Whiplash Lied to You About Jazz Drumming

First things first - download your free transcription here.

We thought we were done with Whiplash.

Interesting movie. Not trying to be "real". The questions people ask us about it gradually fewer with the passing of the years.

A useful touchpoint for cultural references. "Not quite my tempo" has become the "Greed is Good" or "You can't handle the truth" for anyone with a toe in the music world.

But that's not all. Art shapes life.

Ten years ago, Adam Neely contrasted the music of Whiplash with what "real jazz students" of the time would likely be listening to. With the gradual seepage of the movie into the zeitgeist, "real life" jazz has become closer to the Whiplash.

Internet stars built entire careers in the wake of the movie.

I'm not saying any of this is good or bad. It's the way popular art works. But it does mean we can talk about Whiplash again. We should talk about it. If it's going to be the general public's avatar for what jazz drummers do, we get to set the record straight, in much the same way medical professionals would want to if Grey's Anatomy were the only portrayal of them, or pilots if Snakes on a Plane or Airplane were the only popular portrayals of them.

All of which leads us to the question: is the movie's central character, Andrew Niemann, standard-bearer in the popular consciousness for "jazz drummer", actually any good? He who broke up with his girlfriend, bled, performed with a concussion, committed assault and battery onstage, all in pursuit of being "one of the greats"...

...if we compare him to real life jazz drummers - the "real life" version of a jazz drummer at one of the world's leading music schools - how does he hold up?

Well, it's a more interesting question than it might appear.

For starters, which "Andrew" are we talking about? If it's the Andrew on the backing tracks for the big band recordings the bands pantomime along to, then who we're hearing is actually real life pro Bernie Dressel. Google him. He plays in a bit of a "classic" style, but he's legit.

Likewise, if we critique the drumming of the "body double" whose hands we see in many of the solos, Kyle Crane. Look him up on Youtube. Kyle Crane is legit.

Even actor Miles Teller himself, veteran of garage bands but with nothing like the experience his character would have had upon enrolling at the fictitious Shaffer Conservatory, deserves kudos for "crash coursing" traditional grip, jazz beats, and even some of the songs.

That's Miles playing Whipash in the "chair" scene, once Fletcher stops the band and counts off he specific "rushing or dragging" section.

Of course teller doesn't have anything like the touch and acumen his real life equivalents would, but my issue is less with any of the actual drumming in the film than with what the film portrays as important.

What it chooses to emphasize.

Practice till your hands bleed.

Double time swing.

Solos.

Sure - the last 2 are real parts of jazz drumming, though we wouldn't call it "double time" (just "up"). But just as important is what the film leaves out. How about regular swing? Kind of important, right? Touch. Subdivision. (In the "rushing or dragging" scene, what's more important than the tempo is the "nervous" pulse Teller plays, though it's realistic to a character under as much stress as he was.)

Not to mention body movement and mechanics.

So today, we'll get into it. For fun. But, lest anybody think "this old movie again?" No. Doctors got The Pitt. Soldiers and police get their more realistic portrays. If Hollywood isn't going to give us any attempt at realism, we get to earn clicks by calling them out.

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.

If You Can’t Do This, You’re Not Really Drumming? (Featuring JP Bouvet)

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-50%/month x 6 months with the code SaveMonthlyJun26

-$100 off your first year with the code SaveAnnualJun26

Just enter the codes at checkout.

Improvising on drums contains a “great filter” - a chasm with a narrow passage across. On the surface, it seems simple, inevitable that if we simply practice enough rudiments and listen to enough drums, we’ll be able to cross it. And given enough time, that’s probably true. But we underestimate the challenge. Crossing this chasm requires doing 2 things at once: combining “asymmetric” phrases - phrases that cross the bar, or at least “syncopate”, and keeping the “big beat” in our heads. If you think this is easy, try clapping 4 quarter notes, with beat “1” a normal clap, and beats 2-4 with the back of the lead hand, and singing combinations of 2 and 4 16ths - choose any syllable you want to represent each, but I might humbly recommend “2” and “4”. Now, you have to syncopate, which is to say make phrases including odd numbers of “2s”. And you also have to land confidently on “1” after 4 bars of 4/4. If you can do this, the rest of drumming is just adding technique. Obviously a lot of steps, but you’ve cleared the “hardest filter” to improvisation. If you can’t, you’ll struggle to improvise interesting phrases. You’ll be able to play “pre-composed” licks and loops, and you might be able to improvise “non-syncopated” rhythms that never violate the quarter note downbeat. But fear not, because I’ll tell you 2 reassuring things. The first is that practically everybody struggles with this. It requires practice. Just like riding a bike, it’s a complex skill. Even musicians who seem to have been able to do it from birth likely learned it early in life from exposure to music. If this is hard for you, that doesn’t mean there’s something “wrong” with you. It’s hard for everybody at first. The second is you can learn to do it. And you don’t need to spend years tackling rudiments, though in certain arrangements they obviously help. No. We think we have a faster way. An easier way. A more fun way. “We”, by the way, is I, with friend of the channel JP Bouvet. And credit-where-credit-is-due, when we set out to tackle this problem in parallel, it was he who developed the easier, more intuitive method. And that’s why I’ve adopted his method as a step in my teaching. He calls it the 2s and 4s. Any phrase that “syncopates” (which is to say “includes upbeats”) at the 8th note level can be deconstructed into groups of 2 and 4. And you can build any syncopated phrase at the 8th note level with them. That’s why the key to learning to improvise on drums might boil down to understanding deeply how 2s and 4s interact, and memorizing - “getting in your ear” - their sound. In this video, JP and I attempt to give you a crash course into the system: to show you how to “test” your ability to syncopate, then show you the basics for adopting this system.

P.S. I’m doing a small promo for JP Bouvet Method this week, where the above-mentioned course lives. If you dig this youtube video, you’ll probably want to go way more in-depth, with tons of written examples. You can grab a 7-day trial to JP Bouvet Method and support me in the process using my affiliate link here, and, until midnight Friday June 5th, you can save…

-50%/month x 6 months with the code SaveMonthlyJun26

-$100 off your first year with the code SaveAnnualJun26

Just enter the codes at checkout.

Flow Grooves - The Drum Beat That's Suddenly Everywhere (Updated)

First things first - download your free transcription here.

One year ago I made a video on the family of grooves we were starting to see…well…everywhere.

They weren’t like other grooves - not “boom chick” like rock, not “straight 16th” like James Gadson/Stubblefield funk, nor even like shuffles per se.

Their closest living relative were probably the linear funk grooves of players like David Garibaldi, but of course “the kids” were putting a gen-z topspin on them.

Players like Jharis Yokley, Zack G, and recent podcast guest Berj Fazlian were chief among the drummers taking this way of playing to the next level.

At the time, I didn’t know what to call them. So I invented a name: “clave flow”. Which is also the title of the course I created around them in JP Bouvet Method. (Link and coupon codes below.)

Since then, they’ve become more recognized, and have a mainstream name: flow grooves.

So - what are they, exactly?

Strictly speaking, it’s any practically-continuous improvisation around a backbeat - not necessarily “3” or “2 and 4”. It’s usually done with chatter between closed hats and snare ghost notes - though often with extra implements like cowbells on the snare - and usually places the backbeat on the snare, though sometimes it’s on the stack. It’s mostly linear, though not without exception.

But it’s always easier to demonstrate than to explain. Click on the video, and you’ll immediately see examples of Berj and Zack playing them.

And students love these. It’s way out of proportion with what I would have predicted. But my guess is that learning the system to play these grooves gives people a feeling of freedom they haven’t felt before while grooving.

Ok - but how do we learn them?

You can get transcriptions practically everywhere, but I tend toward the “teach a person to fish” approach. Hence, I’m going to show you a simple system to get you started.

And it’s way simpler than when I first considered these grooves a year ago. We’ve had a year of refinement working on it with students, and working through the course material for JP.

In fact, I bet if you take the basic lessons (“rule of 16”, “rule of 8”) into the shed, you should be able to play basic versions of these grooves in just a day.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. I’m doing a small promo for JP Bouvet Method this week, where the above-mentioned course lives. If you dig this youtube video, you’ll probably want to go way more in-depth, with tons of written examples. You can grab a 7-day trial to JP Bouvet Method and support me in the process using my affiliate link here, and, until next Friday, you can save…

-50%/month x 6 months with the code SaveMonthlyJun26

-$100 off your first year with the code SaveAnnualJun26

Just enter the codes at checkout.

Stop "Overthinking" Drum Hand Technique - Just Do This

First things first - download your free transcription here.

Hand technique can be a frustrating Kafkaesque morass.

To a beginner or intermediate, the constellation of instruction makes it seem like there are dozens of unrelated orthodoxies that never come in contact, not to mention a literal waterfall of “quick tips”.

I’m gathering steam for a “grand unified theory” of hand technique video - because it’s ridiculous that, with the same laws of physics, we can get such disparate approaches from the various camps - but in the meantime I wanted to chip away at a simpler problem: how to “know if it’s right”.

In my opinion, that’s what makes teaching and learning hand technique so difficult: most of it happens inside the hand, where it’s hard for the student to observe the teacher or vice versa, and that’s on top of the lack of telepathy or mind-melding, so we have to use words and demonstrations to coax the student in “warmer” direction until they finally feel the “rightness”, then they can continue to seek that. But how do they know if what they’re feeling is “right”?

Enter today’s 2 exercises.

They’re almost impossible to do if the technique isn’t “in the right direction”, and if you can do them, it’s a good indication that you’re “warm”.

Ironically, even though there’s a messy universe of hand technique orthodoxies out there, most students I see who need technique help suffer from the same issues, and they’re basic “laws of physics” stuff:

Using too-large muscle groups to do the job smaller ones could do.

“Stealing” the energy of the stick through inefficiency, and having to “add it back”, usually (see number 1) with larger-than-appropriate muscle groups.

And this is the beginning of the grand-unified-theory.

Whether via French grip or German, drum corps or Murray Spivack, practically all good drummers have 2 things in common:

An efficient division of labor amongst muscle groups.

An ability to harness a lot of the “physics” without adding unnecessary new energy to the system.

Phew.

Enter today’s 2 exercises:

The 2-finger rimshot, and Speed Golf Rob.

Both are simple to explain and understand, even if they take some time to do. But both will point you in the right direction.

For more detail, check out the video.

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.