Steven McWhirter of Ahoghill, Northern Ireland

With his victory in October 2006, Steven McWhirter became the World Solo Drumming Champion at the young age of 23. He is also the 2006 North American Gold Medal Solo Drumming Champion and a frequent past winner of the All-Ireland Championships. Steven lives in Ahoghill, Northern Ireland, and spends a large part of his summers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, playing with the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. Steven is a highly regarded instructor, clinician and adjudicator and we are very excited to welcome him as our inaugural Featured Drummer and Score of the Month.

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Why did you start pipe band drumming, how old were you, and when did you get 'serious' about it?

I began drumming in 1993 at the age of 10, with me initial lessons coming from my father. My father had played a little when he was younger and had encouraged me to take up drumming, it was not until I watched the pipe band contest in my local town that I really knew I wanted to do it, I think I my actually have been watching Bobby Rea’s corps in Ravara that year. After one year I progressed onto the local Cullybackey Pipe Band where I played tenor drum in Andrew Scullion’s corps, it was at this point that I became serious about snare drumming and wanted to progress onto the next level.

In September of 1995, Adrian Hoy, who had been teaching me consistently for two years at this point, took leadership of the Cullybackey drum corps and invited me to play snare. I stayed in the Culyybackey band until we won the grade 2 drumming title at the 2001 World Pipe Band Championships. It was then that J. Reid Maxwell approached me to join the SFU Pipe Band in Vancouver, Canada. I currently travel between my home in Northern Ireland to Vancouver for practices with the band.

Who have been some of your teachers and influences along the way ?

My father for starting me off and inspiring me to take up drumming, Adrian Hoy for providing the consistent instruction for 9 years and also Andrew Scullion for showing me that you only get out of something what you put into it.

There have been many influences outside of my instructors over the years including Jim Kilpatrick, Eric Ward, Paul Turner, Bobby Rea and currently Reid Maxwell who is still teaching me through his knowledge of putting together drum corps.

What sort of practice methods do you use to stay at the top of your game ?

I wouldn’t say I have many methods; I just do lots of it. For solos I find that rudiments are the only things that get my hands in shape fast, in saying this, I do find rudiments somewhat boring at times. To overcome this, I practice rudiments to the radio, CDs or even the music channel on television. By doing this I can listen to my favourite music while practicing rudiments at the same time. I have found this helps me to listen to the melody closer and play to the beat more as opposed to just playing rudiments with no structured beat or tempo.

I tend to not play my solo sets too much until the 2 weeks prior to the contest as I have found in the past playing them over and over makes your mind stale on the set. I play lots of rudiments and technique until that point and then the sets are much easier to put feel and dynamics into.

When did you begin composing and what sort of path do you follow to write a new score ?

I have been writing music for quite a few years now; exactly when I started is unclear. I did have to write music when I attended the Northern Ireland Piping and Drumming School where I studied music theory and practical drumming courses. I also remember writing a score to Highland Wedding when I was about 13 or 14 that I probably couldn’t play now as I put in the hardest rudiments I could think of because I wanted to see them on paper.

When I was learning to write music I would always check out scores that had the rudiment in it that I was stuck on which helped me understand why certain note groups were written in a certain way.

I didn’t start writing music seriously until I was around 19 or 20 as I was approached by Ian Lawson from the Bleary and District band to help write scores in a joint effort which worked very well. Ian and I would sit down and put our ideas forward and I would then write out what we thought was the best combination of our ideas… it did help that we were both looking for the same effect in our scores making it much easier to mould our ideas into scores.

How do you go about learning or memorizing new music ?

Honestly, the easiest way for me to memorise music is to play it with someone else. As an out of town player in SFU this is very difficult so I sight read new scores onto a recording that I can listen to back over and over which is as good as playing with someone. I have found that the more music you are leaning the faster you pick it up, for instance this year our corps only had to learn a new strathspey for our MSR yet in 2005 we had to learn maybe 30 new scores for a recording project which I found easier than learning one score this year. It is easy to get out of the way of memorising music so I find the best way to stay on top of it is to practice it.

On another note, listening to the score and having a quick look at it before going to bed always seems to help me remember music faster.

What sort of personal recommendations or tips could you share with our readers to become better drummers?

Like I tell all my students - technique, practice and lots of rudiments are the key to improving your playing. Without a good grounding in the basic rudiments it will be very difficult to move past a certain level as it will also be difficult to improve with weak technique and little practice. I would suggest watching the top players like I did when I was younger and trying to emulate their technique. This is much easier now with online video services and a wider selection of recordings on the market.