130 Drumming Lesson

Recently, I had my first drumming lesson. It's not my first time playing the drums, though; in my first lesson, I learned 3 things that I wanted to share with you in the episode.

Proverbs 17v22: A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Living the Empowered Life podcast where we discuss all things empowering, encouraging and inspiring. My name is Yvonne Ellis. I'm an empowerment speaker, author, coach, trainer and founder of UMI Empowerment, a company that facilitates the empowerment of people. I help people to make positive life change, live in their purpose and develop into their best version of self. I share stories, interviews, spiritual encouragement and actionable tips to empower, encourage and inspire you to live the life you want. So if you want to live the empowered life, join me each week on my podcast so we can take the journey together. So if this is the type of content you want or need in your life, please do subscribe or hit the follow button on any of the platforms you're listening to this podcast on, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, whether you are listening to this podcast audio on my YouTube channel Living the Empowered Life, be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button so you don't miss the bi-weekly episodes. And as always, to my new listeners, I welcome you. I hope this episode is of value to you. Please do check out my other episodes. I have talked on a range of different subjects across this podcast. So do check that out. And to those who have continued to support and listen to my podcast over the years, thank you as always, guys. I appreciate you. I appreciate you listening in, taking your time to listen to these episodes. I appreciate you all, whether you are new or you have been listening for a long time. Thank you so much for taking your time to listen today. So I am back on track with episode 130 of this podcast. As I've explained over the last kind of few podcasts, I had kind of fallen a bit behind because of you know major consultancy work that I've been doing for nearly a year, which I'm glad to say is nearly finished, and you know, I'll be back to doing all the things that I love doing in a bit more of a consistent fashion. But I have explained across podcasts that you know I had been falling off track with you know uploading the episodes on time, so you know this would have been back on track for this episode today. I did release an episode last week, but that is because the week before I didn't get to upload it. So, and you know, I as I've said I really appreciate your patience for bearing with me. If you don't see that I have uploaded on time, please know that I am working on the episode and getting it out to you as soon as possible. So lots been going on, just a quick kind of round update of the things that has been going on. So I have been busy planning the Daughter Arise Afternoon Tea Awareness event. I have been busy going out leafleting in different areas. I've gone Clapham Junction, Brixton, I've done Mayfair, I've done quite a few areas, I've still got a lot of areas to do. I ordered a thousand leaflets to give out to the public to let people know about this event. The event is ticketed for 70 people, and the tickets are selling. I will leave a link to that if you are interested or know somebody that's been affected by the issues to do with childhood sexual abuse. This is work that I do through my organization, which I've been running for 15 years called Daughter Arise. But yeah, I'm just I've just been busy, you know, planning and organizing and getting that event together, and there's still so much to do with only six weeks left. In avenues, I have been preparing to you know celebrate my 50th birthday. I'm not one for big parties or anything like that. I'm just going to spend like from my pre-birthday eve, you know, just for the for the rest of that week doing things that I love, things that I enjoy. I will be doing some things with my family, some things by myself, you know, and I'm really looking forward to it. And in a recent newsletter that I shared on July the 31st, I talked about my kind of pre-50th reflections. If you're not subscribed to the newsletter, then please do find it in the show notes description box. You just email me your email address and I'll add you to the newsletter list, and once a month you will get encouraging, inspiring content straight to your mailbox. So please do sign up if you want to hear more about that. But I just shared my pre-birthday reflections, a little bit similar to kind of what I talked about in the last episode, but just more kind of focused on the kind of a different kind of thing that I'd been thinking about. So, you know, if you've received it, I hope that you enjoyed that newsletter. And yeah, I've just been busy just trying to prepare to do different things to do with my company, given my website uh overhaul and everything else, but there are certain little things that I need to finish up in the month of August, and those are the things that I have been concentrating on. So, I mean, that's really about it that's going on at the moment. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot for me, and it's been very busy. So, in this episode, which is a short and sweet episode today, I'm going to be talking to you in this episode 130 about drumming lessons. It's kind of got a double meaning in a way because yesterday I took my first drumming lesson as a 49-year-old woman. Not my very, very first time playing the drums, but I took my first lesson, and the last time I played the drums was 35 years ago, and years ago, and I will be sharing a short story time on that on social media later on this week. How I came to get into drumming. But basically, 35 years ago, I played drums for the first time, and it has been something I've wanted to do for a very long time. And yesterday I had my first lesson. My tutor is called Felipe, he is a really great drummer, and you know, I'm enjoying it so so much. And right at the end of the session, you know, he did a little video of me playing one of my favourite songs, which is Georgie Porgi by Toto, a band from the 80s that had quite a few amazing songs, and it was right at the end of the session. So he did a quick video and I posted it on social media, and the response I've had has been quite you know shocking actually. People have really been encouraging me, telling me to continue and that I'm doing well and things like that. I shared it on TikTok, I shared it on Instagram. If you're not following me on Instagram, it's you me underscore empowerment. Over there, I share things that I do to live an empowered life. I also shared it on my YouTube channel, Living the Empowered Life, as well. And the response I've got from people has been pretty amazing and just encouraging, really. And I wanted to post it because I wanted to show people that I haven't allowed age or anything to get in the way of the things that I want to do, and as I said before, this is what the whole ethos of living the empowered life is about, you know, not allowing age or race or circumstances to stop you doing the things that you want, and you know, it was a really good lesson, so I'm just gonna kind of quickly give you an overview. He wanted to see where I was at with my drumming, what I remembered from all those years ago. I didn't remember much. He then kind of talked to me about the role of a drummer in a band, and you know, talked me through all the different pieces of equipment to do with drumming, like the snare drum, the kick drum, the hi-hat, the fills, you know, and then you know, he wanted to kind of get me to understand the basic beat of drumming, and we did that, and I got to you know, drum to some songs, some songs to kind of get the kind of overall beat or the main beat of drumming. So I did drumming to Michael Jackson's what's that song called? Human Nature. I also did, as I mentioned, Georgie Forgie by Toto. I did Queen. I can't remember what other songs I did, but I did quite a few. Uh oh yeah, Bob Marley. He got me to kind of count the beats in songs to understand where to drum, and you know, the songs were at different tempos, and you know, some were hard, some were you know okay to do. He said that I have got a very good beat. He said he could see that I listened to a lot of music, and yeah, you know, that's what we spent the lesson doing is for an hour, and at the end he did that little video for me so I could share with people. So I wanted to share with you quickly three drumming lessons. So obviously, I have and I am having drumming lessons, but from the lessons of drumming, I've learned lessons, and that's why I've called it drumming lessons this episode. So the first thing I want to share with you, what I've learned from one lesson, is you have to get over being self-conscious. You know, I probably could have booked these lessons months ago, but I was conscious about you know my age, what would people think, and so forth, you know, because predominantly drumming used to be seen, I've learned, as a more male-centered kind of thing that men do in terms of instruments. Drumming was more kind of associated with men. I spoke to a really nice guy at the place where I go and play drums, and he was saying to me that there are women who are coming from all different ages, some in their 60s, some in their 70s, some young, different races who are who are playing the drums. And you know, another thing that I was thinking about, you know, was when I saw Shaka Khan playing the drums on a video. I think my husband showed me on TikTok, it kind of really solidified to me that I just need to do it. You know, I'd already booked the lesson, and my husband showed me that, and I thought, yeah, I'm just gonna go for it. But when I went there, I was kind of explaining all these things that were making me conscious, and the guy was so reassuring, and you know, I just got over all of that, had my lesson, and it was the best thing that I, you know, have done in a long time. And I put aside all the kind of doubts and everything that I had, and you know, that made for me having a very great lesson. And I just want to share some advice with you here. You know, what I learned is that being self-conscious about something is okay, it's part of a new experience. When you do something new or different, you're bound to feel self-conscious. But just because you feel self-conscious doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it. You know, you may feel like that because you might see no one else around you is attempting to do something completely outside of character, you know, not in line with their age, and you feel self-conscious about it, you know, it's totally normal to feel that. So I just want to say to you, you know, go for it. At the other end of it, you'll be surprised that those feelings of self-consciousness will not be as bad as when you first started. I can guarantee you that I, from what I felt yesterday to what I feel now, you know, I don't feel self-conscious anymore. The second thing I want to share with you is mistakes will happen. The process of doing anything new or different, mistakes will happen. I made many mistakes yesterday during my first drumming lesson. You know, getting the names of the drums wrong, getting the kind of association between beat and bar wrong, you know, losing focus when I was doing well during the song and towards the end losing focus. But it is part of the journey. Don't let mistakes or the fear of make making mistakes put you off doing the things that you want to do. No one is ever perfect at doing anything first time, it's all a work in progress, and as you go along, you'll find you won't make the same mistakes in the things that you're doing, and you'll make new mistakes. Mistakes are just part of a process, so don't allow that to put you off doing anything new, following your dreams, doing something different. And the last thing I want to share with you is it's never too late to revisit the things that you enjoyed doing or love doing. As I mentioned, 35 years ago I started to play the drums. I loved it then, and going back yesterday just further confirmed that I love it even more. Now, what's funny is that both my husband and my daughter said when I showed them the video when I got home with me playing the drums that they were glad that I finally booked my lessons and I did it because it's something that I wanted to do for a very long time. My husband even me mentioned since he met me, he remembered me talking about how much I loved playing the drums. So you see, everything is never late, it's always on time. And you know, maybe it's a hobby that you had, maybe it's something that you enjoyed doing, a school that you learnt when you were younger, and life has just got in the way, or something happened and you just didn't do it anymore. And you know, you want to do it again now. I want to say to you, it's never too late to revisit that thing. Remember how that how it made you feel, whatever that thing is. You know, when I came out of my lesson yesterday, it made me feel so happy, and I remember that feeling from all those years ago, how happy playing the drums used to make me feel. So, you know, I'm just encouraging you, if you've had something on your mind and you're looking at your age and you're looking at circumstances and you're looking at everything around you or what people would say, I want to say to you, don't allow those things to get in the way. You know, it's never too late to revisit the things that you love. As long as you're breathing and you're here, you know, you can continue to do those things and try those things again. So I really didn't want to make this a long episode today. I just wanted to share with you three quick things I learned from my drumming lesson. I'm looking forward to my next lesson next week, and I think what I might do is to continue to share little kind of video progress of me and my drumming journey because I think a lot of people are finding it encouraging, and obviously, I will share that with you. If you're not on social media, that's fine. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel, Living the Empower Life, because I'll be posting the videos there as well. But yeah, I will share this journey with you. I'm going to continue to enjoy it. As I said in my newsletter, as I approach 50 and go into my 50s, I want to have more new experiences, and I'm glad I've started off with a bang. So the Bible scripture I want to share with you before I finish is from the book of Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 22. A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. What I got from that Bible scripture is that we should do things that give us a cheerful heart. It's good medicine for us, it makes us feel good, it's good for our mental well-being, it's good for our spirit. Life is so tough for many people in many different ways. I've had my seasons of going through really tough things, and they have differed over the years. But if you and I can find things that we enjoy doing that cheers up our spirit, that cheers up our heart, it can make those things feel a little less uh burdensome. It is very hard, I know. But I want to encourage you in that today. Find those things that give you a cheerful heart. If there are things that you once loved that are now lost, try and find it again. And you know, just go for it. That's my encouragement to you today. So, on that note, guys, thank you for listening into this episode. I'll be back with a bi weekly episode in a couple weeks' time. I think that's just before my birthday. But thank you for taking your time to listen in. Please visit the show notes for everything that I've been talking about in this episode, and I will see you on the next one. Take care.