Inside the mind of a drummer | Think Like A Musician

My first teacher sat me down, and the very first beat I ever played was: boom bap, boom bap.

I’m Matt Johnson— groove number two for TED.

And he’s like, that’s the simplest beat, basically in the world.

But you will never master it. And he was right.

Hey, you! Yes, you. Is there music inside of you?

We’ve recruited working musicians from throughout the industry to help you hear it, hold it, and share it with this wild and wonderful world.

I got started playing music at a very young age because of my parents.

We had a family band, so at age 13 I started to play drums with the family band.

I remember hearing KC and The Sunshine Band when I was five.

It's one of my earliest memories, actually, and I was like, what is that?

And knew kind of instantly that I wanted to pursue drumming.

I really liked watching footage of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard as a kid, whenever they came on TV, I was always very excited by the flamboyance and the showmanship and what have you.

And I kind of just wanted to be a piano player playing loud music.

I was a very mediocre piano player, but it was definitely a great entry into other instruments subsequently then.