from one end of Canada to the other and drove miles. Oh and to top it all... I had Tosillitis

This photo is of the Kicking Horse mountain from our hotel in Golden...