Find your drumkit

 (Can prelude with some random beatboxing or tapping out rhythm on random objects)

Sometimes in life, I feel like I'm *happy beatbox*
Other times, I'm feeling a bit more funky like *jazz beat box*
Then, occasionally, I have to take it a little bit slower like *sad beat box*
But often I'm just feeling lost like *beat box where the final beat is uncertain*

Sometimes the best doesn't sound right on your tongue
It doesn't feel like it comes from the air in you lungs
But this isn't a poem about the right *b* or *k* or *p* or *ts* or any of those
It's a poem about finding you beats and finding your flows
Not about solving a tune to be academically true
But about finding the rhythm inside of you

it is *hard* to find your tempo
your timing
your intensity

But you do have it! be honest with yourself, you do have it!
Have you never felt yourself moving to a song?
Said a sentence that resonates?
Or had the urge to grab a pair of sticks
and hit them against some objects
just to hear what noise it makes?

I like to imagine a world where we all make our own drum kits
and every drum kit is made out of random objects
but they're things that resonate with us
things that snare us
build up our base
put skin in the game
are symbols of what we care about
and how we want the world to hear us

we don't learn how to make our own drum kits in school
if we are taught, it's like this :
Today, class, we are learning standard timings on standard kits
and some people are going to sound great on the kits the world has decided are standard
it's important to learn the basics
but we aren't going to have time or budget to teach you more than that

...some people never learn it's possible to make their own noise at all

wherever you're at in life, I hope you find your drumkit
I hope you get a chance to play it, as loud as you like sometimes!
I hope you all never forget that feeling of listening to someone who has found their own drumkit, and how cool they seem
you're going to want to take their role set, but you must resist the temptation
take a break or a high hat but you must create something uniquely your own

just, if you take anything from this, don't stop anyone from building something, even if it doesn't seem like a good arrangement
and build your own.
listen to other people because advice is good
but reject advice occasionally too
experiment
make random noises that shouldn't work
but just might
but only for you

make a drumkit no one else can make
and play it like only you can.

and then, let the world hear you play.