Chapter 3
Meditation
"Okay, let's try it at the correct tempo this time." Jason said as the drumline practiced in sectionals. He started the metronome at 150 beats per minute. Mr. Ross was working with the front ensemble, or pit, at the ninth grade center, so it was just the drummers and their drum captain. After the eight starting beats from the metronome, the drummers started their eight-on-a-hand exercise. Jason's eyes focused on the little red blinking light on the metronome. It went on and off with the clicking metronome. The room around him disappeared. The other drummers around him disappeared. The only things in existence were his sticks in his hands, his drum, the red blinking and loud clicking of the metronome. His feet moved like he was marching, each shifting of weight hitting the ground with timed and deliberate force. His hands and feet moved together, playing in time with each other down to the millisecond. His eyes saw only the blinking of the light, which occurred at the same, steady, predictable time that his hands moved. His ears heard only the sound of his drum, which masked the clicking metronome so perfectly that you couldn't tell it was even on. The exercise ended, and he tapped it off again to the same clicking, starting the entire process over.
This was his routine. The thing that made Jason the best drummer in Houston was his focus- how he took drumming as seriously as a monk would meditation- the only thing in his life that he could spend this amount of focus on. This meditation was also the thing that took his mind off of school, his girlfriend, his friends, his parents, his little sister, his responsibilities. Without this focus and this daily cleansing, he could not function. Every time his eyes locked with Mr. Ross's clicking sticks or the blinking light of the metronome, you knew he'd entered a world where he focused on only the speed and beat and getting into the rhythm.
This was also why he never messed up. Ever.
His meditation was interrupted by the door to the percussion studio opening.
"Hey, Jason. Wanna grab Sonic?" Anna Otters, Jason's girlfriend of four months asked him. He looked at the clock. Practice had ended twenty minutes ago. He looked around the room. Everyone else had left. He'd been so focused that he didn't notice them leave.
"Uh, yeah. One sec," he took off his drum and positioned it in the row of snare drums. He took his sticks and put them in his drum cubby and grabbed his keys. "Let's go."