Monday Drumday: Champion!

As I have said before I am using the Drumeo online music school to aid in my drum learning. One of their features is a monthly collaboration where students all play the same song and someone edits them all together. In April it was We Are The Champions by Queen. Unfortunately I left it until the last minute and then had some computer issues, so I missed being part of it. When I recorded a video on the computer the sound and video would go out of sync and that is not simple to fix. This happened after I got the latest version of Ubuntu Linux and it must have changed some defaults.I eventually figured out that it was something to do with the sample rate the software expected being different to what the interface delivered. So I now have it all working again.

I wanted to record the song for my own enjoyment. I had the backing track from Drumeo playing on my tablet that connects to the Roland TD-07 drums over Bluetooth, with the mixed audio feed going to the PC.

This is a fun song to play. Most rock is in 4/4 time, but this is in 12/8, which means it is counted in sets of three. It has lots of bass drum and cymbal action with a few tricky fills. I simplified some of those.

I was lucky to see Queen live twice and they were amazing shows. Freddie was a great front man. We also attended the tribute concert at Wembley Stadium that celebrated his music and that of Queen in general.

Meanwhile I completed the 30 day double stroke challenge I mentioned previous. I saw a nice improvement in my ability to play fast that I hope will come in useful. I will press on with the Drumeo lessons that keep introducing new techniques and styles.

Rock on!