I started a couple years ago with bongos and congas. Last spring I bought a new drum set. So I've been starting in on the drums for about a year now. Although I haven't been practicing diligently all that that. I started off playing various grooves and learning the limb coordination of playing drums, hi-hat and cymbals individually. My teacher for that was Tommy Igoe (via his video DVDs, not in person).
I got both his Groove Essential DVD's 1 and 2. I haven't gone through all the grooves yet, but I'm getting a taste for the different styles of drumming.
More recently I've become interested in learning sticking rudiments. So I'm starting to get serious about studying the rudiments themselves and this is taking time to learn. In a sense it has set me back to "Square one". Because I originally never knew any "official rudiments". I just played intuitive rolls, and fills, etc. But now I'm really getting into the science of learning all these different rudiments and various sticking techniques to play them efficiently.
To that end I bought 4 more DVDs.
1. Tommy Igoe "Great Hands for a Lifetime"
2. Jo Jo Mayer "Secret Weapons for Modern Drummers" <- this one is SUPER!!!
3. Benny Greb "The Language of Drumming"
4. Todd Sucherman "Methods & Mechanics for Useful Drumming"
I could have bought a second drum set for the price of all these videos!
But they are truly worth it. I use them constantly. I have a TV set up in front of my drum set just for these lessons.
Here's a schematic of my drum set:
I bought a 5-piece set of Gammon Drums. They were the cheapest drum set I could find at $199 in black. I half expected to get some real junk, but I was very pleasantly surprised. These are fantastic drums. Very solid hardware, very pretty, and they tuned up really nice and I'm very pleased with the sound.
The two small drums to the left of the snare are actually my bongos. I bought a stand for them and they sound great with sticks as part of the kit. The two drums to the right of the floor tom are my congas (they are actually half-conga). But they add a dimension to the kit too. Plus the bongos and congas can always be played by hand too. I'm kind of "storing" them in with the drum kit and playing them with sticks. It actually adds some cool dimensions.
I included a 10" Firecracker snare drum in this drawing to the left of the stool. I don't really have that yet. That's like the final piece that I would like to add eventually to complete this as my "dream kit".
I just now replaced all the cymbals with brand new Meinl HCS cymbals. Including the hi-hat cymbals. The cymbals that came with the drum set were no-name cheap cymbals. These Meinl HCS cymbals really make the whole kit feel like an expensive set now. They add a lot more depth and character to the music.
From left to right starting with the hi-hat:
14" hi-hat
18" crash
8" splash (mounted on a 6" riser on top of the 18" crash)
20" ride
10" splash.
In addition I added a double bass drum pedal set. I'm learning to do rudiments on the bass drum pedals too. I figure I may as well learn the rudiments using both hands and feet. Benny Greb kind of gave me this idea after recommending that his "drum alphabet" should be played on the bass drum as well as on the hi-hat.
So now I'm looking at the bass drum as being a far more dynamic player in the kit than I did before.
Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but I'm really getting into these drums so I thought I'd take the opportunity here to talk about them a bit. ;}
By the way, I actually only started playing the sax about 4 months ago. So I guess the sax is the 'second' instrument compared with the drums.
I also play guitar too, but I've been playing the guitar for many years.