Feeling the Beat

Editor, Melissa Love, rocks out at the Sussex Academy of Music.

When the time came to choose an instrument to learn at school, I took one look at the gleaming silver flutes lined up on the table and knew I had to have one. It was shiny and pretty and well….not very cool as it turns out. But you don’t think about these things when you are seven. If I had known what a crowd-pleaser it would have been in my teenage years, to pull out a guitar to strum round a campfire or gather my mates round the piano for a sing-song, I might have thought twice. In fact, I might have been a bit more like Rob Biss and Ben Stringer, the founders of Shoreham’s Sussex Music Academy, the centre for musical tuition which has recently celebrated its first birthday.

The Sussex Academy of Music, or SAM for short, is the brainchild of the two friends, whose lifelong passion for music and performing led them to found the academy together in early 2008. With savings scraped together from teaching music and a hefty bank loan, the pair secured a shell of a building at the Riverside Business Centre, overlooking the Shoreham estuary, and set about fitting it out as a dedicated teaching centre and live music recording studio. The centre is stunning, with a suite of fully soundproofed practise rooms, a performance space and state-of-the-art recording facilities. It’s hip too, with hand-painted murals on the walls and the original artwork for Fat Boy Slim’s album covers on loan from celebrity artist, Julie Ann Gilbert.

To be frank, I’m a bit jealous. It’s a far cry from the draughty practice rooms of my childhood and with teachers like Rob and Ben, I’m sure I would have been a bit more attentive. They seem impossibly young to be running such a busy and clearly successful business, but their grasp of entrepreneurial basics is clear. They taught nearly all of the students in their first year of trading and called on their musical mates to help with a lot of the building fit-out. In return, they often give studio time to their early supporters, which has helped forge close links with many professional musicians.

The academy offers such a wide range of courses and tuition from music production to ukulele lessons, and everything in between, that’s it hard to do it justice. It’s such an inspiring environment that I can’t help wondering if it’s not too late for someone like me to learn a new instrument? Luckily, the academy holds regular workshops for students of all ages, one of the most popular being a harmonica workshop where recently the youngest student in the group was six and the oldest sixty.

But, to be honest, I’ve got my eye on something a bit more…well, you’ve guessed it…cool, and when I spy a full electric drumkit in one of the practice rooms, the matter is decided. Fortunately Rob is an expert drum teacher and sits down to show me the basics. Kick drum, high hat, snare, tom-tom, cymbal, another tom-tom…hang on! That’s more drums than I’ve got hands and feet.

Even holding the drumsticks is a surprisingly technical affair and I spend fifteen minutes just learning to strike one drum with one stick in time to the beat. So far so good. Now Rob introduces some foot action. A discreet tap of my right foot on a pedal produces a satisfying boom on the bass drum. Yep, no problem. Now for a bit of high hat, the pair of cymbals which drummers use to tap out a regular top note. Rob has me double-timing a beat with satisfying results.

“Now let’s put it all together,” he says casually, and this is where it starts to fall apart. With each hand and foot doing something different, it’s like trying to pat your head whilst rubbing your tummy, hopping on one leg and reciting the alphabet backwards.

It quickly becomes apparent that I’m not a natural drummer. “Let’s break it down,” he says, kindly glossing over the fact that we haven't actually succeeded in putting it together in the first place. We go through each movement in turn and slowly increase the tempo from embarrassingly slow to something recognisable as a drum beat. To be honest, I’m finding it hard to sustain the rhythm for more than thirty seconds at a time, until Rob plays me a song on the computer. It’s not just any song. It’s Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean – my all-time favourite dance track. And there it is – the drumbeat is the very same drum groove I have been murdering for the past half hour. Before I know what I’m doing, I start to play along with the music, with both hands and feet doing what they’re meant to be doing without any conscious thought on my part.

I still can’t sustain it for any longer than thirty seconds, but at SAM, that’s no problem. Of course there’s no substitute for putting in the hours of practice, but the team clearly recognises my limitations, so I am allowed to have a go on a real drum kit whilst studio manager, Ryan Gorringe, records my efforts for posterity. He shows me how modern technical wizardry can transform even the most average performance (I’m talking to you, Victoria Beckham), which is fortunate because it’s time for me to deliver my blistering drum solo.

I pick up my sticks, shout the immortal words, “One, two, three, four!” and bash away amateurishly to great effect. I’m on a stage, there are coloured flashing lights and people are covering their ears. It’s glorious and in that moment, although I am thirty-seven years old, wearing snowboots and a sensible jumper, I’m finally one of the cool kids.

To find out more about courses, workshops and tuition at the Sussex Academy of Music, visit www.sussexmusic.com or call 0800 7569411.