Ever wonder what faculty members at Berklee, or MSM, or Juilliard, or NYU, would be listening for if you played jazz drums for them?
Ever wonder, if you sat in at Smalls after one of your jazz heroes, what he or she would be listening to to judge your jazz playing?
Well, of course, it’s impossible to know exactly.
Everybody’s different and values things differently. Plus, if there’s a way to read minds if hasn’t made its way to me yet.
But we can make educated guesses.
I can judge based on what past teachers have told me, and based on the things I learned to value more highly in the process of becoming a better drummer. And I think we can get pretty close.
Many of these things are, by definition, subtle. If we knew what they were we’d probably be better.
But over the years of listening to jazz drummers who have the bare minimum package to swing and those still proto…that point (and there’s nothing wrong with that)…
…one develops an intuition. One overhears others sitting on an audition panel quip “if I could just hear one person xyz before the end of the day, my faith in humanity won’t be utterly destroyed.”
(Audition panels are a grind.)
If you’re an aspiring jazz drummer, wouldn’t you like to know what “xyz” is?
In this video, I’ll tell you.
Five subtle sings pros listen to to determine whether or not a jazz drummer is legit.
Watch it here.
See you soon,
N