Worst decision you ever made related to drumming.

[Talktotommy]

This can be anything but for me it was after one band had broken up playing in and around Boston. Got together with a few people to try and do a wedding band thing. Two weeks into it I threw my sticks down and said I’m done. First time I ever quit a band. Went from playing mostly originals to standard wedding songs. I just couldn’t take it I’m glad I stopped it after only a couple months.

 

[CSR]

I gave up drumming when my first child was born and had to “grow up.” I sold my Ludwig Classic 1966 with an 18” K cymbal for $250. Five years later, I went back to drumming, joined a community orchestra, 2 concert bands, 2 big bands, did a number of small combo jazz gigs. Before the pandemic closed things down, I did 160+ Rehearsals and gigs in a year. It’s my world since I retired.

 

[Vicey]

Selling my 1967 Ludwig Club Dates. I didn't have a lot of choice at the time, but I've regretted it ever since.

 

[bbunks]

Stopped taking lessons soon after I started

 

[Tornado]

Quit for many years. That was my worst mistake related to drumming. But it wasn't a mistake in regards to the rest of my life.

 

[Dumpy]

Marrying my first wife.

 

[JDA]

Nothing monumental.
Safety first.

 

[& You Dont Stop]

Got desperate (impatient) trying to sell my Zickos kit and lost my arse on them. I can hardly stand to look at pictures of the kit now. Woof!

 

[frankmott]

Two:
Switching to left-handed at age 15 after playing righty for 5 years. I was doing okay right-handed, but when I saw Ian Paice live w/Deep Purple in 1972, I thought "I'm left-handed, I should try that." Everything got way easier right away; it was an easy short-cut. I'm convinced I'd be a better drummer if I had stuck it out on a right-handed kit. Of course, it was only decades later, when it was pretty much too-late, that I realized that.

Spurning good gigs when I was in my late-teens/twenties, or semi-consciously sabotaging them, because my head was in the prog/fusion cloud. Now, at 63, even though I've been drumming all my life, I'm convinced that had I taken those gigs, or taken them more seriously (and spent less time drinking beer, smoking weed, and chasing skirts), that I might have actually made a living playing drums. As it is, I spent most of my life, and made most of my money, selling drums rather than playing them. I think drummers who, at an early age, by luck and/or dedication, find themselves gigging 250 times a year are the ones who end up on the cover of Modern Drummer. I believe stage-time is worth 100 times practice-time.

Having said all that, I'm still at it, left-handed and all. But I sure would like a few gigs!

 

[langmick]

Not developing my confidence soon enough. Not learning how to use Moeller and not fight myself so much. Missing out on groove drumming in favor of metal and other nonsense.

 

[dtk]

my first band after college was my most successful of any...and I was the one who broke up the band...of an ideal...not an actual problem....I'm still in contact with most of the band...we're still friends but there will never be a reunion and that's ok.
oh...and selling a Firchie I got at a good price.

 

[hsosdrum]

My biggest drumming-related mistake was our band not creating enough (or at times, any) original material once we were on the road playing gigs. We never had more than around an hour's worth of original material at any time, and that's a recipe that guarantees the band will never gather its own following and will never rise above playing local clubs. If you want to make a name for yourselves (which our band definitely wanted to do) you must forge your own musical identity. Otherwise you're just playing dress-up, like our band did for six years.

 

[dyland]

It's hard to say. The obvious choice would be dropping out of music school but that road eventually lead to me to where I am right now, which is teaching/gigging full time. If anything, that decision sent me down the path of playing backbeat music vs. jazz/orchestral/mallet percussion, which I don't exactly regret.

Worst decision I ever made was to end this tune 8 bars too early on a songwriter gig. The singer looked back at me like she wanted to behead me right then and there. I've had grown men get in my face and threaten to kill me but nothing has chilled me to the bone more than that chick's death glare. Shudder.

 

[richardh253]

Trading in my Ludwig BDP 66 jazz festival snare for a Supraphonic 400 in 1968 instead of holding on to it AND buying the Supra....two snares, who knew?

 

[BennyK]

staying when I should have walked away

walking away when I should have stayed

Easy money has its own price .

 

[CherryClassic]

Hum,...Thinking I knew everything about drumming as I graduated from school and at age 76 now, knowing I knew nuttn'. Back in the day I was a darn good drummer and able to improvise almost instantly, now days with almost no practicing, well you get the picture. I play a good amount of gigs and I do really well with bands I play with now and do a good job of the things we do over and over again. I only wished I had keep some type of regimented practice schedule over the years.

sherm

 

[Pat A Flafla]

I have some standard regrets about saying no to band offers when I was a kid because I wasn't ready, or because they were blues bands and not prog metal or whatever, but equipment abuse tops my list now.

When I was very young and stupid, I dreamed of a fancy modern kit. Maple, snazzy natural finish, sharp edges, low mass everything... What I didn't know was that the ugly, abused, badgeless kit my folks got me for $250 was a vintage Pearl fiberglass kit someone had rewrapped with contact paper. (I now suspect it was hot, and was altered on the cheap to be unrecognizable so they could list it in the classifieds.) I couldn't afford that modern kit I dreamed of, so I stupidly took things into my own hands and busted out the tools. I cut the wonderfully fat baseball bat edges into a double 45, stained and lacquered everything very poorly, and (clutch your pearls here people) since I thought someone had painted the inside of the shells, I stripped the fiberglass out of them and refinished the interior. Best I can figure by closely examining catalogs, it was most likely a 1969 Thunder King outfit, though without the metal snare. Instead it came with a Supra, which I fortunately didn't ruin despite taking the bottom head off and using it as a high pitched timbale for a year.

TL;DR: I ruined some Gadson tone machines because Drum Industry Marketing Buzz Words (and youth and ignorance). I also used a Supraphonic as a timbale.

 

[jaymandude]

I was around some pretty high caliber musicians in the mid to late 80s. But I never felt I was good enough, and I wanted to have more money in my pocket. Noticed that I didn’t say I wanted to be more successful, just that I wanted more money. So I took a lot of lucrative wedding band gigs for a long time instead of struggling doing original and creative music the way some of my peers did.

A lot of these guys have gone on to have really great careers and have some really incredible touring and recording credits. I’m only learning over the last few years the value of following your own path.

you can’t believe in yourself into you’re ready to. And obviously I wasn’t ready to. Was it a mistake? It is what it is, I’m OK with it

 

[Rotarded]

The dark period, 1980-2008. Left for college and quit playing. Had my 1976 Ludwig Pro Beat in tow, stored a closets virtually unplayed until 2006, when I sold them...cheap. 2 years later I fell into a band after sitting in at a open stage night. That band is still going strong and I'm lucky to be in it as an original member.

28 years......

 

[LRod1707]

Same story here! Quit playing for a while.