Want to Be Great at Drums? You HAVE to Go Through This

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You’ve heard this already. I’m playing this note a lot this year. First it was with the “caves” video. Then, last week, with the “attitudes”.

It’s probably high time for a “what makes JD Beck Great” lesson, or “The ONE Secret to Exploding Your Single Strokes in One Hour”. Those would almost certainly get more views. But if I didn’t make this video this week, it wouldn’t still be fresh in my mind. As I write this I’m a week and a few days out from a discovery.

Last week’s video detailed how I think we need to be open to self-critique in order to improve. To open the door to entertain what we might wish…were better about our playing.

And just days after publishing that video, I made a fresh discovery.

Even now, it’s faded from memory a bit. And if you watch the video of the practice session in question, it’s increasingly hard to feel the same way I did about it then. (Which might itself be an argument for “taking a beat”.)

But in the moment, I knew: My ghost notes were wack.

I was confronted by the naked horror that something right under my nose wasn’t up to par. And I reacted in all the wrong ways. Instead of taking a day, formulating a good exercise, and attacking it with fresh eyes, I “looped” and spun my wheels for another 90 minutes, just making myself feel worse.

And given that using my own experiences reaching for “greatness” - or whatever - is the DNA of this channel, I kinda couldn’t not make this video. Because if I’d waited a week I wouldn’t have the visceral memory of the feeling.

Ok - so maybe this is the sequel to the “How to Be More Open to Critique” video. We can call it “What to Do When You Spot Something”.

And if the “caves” video dealt with it in the abstract, this one is concrete, recent, and personal.

And I can use that as a “teaching moment”. Here’s what I did wrong, here’s why it happened, and here’s what I’ve learned over the years is the better way to handle it, which I didn’t do until 2 days later.

But as a kind of postscript, watching the video…my sextuplets weren’t even that bad.

So what was all of this really about? Maybe “don’t always believe negative emotions in the moment, but check your recordings after the fact”.

But the “rage cave” this experience inspired fueled two of the most productive weeks of practice in recent memory, so there’s that.

Anyway, this video is for anyone who’s ever thought “I suck”. To show it happens to all of us, what to do about it, and that it’s not always “real”.

Hope you enjoy!

Roni Kaspi - I'm Just Talking on The Drums

Roni Kaspi, you may remember, inspired one of my late-2024 “rage caves”.

I’d seen and heard her in clips with Avishai Cohen, in a drum chair with a storied list of alumni, including previous podcast Ofri Nehemaya and one Mark Guiliana.

But when Jesus Molina’s Night in Tunisia came up in my spotify in a random playlist, I was astonished at the drummer’s ability to play over the meter as if there were no bars. The tune quickly became one of the most “instagrammable” clips of early 2025, in a way that fast, technical music does.

Sure, it was showy. But I couldn’t deny that the drummer had a fluidity that I envied. Hence - rage cave. Much 11/4 for a couple of months. I only later put two-and-two together that this drummer was that Avishai drummer.

I finally caught up with Roni two weeks ago, her upcoming album and recently-released EPs providing the perfect excuse. In the ensuing time since my weeks of toil with Night in Tunisia, I’d had a chance to check out a decent amount of her original music. She plays across genres with a fearlessness that’s impossible to fake.

And speaking to her, it all makes sense.

From a small town in Israel, from non-musical parents, Roni discovered the drums at an early age when she happened upon a rehearsal room noone minded that she used in her elementary school, and formed a band with several classmates. Later, a teacher recommended she audition for a prestigious arts high school, and things almost ended disastrously when Roni, at a jazz audition, played Stairway to Heaven. Seeing potential, one of the judges jumped on the piano and asked young Roni to accompany him through some more “jazz” styles, and salvaged her audition.

Of her time in high school, Roni remembers looking up to classmates whom she says were ahead of her on the skill journey, but “still liking how [she] sounded”. It’s this attitude of willingness to reach for more, but self-acceptance, in addition to the unadulterated love of the drums, that I’d bet set her up for success.

A summer Berklee festival with Terri Lynne Carrington, a successful Berklee audition, a gig with Avishai, and a move to LA post graduation, bring us more-or-less to present-day, where Roni, still only 24, divides her time between touring and creative music like that on her EPs and upcoming album.

Some guests inspire you for their sheer spirit - Chris Turner comes to mind, and Roni is another one who I bet will remind you why you love the drums.

Hope you enjoy!

The Attitude That's Holding Drummers Back

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Time to throw another Shutterstock model under the bus. I have no idea, of course, if this drummer suffers from the very human, understandable tendency I’m discussing in today’s video. (I sometimes wonder if these models ever see themselves in youtube thumbnails and how they react. I like to think if it were me I’d be laughing about it with friends.)

We want people to think we’re good. I mean that in both senses of the word. We generally want to be regarded as good people, and it’s also nice when we get compliments about our skill in something.

The problem is that very human need to see ourselves as capable can sometimes directly interfere with the learning process, which often involves painful, public “digging” through our deficiencies.

The good news is that “thick skin” and “unflappability” that all the pros seem to have onstage - the whole “don’t they get nervous? No, not really” thing - is a direct result.

The bad news is the “getting there” can tweak all our embarrassment instincts.

Whether to a teacher or coach, or to ourselves as we listen to our own recordings or watch our own performances, confronting our deficiencies hurts.

The second problem is something Roni Kaspi alluded to in a recent podcast interview: it’s helpful if we feel at least a little bit confident in what we’re doing. Just as many experts agree the healthiest mindset for something like weight loss is a combination of self-acceptance and also striving toward a goal, it’s nice if we don’t think “I suck” every time we sit down to play.

The solution is complex, and involves identity and psychology - two things way above my pay grade. But when I learned about Carol Dweck’s concepts of “fixed” and “growth” mindset some things slotted into place for me. There’s a dance of seeing ourselves as upon a path to being better, not fixed in place, that’s helped me from time-to-time.

But whatever the path forward, we drummers need to contend with this blocker if we’re going to get better; otherwise we’ll be stuck in the “slow lane” of improvement.

Thoughts? Leave a comment. Otherwise, enjoy!

Antonio Sanchez - Pat Metheny, Birdman, and Everything in Between

Antonio is one of that small category of “drummer’s drummers” who have crossed over into “normies know about them” territory.

“I’m interviewing Pat Metheny’s drummer” will compute to some music hipster friends. “I’m interviewing the drummer guy who did the Birdman soundtrack” will compute for practically anybody.

The crazy thing is the serendipitous way the two are related. After Sanchez got the gig with Metheny, he had just finished playing a show in Los Angeles when a kindly man approached him backstage, mentioning how he loved the performance and he had “done a couple of films”. Thinking this was the average Hollywood person who had “done a couple films”, and tired after the gig, Sanchez politely sought to cut the interaction short - “anything I’d have heard of?”

“Maybe,” replied the man. “I did one called 21 Grams a few years ago, and another called Amores Perros.”

Realizing he was talking to Alejandro Iñaritu, Schanez softened. It was on the basis of this conversation that, several years later, when Iñaritu was at work on Birdman, Antonio Sanchez got the call.

Fast forward a handful of years, and now it’s Sanchez’ music we hear behind the Emmy-winning Seth Rogan show The Studio.

Obviously, there was a lot to cover in just an hour, because we hadn’t even scratched the surface of Antonio’s early development, the Berklee years, The first gigs with David Sanchez and Miguel Zenon (where a young 8020-guy saw him a umber of times at the Jazz Gallery in New York), Pat, Bela Fleck, and the tour life.

Forget about his approach to practice, his attitude about chops vs musicality, etc.

But cover we did. Luckily, Antonio is as good a storyteller away from the drums as he is behind them. The gestalt of this interview is a wise veteran still in his prime, who’s seen a lot of things, played with a lot of greats, and lived a lot of life, and is eager to share.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy this conversation.