Tales From MI - Chapter 4

Today's episode is dedicated to the Hess. That's Mr. Gary Hess, Mr. PIT for you.

First quarter, Mr. Hess was in charge of a bunch of my classes. And he was my private instructor for the first 6 months.

 Gary's known for being a little scary. He actually joked about not smiling in my picture and I told him 'it looks more natural'. Well, I'm kidding. He's an awesome instructor and a crazy great player. He's just incredibly honest when it comes to his classes. He'll tell it like it is. If it sucked and if you come in unprepared, he'll give it to you right there. No sugar coating with the Hess.

I remember day 2 at MI in one of his other classes - Developing Your Groove. That class basically puts your whole basic coordination to the test to find out just what you can't do and what you can. All sorts of coordination patterns against ride surfaces and stuff. It's actually a good class - aside from the fact that there are 10 other drummers in the same class bashing away and burying the click.

First time off the gun, everyone totally rushed the metronome. Eager horses, everyone.

And then there's Gary's famous metronome ending. He gives the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat ending (in music notes, it's C_G_G-A_G-B-C with the _ meaning going down.. you'll know it once you hear it) and we give the last two smacks on the B-C and then he turns on the tuning tone through the PA and we make as much noise as possible.

More on the Hess later on.