Chloe Kim celebrated her 27th birthday in a way few people do: drumming for 10 hours. When I visit her just outside Hobart on Tuesday she’s sitting behind her drum kit, languidly tapping out a steady rhythm for a small audience. Next to her is a screen that shows she’s been drumming for 45 hours and 54 minutes over four and a bit days: her goal is to hit 100 hours by the tenth.
The clock ticks over: 46 hours on the dot. Kim, a slight woman with a perennially cheerful face, puts her sticks down and smiles. This is mostly directed at two friends who have bought her a cake on her break, but she’s also, always, thinking about her music. Forty-six hours in, 54 to go, and she feels like she has only just hit her groove. “I felt like that was a birthday gift to myself,” she says, of the set I witnessed, “because I felt so great while I was playing.”
Kim’s 100 Hours is both birthday present to herself and an art installation as part of Tasmania’s Mona Foma festival. She’s been playing the length of the state, from Launceston to Hobart, and is due to perform her 100th hour this Sunday night in the grounds of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona).
The idea of playing drums for 100 hours over 10 days came to Kim during lockdown, as she was studying for her master’s degree at Sydney Conservatorium. “I just really wanted some time off from my studies, my life was becoming a bit of a boring routine,” she says. “I thought, ‘what would be a very dramatic but fun project that I could do, to get away from my worldly problems and concerns?’ Immediately, I knew I wanted to drum all day. And 100 is such a great number, so why not try to do 100 hours?”
While it may seem like a Herculean effort, the professional jazz drummer is accustomed to drumming for long stints. “When I moved from Canberra to Sydney to study, I didn’t really have any friends, so all I did was practise,” she says. “I would practise 10 hours a day. But I began making a life outside of study and while I was so grateful for that, it also meant I had little time to focus on drumming. So I really, really missed this. I just wanted another kick to get back to it.”
Drumming for 10 hours on 10 consecutive days takes a physical and mental toll. Kim sometimes needs to take painkillers for assorted aches; she also frequently needs to stretch her forearms: “I can feel that they’ve worked hard.”
The mental fatigue, however, ebbs and flows. “Hour 27 was quite tough, mentally,” she says. “Physically I was okay. I take it easy at times, have some massage, a good sleep. But at 27 hours I was so tired. At 46 hours now, I feel refreshed. Today is probably the best I have felt.”
Through the aches and pains, she has noticed changes in both herself and in her music. On day one, she was breaking her performances into 10-minute segments; now she is composing hour-long songs. Early on, she also felt “a pressure to entertain” people who had come to watch. “Now the clock quite obviously shows I have been playing for 46 hours, so I’m hoping that people generously understand when I don’t always go hard!”
And although she has been playing drums for 17 years (“they’re like old friends”) and professionally for around eight, it was only on Monday that a thought finally occurred to her: “I’m ready to be a real musician.”
“I think it is making me a better person,” she says. “I know this may sound cheesy, but spending so much time on something really makes me think about things, like different stages of my life. I think now, I’m ready. These 46 hours were a sort of warm-up.”
Chloe Kim’s 100 Hours is due to finish on Sunday night at Mona, Hobart; see the Mona Foma website for exact location and times. Entry to her performances is free.
