Ryan Alexander Bloom shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Ryan Alexander, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Before we jump into your intro and the heart of the interview, let’s start with a bit of an ice breaker: What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day starts with my 4 year old waking me up at 6:00am. Then I get both of my kids ready and off to school and I spend most of the day working on my master’s degree in education, which I’m doing remotely at Fort Lewis College. I’m usually either doing homework or completing my practicum hours in local schools. In the afternoon, I retrieve my kids from school, make dinner, and then attend class online or teach drum lessons for a few hours. Then I put my kids to bed, do some more homework or do something productive for a book or article I’m working on before heading to bed myself.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am a drummer/percussionist, a private music lesson teacher, a drumline tech, a method book author, a percussion researcher, and a father. I’ve primarily supported myself teaching drum lessons since 2010 and I have also been teaching percussion in public schools since 2019. On the side, I’ve published 8 original books and a couple of scholarly articles on drum-related topics plus I run a drum-based YouTube channel. Recently, I became a Vater Percussion educational endorser, so shout out to Johnny and the rest of the staff over at Vater for that, I just published a book called A Field Guide to 50 Drum Rudiments, I released an EP with my band Bloodstrike this past week called Weapons of Steel, and I’m currently working on my M.Ed. from Fort Lewis. As you can probably tell, I’ve had any projects going all at the same time for a while now. I’ll have an article in the journal Percussive Notes later this year, too. Just everything happening all at once is my basic mode of operation.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
I think my parents really taught me a lot. My mom had a small business for many years and my dad was in the Marines when I was growing up. My mom’s mentality is always to knock out the work asap and not procrastinate at all. Just get it done immediately. She didn’t have a boss, but she did that on her own anyway. My dad worked a ton in a different way, obviously in the military he had a boss and his boss had a boss and so on. I never really got the military discipline, but I do usually also knock things out as soon as I can. Almost to a fault sometimes, but procrastination doesn’t help anyone, really. I could never get books done or videos made or music written or anything else if I left it for later.
When did you last change your mind about something important?
I used to work in restaurants. At one point I thought it would be fun to be a chef. After about 10 years in restaurant work, I decided that wasn’t the thing anymore. I wasn’t getting promoted past line cook any time soon and it wasn’t fun anymore. It didn’t pay anything, no benefits, everything was hot, sharp or heavy, and there was no day at work that wasn’t stressful. In 2012, I got laid off when the restaurant I was working for changed ownership. I had one more low stakes, part-time cooking job afterward for a few months and then I “retired” from that career. I just decided that if I was going to make no money and have no benefits it should at least be more fun.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
This one is really niche, so I’ll try to make it brief while still kind of explaining it. In drumming, one of the most common and simplest patterns is a Flam. It’s two notes, one with each hand, really close together, but not exactly at the same time. For a few reasons, I believe that the Flam wasn’t the original pattern for a two-handed hit, and that playing two notes exactly at the same time, a double stop or “flat flam,” came first. Later, drummers generally switched to the Flam. Both ideas still exist, but the Flam is way more commonly discussed and written in formal music today. The switch in importance probably happened in the 1700s, or thereabouts, but the documentation is poor. At this point, it’s just a hypothesis that I have. I cannot prove it definitively.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
I’m building a knowledge base, acquiring another degree, and getting my fingers into everything I can right now. The short term gains from any given project or certification are minimal, but over the past 10-12 years I’ve gone from completely unknown in the percussion education industry to having a minor, but visible, impact. I’d say over the next 7-10 I should be able to continue to carve out space for myself, hopefully in an exponentially impactful manner as I go along.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://BloomDrums.com
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/bloomdrumlessons
- Youtube: @ryanalexanderbloom
