A Return to My School of Rock

Tom Antle and I, back when I was just starting as a drummer. (Submitted by Judson Doncaster)

I have always loved music.

My mom noticed when I was a toddler how I changed when music was playing. I heard music everywhere. Wherever there was the sound of music, however faint, I would sing along. When I was four, she called La Guitare, the music school down the street from our home in Moncton, New Brunswick, and asked what she might do with a kid like me. She signed me up for piano lessons.

I remember the day we climbed the steep stairs to the music school above the music store. We entered a large room with about a dozen glass doors and music seeping out of every one.

The piano teacher opened his door and barked, “Judson!” Inside, there was a baby grand piano, with one chair by the door, and an old wooden desk on the opposite wall. “Sit.” The teacher did not introduce himself or allow any time for my mom or me to introduce ourselves. He said, “Sit.” “Play.” And I did. At the end, he swatted me on the back of the head and said, “You want candy?” That was Valentin.

My mom remembers being unsure about Valentin. She approached him after the candy drawer closed and introduced us. She says as we walked out, she asked me, “What did you think?” I said, “That. Was. Awesome!” I did a little Super Mario jump at the top of the stairs.

Valentin was a skinny, balding man with wavy hair who would not settle for anything less than perfection. I remember all his catchphrases. If I wasn’t playing with effort, he would give me a stern look and say, “Play with your heart!” If I was playing too slowly or hesitating, he would say, “I don't like your turtle speed!” He was intense, but I never felt afraid of him. I knew that once I did get whatever part I was learning down, he would pull out his jangly keys and unlock the bottom drawer of his desk where he kept a bucket of sour keys.

Valentin was a great teacher, but piano just wasn’t my thing. I wanted to be a drummer. 

In that same music school, there was a drum teacher named Tom Antle. He was a skinny guy with long pitch-black hair; you could pick him out as a drummer from a mile away. The first day of lessons with Tom, I remember sitting down at the kit playing total nonsense when he told me to stop. First, I had to learn the names of the drums. Tom was laid back but always made sure I was doing it right. He would give me a look that I knew meant try it again.

Tom always had endless pages of sheet music that he would pull from an overflowing shelf. As I improved, these sheets became a challenge. Every time I arrived, I would try to go through about 30 pages of beats without making a mistake. Then I would tell Tom whatever song I wanted to learn. This ranged from Mr. Roboto by 80’s band The Styx, to the Australian public awareness song Dumb Ways To Die, to rapper Juice Wrld, as I became a teenager. No matter the song, Tom would sit with his head bowed, analyzing the beats with a blank page of sheet music in hand, stopping every 15 seconds to rewind it and make another note.

Once he had the groove written down, I would try to play it. If the beat was particularly hard and I kept making mistakes, Tom would not let me move on until I got it perfect. He would look at me and say, “Ehhhhh, not quite.” I knew instantly when I did get it because I would hear Tom yell out “POW!”

I played drums with Tom twice a week for the next ten years. I told him everything about my life. It didn’t matter if these lessons were at La Guitar, a studio in his parents’ basement, or a studio at his house; it was always Tom and me playing drums. In Grade 10, I stopped drum lessons and hanging around with Tom because I was too busy with basketball.

As I went through high school, even though I wasn’t playing drums, my love of music grew. I would have at least one AirPod in no matter the situation. Over those years, my taste in music has changed since I last played with Tom. Now I wanted to play parts by actual drummers, not just synthetic beats. I finished my first year in university and knew that drumming was something I had to get back into. I knew it had to be with Tom.

Coming back to playing with Tom was the first time I had seen him in a few years. I got in my mom’s gray Honda Civic and pulled up in front of his place. The last time I played drums with Tom, I wore sweatpants and a backwards ball hat. This time I got out wearing baggy jeans and an obnoxious Affliction shirt I never would have had the guts to wear a few years earlier.

We went down the stairs to his studio together, talking the entire time easily. Even though it had been a few years, every single aspect was the exact same. The walls were lined with influential drummers in Tom’s life. Jazz funk drummer Dennis Chambers is posing in front of his Pearl drum kit, Rush legend Neil Peart, who looks like he is on a raft surrounded by drums. At the bottom of the stairs sit the same two drum kits, side by side. Those two drum kits were emblematic of Tom and me. I sit behind the black kit, Tom next to me behind the red one.

He texted my mom after the first lesson: “It seemed remarkably right to start this chapter with him driving himself, getting there on time and whipping right back into shape in no time. Seemed like old times and new times at the same time. Also, he’s taller than me now.”

The two of us picked up exactly where we left off, only this time, I had significantly more music knowledge. Despite my busy schedule, I added a second lesson every week that summer. I would cross the bridge to Riverview, where Tom lives, going way too fast and playing whatever the song of the day was extremely loud. I would get to his house far too early, so I would sit in my car for five minutes before walking up to the front door.

These lessons were different from my lessons as a kid. This time, I was all in on drumming. Every minute of free time during my day would be spent watching Drumeo, a drum YouTube channel. I came to every class with new complex songs and would spend hours at home in front of my own drum kit immediately after honing them. I would practice these songs rigorously as if Tom were testing me in the next lesson. He never was. He was just happy I loved drums so much.

He said in another text to my mom: “I’m throwing BIG challenges at him, and his thirst and enthusiasm for it right now is unrivalled. He’s in the ZONE!! Making my life and job really, really fun.” 

The drumming had to come to an end as the summer did. I went back to school and put drumming with Tom on hold. I came back to school with one goal: to get into a band. A few weeks into school, I came home for the weekend and made sure to play with Tom. I went back to school that Monday, and after one of my classes, I checked my phone and saw that Tom had posted a picture of himself in the hospital. Immediately, I texted him to see what was going on, and he told me he had lung cancer. I have no idea what to do. How can I help him to feel better? I made him a playlist. I send him videos of me playing with my band. None of it feels adequate. 

Tom is the most important person in my life aside from my family. He has been present for almost as long as I can remember. Our relationship really extends past music, and sometimes he and I just talk for half of the lesson. When we play something, it feels like I'm hanging out with a friend. It stops feeling like a class. I feel like music is an extension of me, like a fifth limb, and no one knows more about that than Tom. I am really worried about him. The last time I sent a video of me playing, he wrote: “Sounds great! So glad that you found people to rock with. I knew you would.”

I remember a day I sat down behind my drum kit and asked Tom to look up my favourite song, Cry by Jaydes. I have played it for countless people, and every one of them despises it. Five seconds in, Tom started nodding his head, and at the end, he yelled, “Awesome!” He asks me if I have heard of The Rentals. He says, “Oh man, it’s the bass player from Weezer who was on the best two albums, and this is his own band. You gotta listen to Keep Sleeping.” The song ended up being one of my most listened to songs all year, and I know Jaydes made Tom’s list.

This I have learned. Some people teach in schools of rock, and there are people you rock with. My teacher, Tom, is both.