escalantealf + Musician in Gatineau, QC

SEEKING

ABOUT

Hi there! I started playing the keyboards at age 8 for approximately 2 or 3 years. It taught me the basics of music theory mainly. At age 13 I picked up an acoustic guitar and my father taught me the basics and gave me the best advice ever: learn one song cause once you learn one song, it will be easy to learn one thousand and then ten thousand. So I got a bit better and better.

Afterwards, when I discovered Dream Theater and the progressive music, my whole musical taste changed completely. Discovering this music made me realize that this is exactly what I was looking for.

At age 20, after being passionate my whole life about hitting stuff and drumming, and when I finally could afford it, I bought my first drumset and it is my true passion. It is the instrument that I am made to play.

I am a self taught in all the instruments I play, however, for the drums I took it more seriously and learned the theory and exercises through instructional videos and books. I am 35 years old now and I still am as excited and motivated as the first day, and most of all I have tons and tons of fun when I'm on the drums.

I am looking for other committed musicians who share my passion and would be interested in playing. I am interested in cover bands as well as creating something original. As most of you probably do, I have a day job so I am not looking to waste time or for drama, life is too short for that.

My YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/user/SuupaSaiyan/videos You can check a few videos of my drumming and leave a message there if you want to get in touch. Those videos are a few years old so I should be a bit more improved now.

Screen name:

escalantealf

Member since:

Sep 18 2015

Active within 1 month

Level of commitment:

Committed

Years playing music:

15

Gigs played:

10 to 50

Tend to practice:

2-3 times per week

Available to gig:

1 night a week

Most available:

Nights

Influences

My main influence when learning was Mike Portnoy. The guy has many instructional videos and my style of music and of playing is very similar and inspired by him. After a couple of years learning, I discovered Thomas Lang and he is my second biggest influence. Mike Johnston as well is an outstanding drummer and his amazing attitude is really inspiring to love the instrument. I've learned so much through a few lessons I've done from Mike Johnston, he is an amazing teacher!

Nowadays I love Ray Hearne (Haken), Troy Wright (Plini/Teacher), Nathan Bulla (Intervals/Auras)... Awesome drumming by these guys and I've some excercises from their playing.

Instrument experience:

Drums:

Advanced

EQUIPMENT

The equipment you will see in the Youtube videos was my old drumset in Venezuela. When I moved to Canada, I only brought my best cymbals and 3 stands.

Every time I go to the practice studio, there is the basic Tama drumset, 2 toms, a floor tom, a snare, 2 sabian crash cymbals, the hi-hat and the ride cymbal.

I bring my 3 stands and a clamp and add one more 16 sabian AAX crash cymbal, an 18" AAX china cymbal, a 10" AA splash cymbal and a 10" HHX mini chinese cymbal. I also bring my Tama Iron Cobra double pedal and I'm good to go.

With that setup I practice my exercise as well as play my drumless tracks.

Update 2021: I now have my full drumset with cymbals. It is a Tama Superstar Classic with my cymbals and stand. I also bought a Yamaha EAD 10 mic which I use for practice and very basic recording. I got myself a tascam interface and the track you hear in my profile is 100% me with the Tascam and the EAD and an entry level Ibanez guitar with some plugins.

MUSIC