Why I Stopped Going To Batala

Okay, so as you know, I stopped going to Batala drum classes a while ago. Here are the reasons why:

1. Limited number of drums
There weren't many drums/ knee pads/ drum straps/ drumsticks, so everyone was scrabbling to get there first. Some of the other people going there would help me, but sometimes if you didn't manage to get the equipment you'd just have to watch. Luckily that never happened to me; unluckily the other option was having to play the type of drum I hadn't been practicing the other weeks, so I ended up with a bunch of different drum parts in my head, not always being able to continue with what I'd done the previous week.

2. Disorganized
Well, I've already implied that it was disorganized in my last paragraph but I don't think you understand to what extent it was; one day, a potential solution to the drum shortage came: we tried assembling our own drums. Of course, I was pretty relieved that I wouldn't have to worry about not having a drum for the next few weeks, but it turned out that I didn't even get to assemble the kind of drum that I wanted! Okay, let me explain in more detail: So we - me and my mum - got there (Walked all the way from the station and through a complicated set of doors/ corridors like usual) and it turned out we were meant to make the drums outdoors. Most of us got there on time, but we still had to wait around 1 1/2 hours before we started; the drum pieces hadn't been set up properly. I knew which type of drum piece I wanted, and stood by it for a while to, "book," it. But when we didn't start for a long time I sat back down.

When we finally started, the teachers didn't properly explain how to make the drums, so me and my mum had to rely on help from people we asked. Also, as you know, I didn't get the right type of drum - the one I'd practiced the most, the one I could play the best, the one I'd wanted to get! I got a bigger drum (Hard to carry) that was meant to be covered in leather. Guess what? There was no leather to cover the plastic top with. So it sounded like the kind of drum I had wanted (Which wasn't how it was meant to sound) but it wasn't the right size/ shape to be the kind of drum I'd wanted. It took about two hours to make with no-one in charge telling me what to do. 

When I thought back, it wasn't just that day I hadn't been given adequate instruction.

3. A hassle
The drum was bloody bulky, and heavy too - and to have to carry it on the tube (Snagging on people's clothes) with no case all the way to Elephant & Castle... well, it just wasn't worth it. And what was irritating was that when I walked past with it people would stare/ get annoyed (Probably)/ ask what it was/ tap it as I walked past (This only happened to me twice but it made me so angry and apparently it wasn't just me it happened to. Once even when I tried to move away the drum they still insisted on tapping it; I'm talking grown men here not little kids.)

4. Irritating adults
Okay, I know I talk about a lot of people as, "Irritating," or, "Annoying," but I have a proper reason; I promise I wouldn't complain for the sake of it. There was this woman who came up to me after Batala and asked first, how old I was, next, whether my parents took me, and after that, to speak to my father. So, I got my dad to talk to her and found out she wanted to address the under-age issue (I was the only person under 18 and we were occasionally going to be playing in night clubs.) Now, when the woman was talking to my dad, she kept repeating herself, which was starting to get to my nerves but I wasn't that affected by it. The next week or maybe two weeks later my dad talked to the other teacher about it and they established that it was ok, you know, as long as my parents came along as well + I had their permission + I accepted that sometimes I wouldn't be able to play with them, like at strict clubs. So it was ok, sorted. I think the woman might have talked to my dad about it again, I'm not sure. But then a few weeks later, she went up to my mum to talk to her about it as well! So that's like two or three times we'd talked about it already and she still had to go up to my mum for a, "chat," again. And it wasn't a really quick talk with my mum.

So this woman wasn't a proper reason for leaving batala, but one of the benefits of leaving was that I wouldn't have to see her/ my parents wouldn't have to have endless talks with her.

5. My drum kit teacher left
My drum kit teacher also went to Batala for a while and he left after like three weeks. He didn't have a good feeling about it and that backed up my reasons for wanting to leave.



So I think I have covered most of my reasons. There are different Batala troupes, so who knows? Maybe I'll want to join another one some day. Although the leader of that troupe wasn't so organized, he was still pretty good at teaching the actual rhythms themselves. So it wasn't all bad. And I met some nice people there. Maybe I didn't feel it was the right place for me but that doesn't mean other people won't like it. You just have to choose the right place for yourself, and everyone is different.