The Obvious Flaw in How We Play The Drums

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Pretend you were an alien, and intercepted a radio signal from Earth. Something called “The Beatles”. You’d probably understand melody and harmony, assuming your species perceived sound - those are just “pleasing” special cases of the physics of vibration. You might even understand the rhythm of the song, and the drums. After all, that’s just using regular intervals in time (a “beat”). These Earthlings apparently find that pleasing.

But it’s likely you’d have questions about the man seated behind some objects at the back, striking them with some kind of rods: “why is it crossing its arms one-over another?”

Because you’d likely understand engineering, and possibly robotics, and you’d know you’d never-in-a-million-years design something like that.

“Hmm. Maybe it’s an earlier model,” you’d muse.

And scene.

But seriously - why do we cross over when we play the drums?

If you’re a bit of an aficionado of drum history, you might have a story in your head. It’s maybe the same story I had, and it goes something like this:

“Traps” came indoors, adapting military and “second line” percussion for stages. The invention of the bass drum pedal occupied the lead foot. With the snare in front of the player, that left only the left foot free, and the invention of the “low boy” occupied that before it occurred to anyone we might be playing it with the hand. In the late 1920s, somebody invented extending the low boy stand to put the cymbals in reach of the player, but nobody noticed or cared, because everybody was playing jazz over on the ride cymbal. It wasn’t until we got to rock and, roughly, Ringo, that drummers realized they were “painted in” - forced to “cross over” if they didn’t want to relearn the drums.

That’s a nice story. But, as I discovered, there’s a big fly in its ointment. And when you see some 1930s big band footage, you’ll probably realize what it is.

But the real story is both more interesting and more illustrative of how we can “evolve into corners”. And I actually have a crackpot conspiracy theory about how we got here, that I don’t think anybody’s really talked about much. (At least I couldn’t find it in several hours of googling.)

And to learn all of that, I invite you to watch the video.

Hope you enjoy!

[Podcast] Danny McGonegle - I Decided to Give Myself a Chance

There’s an instagram reel of today’s guest playing at Smalls. The description, next to a video of a blistering solo, says “I used to have to be drunk to play at Smalls.”

That single sentence encapsulates almost everything he wants you to know about his story.

First, that now he’s by-all-measures a prodigious jazz drum talent.

Second, that a surprisingly short time ago he had crippling performance anxiety.

Third, that that anxiety led to alcoholism at a young age.

Fourth, that he’s now sober, and has poured all that anxiety into making himself the player and social media star he is.

Danny brings up his journey to sobriety in the first sentence of his interview. And, in person, he was not what I expected from his social media.

On Instagram, Danny presents as a macho “gym bro”, obsessed with 400 bpm ride cymbal, even if many of his videos are satirical and self-referential. I was fully expecting a Friday Night Lights character.

In person, he’s warm, humble, self-deprecating, and unironically excited to talk about music. And talk we did. Whether about overcoming social anxiety, the minutiae of practice routines, the role of the left hand, great jazz drummers we both admire, at what stage players should get on social media, or how music is subjective except somehow Tony Williams, we got into it.

I’ve often thought about building a musical career in modern times as at least 3 axes: musical ability, virality, and integrity, with the last 2 seemingly slightly in conflict, and the first somewhat allowing for the third. (Trust me, I’m making a video on this.)

In a world in which people sing jazz solos while bouncing on a pogo stick, dress up as medieval monsters, or actually become “what my friends think a jazz drummer is” for follows, Danny’s charted a high-integrity course: showing what a “real” modern jazz drummer can be, with some whimsey, humor, and wit, and always putting the music first.

If you’ve ever struggled with performance anxiety or motivation, or just wanted to see “behind the curtain” of one of the most fascinating young jazz drummers, you’ll enjoy this interview.

See you soon!

If You Can Play This Beat, You're a Good Drummer

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

I happened on the beat in today’s video more-or-less at random. But once I struggled to play it, I realized “this has everything.”

Sure, there’s the surface layer or it looking relatively easy.

Then, just below that, the “premutated” “1-E-and”s.

The most challenging bit for me was syncing the kick drum with that hand part.

But it’a actually turtles all the way down. There’s something for every level of drummer.

Beginners may find it challenging just to keep the snare part consistent volume and touch when adding 8th notes in the lead hand.

Intermediates might be challenged by adding a basic foot part without “flamming”.

Still more advanced folks might be challenged by playing the lead hand groups of 3 notes, and the underlying technique.

Still more advanced will find that ok, but possibly need time to master the “changing polarity” of the hand part.

And your GOAT, final boss drummers will struggle…who are we kidding. They’d probably nail it.

But for US mere mortals, improvising with the kick drum with the “permutated” hand part will give us plenty o’challenge.

Back to the “it looks easy” thing. One thing I used to do but have mostly stopped doing is arguing with YouTube commenters about where there’s more-than-meets-the-eye about good drummers. (i.e. that time is more than a completely personal/subjective/arbitrary concept.) (And not in the way it is for Ringo or Bonham.)

When I interviewed Ed Soph 2 years ago, he said he doesn’t waste time arguing. He simply presents people with a challenge they won’t be able to master with their current approach. “Drummer 1 and drummer 2.”

So in that spirit, I give you today’s beat, with the proviso that at every level, it’s only a matter of spending the time to get better, so nobody should take finding particular parts of this challenge an indictment of their potential.

Phew - onto the lesson?

See you soon!

The Drum Fill Test Every Intermediate Drummer Should Pass

First things first - get your free transcription/study guide here.

Today’s video is aspirational. No one should feel bad about their level of improvisation on the drums, any more than I might feel bad about my lack of aptitude at deep sea diving or the Greek language. It’s almost entirely a function of how much time you put in.

So I want to give you four principles to aim for as you work to improve your fills on the drums. In the hopes of narrowing your focus from the infinite potential things you could be working on. By focussing on these 4, my guess is you’ll improve faster.

When playing fills, or indeed any improvisation on the drums, we’re trying to be a few things at once. And you can probably guess the things:

Not boring, in control, maintaining our sense of the barline where appropriate.

And here’s the kicker - it’s not like there’s some metaphysical Simon Cowell who’s going to tell you if your fills are good or wack. Ultimately, you’re still the judge.

But these 4 criteria will help you pinpoint your direction of travel more minutely. Hopefully.

Plus, for each “test question”, I also propose exercises to help you improve that part of your fills.

I hope this will make you feel better about your drumming, and give you some tools to get a little growth during the last few weeks of the summer.

See you soon!