David Neville on striking the skins
Olympic 400m bronze medallist David Neville is an accomplished percussionist and spikesmag.com took time out to talk about his passion for music at his Los Angeles training base.
“I have to say,
music was probably my first passion and has always been a big part of my life. My mom was actually a piano performance major and
I’ve been playing percussion since fourth grade.
I played percussion in the
Marching 100, which is
Indiana University’s marching band, and I studied music education there. I got into playing the percussion when one of my best friends played drums at church. I used to sit and watch him play, and that is when I started to develop an interest in percussion.
I’ve played every percussion instrument, timpani, xylophone, marimba and drums, even a little bit of piano. There are a lot of comparisons between music and track and field.
Music was a lot of studying and athletics, too, is a lot of studying.
I had to learn how to strike the drum correctly and stroking the drum correctly I compare with striking the ground properly (when running).
But in music, like track, there is a massive mental aspect. I can do all the practicing I want but I’m a nervous wreck. If I’m not breathing properly when I play my instrument and my hands are shaking all over the place then I’m not going to perform.
Athletics takes up the majority of my time but I do play drums at my church most Sundays. I also sing at my church, for me, right now church is where I get most of my music. I also try and play every so often at home. I have a drum set and just play some stuff to relax.
It would be nice one day to get back into playing more classical music because that’s what I started out with.
I really love timpani and that is probably my favourite percussion instrument outside of drum set.
My favourite drummer is
Carter Beauford of the
Dave Matthews Band. One of my friends at High School introduced me to the band and I really love the grooves and the beats. He is definitely my favourite drum-set player.
My favourite song is
‘Again I Say Rejoice’ by
Israel Houghton. It is about good and bad and I like to think even if I have a bad day on the track, the next day sets me up for something better.
I use the negatives so I can build the positives out of that.
When I have a negative performance I use that as a learning tool and that is something we should all do. “
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