An Interview with Curtis Hartshorn: BDL Instructor Profile
Curtis has been an instructor with Boston Drum Lessons for the past several years. An actively gigging drummer highly adept in multiple areas of playing, his background encompasses drumline, jazz, rock, and R&B. In this interview, Curtis shares with us his influences, experiences, and connections to drumming and music throughout his life.
BDL: How long have you been playing the drums?
Just about 25ish years. I think I got my first real pair of sticks around 5 or 6, but really I always had something in my hands and was drumming and/or hitting things for as long as I remember.
BDL: What made you want to take up drumming?
I’ve always wanted to be a drummer! I kinda just naturally kept up with it, my parents never really had to push me for it. I didn't put too much thought into it until around high school when you have to start juggling marching band, sports, friends, and jobs and all of that sort of stuff. I used to play ice hockey growing up and I was pretty good, but then everyone hit their growth spurts and I stayed kinda small so that season I was just kinda getting destroyed. I also had a couple of broken fingers and sprained wrists, and when you really can't play or practice it kinda makes you think about how important and meaningful it was to begin with. Kinda made me reconsider how I beat up my body/hands and spend my time.
BDL: Who are a few of your favorite drummers and why?
Buddy Rich was my first favorite drummer. Seeing some of his late night appearances and solos with Gene Krupa was always super cool to me, and he played with so much force and intensity while still being so dynamic. I also really love Mark Guiliana, Eric Harland, Jim Black, Nate Wood, Marcus Gilmore and Antonio Sanchez with how expressive and precise they can be while being so free and daring with sounds and solos. I'm a big Mars Volta fan and remember being completely blown away hearing Jon Theodore play on their earlier albums. Later Dave Elitch and Deantoni parks would join that band and continue to amaze me, especially Deantoni Parks, that man is just a machine with his understanding of time and coordination. I should also mention Glenn Kotche, the drummer for Wilco. Ive played some of his keyboard pieces and percussion solos and he is an incredible writer and composer. His drumming on the Wilco albums are super tasteful but subtly complex with timbres and rhythms and phrasing
BDL: What's your favorite aspect of playing the drums?
My favorite thing is that I can be truly expressive without using words or needing to communicate actual tangible feelings. Everything is always up for interpretation.
BDL: Describe your experience with rudimental / marching drumming.
I really started out with rudiments. I joined the elementary school band in fourth grade and they start you off with just a single pad and it made me think how can I get more sounds and things of this one surface and sticking patterns and rudiments were the way to go. Especially because they’re really just one beat combinations so I was able to memorize them quickly and just kind of mess around with them. I was always trying to get faster and faster and fit more and more notes into shorter spaces. Just sort of turned into a game at that point. And I had a really good group of drumming friends at this point so we were always playing and practicing and trying to one up each other.
BDL: How has your background with marching percussion influenced your drum set playing?
It was a funky transition. I didn’t really get into drum set until I joined the jazz band in high school, and by that time I had already had a few years of just rudiments one just one surface, so now I thought all I had to do was move them around a bit. The feet and pedal coordination was a little different, but marching band is incredibly athletic as we have to march and run in rhythm and time, while still playing together with multiple drummers, so when it came to sitting down and having everything right there in front of me, it was pretty nice. I was also fortunate that the sticks we use in marching band are about 2-3x’s heavier than the drum set sticks, so it was like wielding pencils around, incredibly light and easy. But it totally caught up to me when it came to playing dynamically in concert and symphonic settings and when I was in college. I had to recalibrate my touch and feel a little bit, but that was just a new fun thing to figure out.
BDL: What are your favorite kinds of music to play?
My favorite types of music to play are jazz and hip hop beats, kind of leaning towards some fusion-y ideas. I guess anything that I can give a heavy back beat to and play around with the subdivisions. I consider myself to be a melodic player so I really like listening to the musicians I'm with and trying work around their lines or phrases, to not only accompany, but embellish as many ideas as they are putting out there and quote them back. But I also love punk rock and that fast aggressive style of music and playing as fast as I can. NoFX and Bad Religion and those types of groups were huge for me growing up and skateboarding so they are still near and dear. And I will still learn a new drumline lick or feature from some year every so often when I’m in the mood for it, usually around the summertime when I try to catch a Drum Corps show.
BDL: What do you most enjoy about teaching people to play the drums?
Honestly seeing people get excited and happy. Its incredibly rewarding for me when whoever I’m with gets stoked about the drums, whether it be a song, beat, rudiment, what have you. It’s like I get second-hand stoked from it, I’ve totally been there before and learned all this at one point too, so when they get it, it brings me back to how cool it was when I got it. I also still teach marching bands and drumlines and the running around is super fun, and it keeps me involved with the activity even though I am too old to compete.
BDL: What's the most challenging part about learning the drums?
Self discipline and patience, for sure. We can be the hardest on ourselves when we know what we are capable of, so being patient is a huge key. I still struggle with that sometimes, but it’s a process.
BDL: What's the coolest gig you ever played?
One of the coolest gigs for me was being a member of the Patriots Drumline for the 2015-16 Season. I had this cool marching snare with a hi hat attachments and a microphone system and we would march and play around the parking lots for the tailgate crowd before the games playing beats and doing a bunch of stick tricks and stuff. There were a lot of duets and snare solo battles so it was pretty fun to play. In the later quarters we would play a few songs on the field with the cheerleaders and we would be mic’d up throughout the whole stadium. We would play at the gates after the games and people would be going absolutely bananas, so that was always pretty cool.
BDL: What's your favorite rudiment?
Maybe the paradiddlediddle. A good sixlet is always fun, or you can spread it to a dotted quarter note! Why not be crazy!
BDL: Any advice you'd like to offer up to beginners or anyone looking to get started?
Bounce the Sticks!!! But most importantly have fun and use your ears and imagination. Don’t be afraid to take risks or be creative with what you just learned, heard, or thought of!
BDL: What's your dream gig?
I think my dream gig would be in the backing band for a hiphop artist or an R&B artist. I remember finding out BADBADNOTGOOD was ghostface killah’s band and I thought that was the coolest thing, because they have these really great jazzy phrases that just repeat and expand and really play into the sound of the old sampling ideas. Or maybe some prolific rocker like David Bowie, how he got the Donny McCaslin band to play for him after hearing them at the 55bar in NYC one night.
BDL: What are some other hobbies / interests of yours outside of drumming?
Outside of drumming I love skateboarding. I’ve been skating almost as long as drumming, but I take it way easier these days seeing as I'm terrified of hurting my hands or wrists. But really when I'm not drumming I consider myself a golfer. Totally addicted 100%. I love the walk and being outside, the tricky playing conditions, all of it. Also the self competition, and there’s an interesting performance aspect to going out and applying what you practiced and know consistently to try and better yourself. And the fact that there’s a hard number to hold yourself to kind of helps. It’s also an incredibly humbling game. I can go out and have a great day and shoot a good score, and the next day I can completely fall apart on the same course and question everything that I know to be true. Truly incredible.
BDL: What are 5 of the most influential albums of yours?
The list is ever evolving! But today I will say,
Frances the Mute - Mars Volta
Sky Blue Sky/Summerteeth - wilco (total toss up)
Largo - Brad Mehldau
Break Stuff - Vijay Iyer
Taming the Dragon - Mehliana (Mark Guiliana and Brad Mehldau)