Posture and gesture. Direct drive vs high gears. Bone density.
If those sound familiar but slightly bizarro, how about these: microtime. Minimum effective beat. Stick stall.
If you’re picking up that they’re all metaphors to help bridge the fundamental gap in teaching drums - that a student can never directly feel what I feel and vice versa - you’re in the ballpark. The latter set, or course, are some of mine. The former are those of this week’s podcast guest, one Mr. Bruce Becker.
Renowned for teaching the likes of David Garibaldi among others, and for carrying the torch or Freddy Gruber, Becker is among the most respected sages of drum hand technique still with us. When I learned I’d have the opportunity to speak to Bruce, I of course wanted to ask him things like…
what separates great teachers from great players
what was it like for him the first time he saw a concept he’d innovated change the playing of a student
when did drum hand technique reach maturity, and what’s changed since then
how would you evaluate a new approach - i.e. what’s the “would it work in the ring” for hand technique
But I also wanted to see how he’d evaluate my stuff, so he graciously agreed to review a recent video of mine. (I explained how much Gordy Knudtson had evolved my approach last year.)
It was there that the shop talk and metaphors started. I was delighted that we had some overlap - the concept of “traction” as a metaphor for when your hand and fingers are “in phase” with the energy generated by the bounce of the stick, for instance.
I loved his concept of “direct drive” vs “gears” for the difference between “low and slow” strokes, which are mostly initiated with the wrist and begin and end with the butt of the stick in contact with the heel of the hand, and any regime in which the stick is in “perpetual motion” between the elasticity of the fingers and the energy of the bounce. (My slightly inferior analogy was “on the ground” vs “in flight”.)
To use a jiujitsu analogy, it was like flow-rolling with a master.
You’ll also see in the title that Bruce has a quite a soft-spot for Buddy Rich - as much as admitting he believes Rich to be beginning of the “diminishing returns” era of hand technique, i.e. the last of the Big Innovators - and some pointed thoughts about what separates great teachers from mediocre ones.
If you’ve ever been interested in thy physics of hands, I know you’ll enjoy this episode!