I made up my mind that I am going to be buying an acoustic drum set, versus an electronic one, regardless of the fact that I live in an apartment. If I am going to be spending a large sum of money, I want something that I am going to be truly happy with. Deep down inside, I long for an acoustic set. It’s just superior in so many ways. It also possesses a certain mystique — one that electronic drums just don’t have. And heck, I want to play rock music, and I wanna hit hard.

It’s interesting how my perspective and feelings as a drummer have evolved since I last played years ago. I was never a hard hitter. But I feel so much more open and expressive now and have so much more confidence in myself, and that has impacted the way I feel about myself as a drummer. My instinct is now to rock.

As far as the noise issue during practice, I actually saw these really cool drum and cymbal mutes that do a pretty good job of muffling the sound of the entire kit. I’m also going to speak with my neighbors about it and ask them if there is a specific time I could practice without bothering them too much. I’ll also ask my downstairs neighbor what the best room might be for my drum set. Worse comes to worse, I’ll rent rehearsal space on the weekends whenever I could spare the money.

Basically, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m living proof of that, after all.