{"id":1461,"date":"2019-01-14T16:43:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T16:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2019-01-14T16:48:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T16:48:37","slug":"ftv-joe-p-smebs-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1461","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Joe P, Smebs, and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Looking back, there were a lot of great teachers in my life who got me interested in a variety of things, many of which I am still interested in today. \u00a0By far, one who added the greatest value to my education was my first band\/music teacher, Joe Patterson. When we took our \u2018band test\u2019 in fourth grade, my piano lesson years had already supplied me with the basics of reading notes and keeping time. \u00a0The \u2018band readiness test\u2019 came after I had gotten my first dose of the sound and feel of a drumline marching down the street that fall. Piano became even more of an afterthought (I could play but wasn\u2019t much for practicing – the age old piano teacher\u2019s lament) and the thought of playing the drums in the band made me absolutely bug-eyed. \u00a0There was no hesitation on my part when answering the questions. \u201cWhat instrument would you like to play?\u201d Drums!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first time Joe P and I met was at the beginning of fifth grade. \u00a0Sue Anderson, John Thompson, and I had been told to pick up a pair of drumsticks and the Thompson Beginner\u2018s Percussion book for our first meeting. \u00a0Our lessons were conducted as a group in the little nurse\u2019s office next to the gym and to our surprise, we didn\u2019t practice on a drum or practice pad. \u00a0We played our lessons on a formica table top with our books laid out in front of us. Joe P showed us the basics: how to hold the sticks (beginning drummers in those days used the standard grip and not the matching grip favored by most teachers these days) and how to hold the sticks with a loose enough grip to let them to bounce back from the table top. \u00a0We reviewed quarter notes, half notes, sixteenth notes and how to do a simple drum roll. As the year progressed, we began learning other rudiments like flams, paradiddles, triplets, and drum rolls of various lengths (like five, seven, or nine stroke rolls). Joe P had a habit of \u2018singing\u2019 the drum parts along with us so we got used to hearing him hum along with us: \u00a0\u201c Brup, Brup, Brup, dada dada dum, burrrrrup!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We never did practice with any of the other instruments that year. \u00a0My first public drum performance was with Willie Peterson in Mrs. Zeeman\u2019s fifth grade class. \u00a0Willie played the trumpet and I played the red sparkle plastic drum my folks had gotten me for Christmas. \u00a0I want to say we played <\/span>America the Beautiful<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0My practice book didn\u2019t have any songs in it so I just played along from Willie\u2019s score and faked my way through it. \u00a0If there are two things in my drumming career I can trace back to that first year, they would be learning how both to fake a part when needed and to be able to play drum parts that sounded right, even if they were not exactly rudimentarily correct. \u00a0Joe may not have known it at the time, but I found it easier to replicate the drum parts he sang to us by sound than it was for me to learn them from scratch from the lesson book. I maintain to this day that I didn\u2019t progress very fast in piano because once I plunked out a tune a couple of times, it was easy for me to replay it from memory. \u00a0Certainly I had to learn how to follow the drum score, but I learned that making it sound right didn\u2019t necessarily mean I had to play it exactly like the rudiments said they should be played.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sixth grade proceeded in much the same manner with three notable differences. \u00a0First, we did occasionally get to gather with the other sections and hack our way through some real songs. \u00a0Second, near the end of the year, we were bussed over to Graveraet Jr High after school one day to play with students from the other elementary schools in town. \u00a0This served as both an introduction to our future band director, Mr. Smeberg, and as his introduction to his incoming seventh grade band members for the next year. \u00a0Lastly, we were given the opportunity to sign up for summer band lessons which for me meant a weekly trip two and a half blocks up the street to the brand new Marquette Senior High School band room. \u00a0There was a feeling of awe that walking into the band room inspired then that I can still remember to this day. I may not have been gung-ho at practicing my piano lessons, but the drum lessons were a different story. \u00a0Some kids hated the summer music lessons, but this kid would bound out the door with sticks and lesson book in hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Smeberg\u2019s band directing style was new to us and because we hadn\u2019t spent a lot of time playing as a whole band, we had to learn how to pay attention to the director. \u00a0We did a section tryout, but the important drum lessons I learned in seventh grade came from the eighth grade drummer in the band named Mike Burk. He showed us the ropes but the biggest revelation was what I previously mentioned: \u00a0if the drum part sounded correct, the band director wasn\u2019t going to make us play it exactly by the book. Mike was a good mentor for all of us, but after he departed for the high school, I never saw him again. Joe P greeted me with a little surprise on my first day of summer band lessons after seventh grade: \u00a0\u201cOh good,\u201d he said, \u201cI was hoping I would have at least one drummer in summer lessons.\u201d He was a little disappointed when he learned that I was going to be in eighth grade the next fall, but at the end of the summer, he wished me luck and reminded me, \u201cI won\u2019t see you for lessons next summer but I will see you for marching band practice in the beginning of August.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Eighth grade proceeded pretty much as expected. \u00a0There were several seventh graders for us old guys to mentor. \u00a0My buddy Jim Soderberg and I took up residence as the dynamic drum duo and were happy as clams when we got picked to play pep band music when the teachers played a grudge match with the eighth grade basketball team at the end of the season. \u00a0We also got to do a mini recruitment tour of concerts at the various elementary schools and we made our first trip to a JH band festival held a the Phelps School in Ishpeming. By the end of eighth grade, I was a full year into playing my newly acquired silver sparkle Ludwig drum set so there were very few days \u00a0that I didn\u2019t have a pair of drumsticks in my hands. June and July seemed to creep along and it seemed like the August marching band practice sessions would never arrive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the letter arrived announcing the practice schedule for marching band, I was in seventh heaven. \u00a0I didn\u2019t realize that the drum line came in a week ahead of the rest of the band. We met Joe P in the HS band room and he already had our line up set. \u00a0There were two senior drummers and five freshman. The seniors, Steve Vanderburg and Mike Gustafson were slated to be the bass drummer and the first snare drummer\/section leader, respectively. \u00a0Sue Anderson got tabbed for cymbals and the rest of us became the other snare drummers in the line. There were no single, double, or triple toms in our lineup. The band\u2019s oboe player would play the lyre shaped marching bells, but she didn\u2019t come to the first week of drum line work. \u00a0Joe P ran us through the different cadences and roll offs the first day, then we went outside and learned how to march in step lugging our surprisingly heavy marching drums. We spent the next four days marching up and down the parking lot until we could do it in our sleep. The one badge of honor the snare drummers earned was a very large bruise on our left thigh. \u00a0The parade snare drums, as I said, were pretty heavy. They had a curved leg brace that helped keep the drum in a playable position, but they tended to bounce up and down a lot as we marched. By our junior year, we had upgraded to newer drums with springier thigh pads with a strap that kept the drum from banging and bruising our legs, but that didn\u2019t help us much during those first two years. \u00a0We beamed with pride when the whole band showed up the second week and Joe P told them, \u201cWatch and listen to the drum line. They will keep you on time and they know how to march. If you follow their lead, you will look good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As marching band practice wound down, we spent a couple of rehearsals at Memorial Field so Joe P could show us our pregame and halftime formations. \u00a0Pre-game found us forming up in two long lines with the cheerleaders so the football players could run between us taking the field. Half time was a simple block formation. \u00a0The drummers played the cadence to march the whole band on and off the field, but we stayed put as we ran through several numbers on the field. Just prior to our first home game, Joe P threw me a curve saying, \u201cSteve can\u2019t be at the first football game so I want you to play bass drum this week and at the game.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0To say I was disappointed would be a vast understatement, but leave it to my dad to snap me out of feeling down about it. Dad said, \u201cWell, I am pretty sure he wouldn\u2019t have asked you to do it unless it was important. Isn\u2019t the bass drum the thing that keeps everyone else in time?\u201d It made me feel better and no one else heard me say anything negative about it, but I was happy to be back playing snare at the next game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Seeing the drum line go by during a homecoming parade when I was in fourth grade was the catalyst that made me want to be a drummer. \u00a0That fall, when we turned the corner from Lincoln on to Magnetic Street, I took a peek at the spot I had been standing five years earlier. \u00a0It made me smile to think that one moment like that can resonate in time many years later. It became one of my yearly fall rituals to pick out that spot on the curb during the homecoming parade. \u00a0Every year it gave me the same feeling I remembered from fourth grade: chills!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Before summer band started prior to my sophomore year, Joe P reminded me that with the two seniors gone, he expected me to step up and be the section leader. \u00a0He may have been pulling my chain a little when he laughed and said, \u2018Shoot, I was ready to have you take over the section when you were taking summer lessons after seventh grade,\u201d but a little voice in my head said, \u201cWell, there you go. \u00a0Be the only drummer who takes summer lessons and look what happens.\u201d Sophomore year was more routine because we all knew the drill. Football games, homecoming parade, NMU\u2019s annual band day, pep band for basketball games, concerts, and band festivals were<\/span><\/p>\n

on the menu. \u00a0Jim and I were not best buds yet, but we were again the dynamic drum duo and the fun and games would only get better. \u00a0For example, the drummers were sitting on the lowest row of bleachers during a basketball ball game when we were on the way to actually beating the Menominee Maroons. \u00a0It is a clear memory because we won all of 3 games that year and besides winning this game, it was especially memorable because there was a power failure and at that time, there were no emergency lights in the MSHS gym. \u00a0For some reason the clarinet player behind me in pep band began screaming at the top of her lungs and beating me with her clarinet. When the lights came back on, all she said was \u201cOh, sorry,\u201d but one doesn\u2019t easily forget being assaulted with a clarinet!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During the spring semester, Joe P played violin for the pit orchestra for our high school musical <\/span>Bye Bye Birdie.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0Mr. Smeberg played trombone but was located down at the other end of the pit. \u00a0It was interesting to spend rehearsal time playing drums in the orchestra with them while vocal music teacher Bill Saari conducted. \u00a0Not long after <\/span>Birdie<\/span><\/i> closed, we were asked to march in a parade up Third Street to help Bishop Baraga High School celebrate their Class D State Basketball championship. \u00a0I didn\u2019t think too much about it at the time, but when the parade got about a block down Third Street, Joe P handed me his whistle and said, \u201cI can\u2019t walk the parade today so wait a block and blow the whistle, do the roll off and the band will play the next song. \u00a0I will see you at the end of the parade.\u201d I am not sure what was ailing him, but a few weeks later he was hospitalized and passed away. We were all shocked at the sad news.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A good number of the band students donned their uniforms to attend Joe P\u2019s funeral. \u00a0My only previous experience with funerals was as a nine year old when we buried my dad\u2019s mom and it was a confusing affair for me. \u00a0I avoided funerals for twenty years and no matter how I felt about Joe P, I couldn\u2019t bring myself to attend. My thinking on funerals changed with age and I am comfortable with attending funerals these days. \u00a0Strangely enough, there are no regrets for not attending Joe P\u2019s because that is just how I dealt with things back then. As a matter of fact, there is a certain uplift I get when I think back to those events of fifty plus years ago and say to myself, \u201cJoe P probably knows what a profound effect he had on my life and I am pretty confident that he is okay with me not attending his funeral.\u201d \u00a0Maybe not going to his was the thing that helped me get over my own phobia about funerals. I may have only known Joe Patterson for seven years (and Mr. Smeberg for two) but my time spent with them has paid me back many times over. Thanks Joe P and Mr. Smebs!<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Okay, this is a LITTLE fancier than the Marquette Senior High band drum line . . . but if you have never watched the Edinburgh Tatto . . .\u00a0 look it up – this is the Top Secret Drum Corp from Switzerland.