My first drum kit...

[Cajun Voyage]

My very first drum kit...well, it's for my son of course.

My young son has really been interested in drumming for the past year. It started out as a used snare kit picked up at a pawn shop about 6 months ago (my first drum purchase ever) and now he has weekly lessons at Guitar Center. Today, a spare bedroom is now a drum room. I pieced together an Export EXX kit in Grindstone Sparkle over the past 6 months. 20x16, 12x8, 10x8, 16x16 and a 14" snare.

I signed up with Stephen Taylor last month and am taking some basic lessons myself online. I'm enjoying learning the drums as much as my son and the best part is it's something we can do together.

Anyway, I'm a lefty with a right dominate foot and the most natural way for me to play right now is open hand on a righty kit. Progress is going good and I think I will stick with that style. I like the fact that I can walk up to a kit anywhere and sit down and start playing without having to move everything around.

I have a few pics attached with both 5 piece and 4 piece setups. That's the decision I'm working on now...4 or 5 piece. I know one of the big advantages to a 4 piece for most is being able to move the ride above the bass. But since I play open hand, my ride is behind my hi-hats, so I still have a big hole there between my mounted tom and my floor tom. The cymbal kit I have (Paiste 20R, 18C, 16C & 14HH) came with a second crash (16") and I'm unsure on where to put that right now, so it just moves around and sometimes I just take it off the kit completely until I feel a need for it somewhere.

Any input on cymbal placement and general setup for a beginner playing open hand on a righty kit is appreciated. Oh, and yeah, I also picked up an Alesis Command electronic kit for practicing after hours. Thanks for looking.

[Cajun Voyage]

My electronic and acoustic kits. The electronic kit is setup low right now for my son to practice on.

[Eric]

Sweet gear. So cool you and your Son can play together.

[AZ-Jack]

This is very cool that you are promoting and participating in you son's exposure to drumming, and that you have lessons lined up. My parents also started me out with a snare drum, and my dad and mom were supportive of my drumming interests. They also saw that I was an enterprising young man, and so we sort of melded the two together.

We all had to start somewhere, and being the youngest in a large family during the 1960's, sometimes my priorities were weighed against my parents feeding our family. So, I edged my way into the world of drumming first with coffee cans with the ends taken out with a can opener and then the plastic lids used for batter heads. I saved money mowing lawns and shoveling snow beginning around age 7. My dad bought my first marching snare, shown here being used as a "floor" tom (I still have this Rogers Newport marching snare). The other drums were tightly tensioned by springs and no reinforcement rings. I bought the cymbal at Montgomery Wards out of the catalogue, and remember the day I rode my bicycle to Wards to pick it up. I made the cymbal stand out of a piece of doweling, with something like a radiator clamp to hold it up with electrical tape for padding. I worked very hard to get this to sound as good as it could, and I had this for two or so years until I was able to afford a used Ludwig kit that I saved for by delivering newspapers.

Today, things are a little different - this is from a few years ago when I was into practicing with a double bass. I am currently working on a new kit around a MCX shell pack.

[Ron Gerber]

Two great stories in this thread.

[TMdrums]

Two great stories in this thread.

I agree with Ron!