How Listening to the Haters Helped Me Play Drums Faster

"Haters" Transcription

I love when I get to create a lesson with a clickbait title that's actually literally true.

To be fair, I might have invented the title first, then worked backward.

Makes me wonder what other lessons I could create that way...

"I only played with my left hand for 3 weeks, here's what happened."

Welcome to my lesson creation process.

In truth, it's easy to create lessons that just teach drum stuff. I could lose 85% of the audience in the first 2 minutes talking about how KLRLL is the key pattern that unlocks a ton of combinations.

It's also pretty easy to go completely clickbait.

Gear Secrets Pros Would Tell You if They Weren't Keeping Them For Themselves

Doing something that's both delicious and nutritious...often requires suffering.

And suffer I did. (First world suffer.) I spent hours reading every negative comment on my Eric Moore lesson, before spending a week devising a practice routine ([which I'm sharing with you]), and learning it well enough to see if it worked, then teach it to you.

Why were there so many negative comments?

Well, there was the small matter that I'm on the internet claiming that the key to playing combos like Eric might be to learn something like them...slowly.

I'm not completely alone. Sean Wright's talked about this.

And most of the comments on the lesson were still positive.

But there was a...vocal minority.

Comments ranged from the constructive...

"I get your point, and you sound good, BUT..."

...to the immensely entertaining.

"HOW do you have SEX?"

The thrust..ahem...behind most of them, was that I was missing the major part of how to play like Eric. It wasn't about learning patterns or learning to phrase combos cleanly more slowly, then gradually increasing the speed.

It was mostly about ceasing to be a sissy, and playing more like caveman. To paraphrase. But I think it's a fair paraphrase.

"Hit those drums. They won't hit back!"

"Eric plays with abandon! You seem so careful!"

Try telling a sunday-driver that Lewis Hamilton drives "with abandon", and that the key to feeling more comfortable is not to learn any fundamentals, but just to speed up.

But my protestations fell on 100% deaf ears. (Deaf from playing so loud;)

Then one constructive critique convinced me...they might be right.

"I know it's important to play slowly and get things under your hands first, but maybe you (I) are at the point where you need to rush intentionally a little bit."

Over-clocking.

Supra-maximal training for weight-lifting.

Sprints.

Fine, I thought. I'm game.

And thus unfolded the weeklong experiment that resulted in the exercises in this lesson.

Enjoy, and see you next week.

My challenge to the drum internets

If you happened to catch Wednesday's email, or my recent text post on YouTube, I was describing some of the recent backlash I've received, and describing my mission to educate any drummers who will listen...

...in the same lessons I learned all those years ago. (i.e. that if you take away chops, great drummers are still better than us, and we ought to be investigating the reasons why.)

Today's lesson was an effort to make rubber-hit-road.

The idea occurred to me as I was driving and listening to my Spotify playlist, when I happened on a Tom Misch tune. (Maybe it was Colors of Freedom?)

The beat was super simple, and repeated throughout the tune, which is in 4.

But I remembered how, just over a decade ago, I would have played along with that tune, gleefully unaware I sounded like garbage.

-My kick was in the wrong place, and inconsistent

-My sounds were sloppy

-The overall tempo would be rushing and dragging, especially if I had to play it with a real band

Just recently, I'd recorded a very simple drum cover, that was little other than kick and snare, and finally been happy that I was locking up with the recording decently.

After ten years of practicing it every day.

And (Obama voice) let me be clear: 95% of comments I get on my videos are either supportive or constructive criticism.

But that other 5%...haha.

And, as I hinted on my channel, when, on occasion, I follow the commenter back to the source, I do not discover somebody who's spending a decade getting his timing and lockup better.

"What if I could incept them with the feeling I had, all those years ago, listening along to a recording of myself playing with a track, after I thought I'd nailed it."

And, in reality, it'll probably be the people already self-aware of their stage of the journey, already practicing productively, who will take it up...

...but so was born the #8020challenge

In [today's lesson], six tracks, over five "levels" of drumming.

Watch just for fun.

Or, if you want, take me up on a couple of these levels. Upload the results to IGTV with the hashtag...you guessed it. #8020challenge

Presenting, le lesson.

See you next week,

N

How Eric Moore plays fast...

Eric Moore Transcription

It's been nearly two months since my first Instagram exchange with Eric Moore.

As I say in the lesson, I'd been curious about one aspect of his speed, and messaged him to see if he could offer any thoughts.

What I don't say in the lesson is that I sat on the lesson for nearly two months.

Which is also the reason for the "cutaway" to "future Nate" in the lesson.

Let's set the stage:It was the beginning of August. I'd just released my "Drumeo Challenge" video, and eaten a healthy dose of humble pie on the internet, as people took me to task for my hands.

At just that moment, Eric released the YouTube video that I feature toward the end of the lesson.

No coincidence that I filmed the "What to do when you hate your playing" episode that month.

So, Nate has a Low Moment, sees an Eric video, has to reflect on how to rebuild his confidence? Big deal, right? Haven't we seen that video?

Well, exactly.

Which is why, almost two months later, out of the country on the trip for which I pre-recorded the lesson, I realized I couldn't release it as it was. 

I wasn't sure I'd ever release it.

Until I got home, and re-read it one more time."OH" - I realized. 

"This just needs a transcription."

So that's what I've added. A little more skin in the game. A little more effort to make it "drum-valuable".

With the transcription, I was ready to let it see the light of day.

Presenting the lesson. Hope you like it.

See you next week, with another,

N  

Five quirky drum setups you probably *shouldn't* copy from the greats

This week's lesson began as another practice room rant.

Every time I arrive in a new practice room, whether it's my own, after a band has used it...

...or any of the myriad rooms I've used, literally around the world...

(and no, the irony that I'm touring practice rooms - not stages - around the world, is not lost on me😉)

...I find the same stupid setup mistakes.

If you're a more experienced player, you know what I'm talking about. When you arrive and find the drums setup the way a non-drummer thinks they should look, from the movies. (Including Whiplash.)

But, as I dug deeper, things got...complicated.

Because, for every asinine setup mistake I could flag, some great drummer has used it at some point.

Case-in-point: stratospheric, nearly-vertical cymbals.

Gosh, where to start?

Vinnie? Tony? Simon Phillips? How about every metal drummer in the 80s?

Ditto with everything else I could think of.

But - and some drummers who are physical therapists have already mentioned this in the comments - that doesn't mean you should set up your drums that way.

Indeed, every one of the drummers above still playing...has reverted to a more boring, more ergonomic way of setting up their drums.

So, dispensing with the great-drummers-who-you-shouldn't-copy thing...

...experienced drummers in this day-and-age do tend to coalesce around certain setups. Or at least certain rules that motivate their decisions.

Whether they can reach the drums comfortably.

Whether their posture and stick angle will be right, and easy.

It's just like real fighters versus actors playing fighters. Just as my fighter friends can tell Mark Wahlberg wasn't really Micky Ward, pros can tell Miles Teller's kit in Whiplash wasn't set up the way a real drummer would do it.

So, what are those setup quirks that flag you as an amateur (even though, annoyingly, tons of great drummers did them too)?

To learn, just watch the lesson.

Back next week with another.

Enjoy,

N