How Good Do You Have to Be to Teach Drums?

Today's video attempts to answer a question I've been thinking about since a couple of provocative social media posts asked it:

These days there are a lot of so-called "drum teachers" on the internet. Are we SURE that's a good thing?

I responded at the time, in the comments. But now that months have passed and I've had a chance to reflect, I decided to make a video about it.

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The most recent version of the debate started with two instagram posts - one, in my opinion, well-meaning, and the other, well, not.

The first asked innocently what people's opinion was of the fact that practically anybody could now hang a shingle and call themselves a "drum teacher". Spoiler alert - I was in a minority in the comments for taking the position that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing.

After conducting a quick poll, I decided not to respond to the second directly, because even though it directed venom at some of my friends and colleagues, my audience felt dignifying it with a direct response would have been a bigger error than leaving the negative comments unrebutted. (Sorry - I tried and failed to say that in simpler words.)

But despite the...shall we say..."unstatesmanlike" way the argument was presented, it's not a completely crazy critique. And here it is:

Should drummers have a certain minimum level of skill before they feel confident teaching.

So in the video, it's these two valid critiques I take on:

-Is the low bar to calling yourself a teacher on the internet a net good or bad?

-Should there be a minimum level of skill before one looks oneself in the mirror calling themself a "teacher"?

And as you'll see in the video, answering these questions is deceptively difficult.

• For starters, what do we even mean by "should"? Are we saying we want to create a governing body, or accreditation agency, to evaluate people before they become teachers? Or maybe just that "charlatans" face the power of ridicule in public.

• And say we did have an arbiter of who measured up and who didn't. How would we evaluate what "measure up" means? Does that mean you have to be a touring pro? Or on the cover of Modern Drummer? Or maybe you need a gear endorsement or two. (Did somebody just turn up the heat?)

• Finally, once we had our "test", where do we put the cutoff? Because something like "top 50 in the world" is arbitrary and relative. As I say in the video, if everybody could suddenly play like Justin Tyson or Ron Bruner, that wouldn't make that level any less impressive, but "top 50" would become "top 4.5 billion".

And yet, I think we probably should have standards about teachers, if I put myself in the shoes of a parent choosing a teacher my child, who really wants to be good at this.

So I propose what I consider a pretty "intuitive" standard...

...but, again, who's doing the deciding?😉

Hope you guys enjoy this one.

Are Smack Stacks a Fad?

First things first: get your free transcription here.

Of course it's tempting, whenever you see "all the drummers" doing something - especially if it's something unique and specialized - to say "that's a FAD."

And it's true that drum lore is littered with gadgets and gizmos that were the hotness in their day, but which now we can barely remember.

The Zil Bell, anyone?

What about tom racks? (I'm actually not sure why this one went away.)

In any case, it's easy to think of examples of very "of the era" drum equipment and practices that didn't age well. In fact, Fred Armisen sent up a bunch of them in Standup For Drummers, and subsequent late night appearances.

But before we consign smack stacks to the dustbin of history, maybe we should consider another category of drum things: stuff everybody thought was a fad at the time, which ended up enduring and changing drumming.

I'm speaking of course of wee little inventions like...

The elevated low boy (aka the "hi hat").

The kick drum pedal.

Or heck, the "trap kit", and the idea that a single percussionist could play multiple instruments in the band, itself.

So which are smack stacks?

Well, that's where in the fun starts. Because who knows, but we'll sure have some fun comparing it to other drum trends...

...listening to some of my favorite drummers play stacks...

...and teaching you some of my favorite stack beats.

Enjoy this one, and see you soon,

How Loud Should You Play The Drums?

It all began with an innocent-if-somewhat-narrow observation: people I observe through the windows of some of the more "scholastic" practice spaces I frequent generally play more tentatively and with a narrower dynamic range than "pro" drummers I've seen up close.

Then I'd sit down in the adjoining room and notice I was hitting way harder on standard beats. (Then still getting told to hit harder by people like sound engineers.)

Which caused me to reflect on the differences between how hard I'd assumed some of my favorite players were playing when I'd only listened to audio recordings - people like Steve Gadd, Vinnie, Jeff Porcaro, etc - and how hard they were actually hitting if you watched the videos.

But lest you think I'm only advocating a one-way change: I'm not.

I understand as well as anybody the importance of the soft end of the dynamic spectrum, having played in hundreds of restaurants, coffee-shops, and small venues, and having been told to turn down countless times, and realizing it on my own in situations like playing with a singer without mics.

So what I'm railing against isn't necessarily that 100% of players are playing too soft...

...it's more that when you watch the masters of playing soft: people like Brian Blade...

...they're sure not boring. And they're sure not tentative.

(And also I've watched Blade almost break a hole through the kick drum with Wayne Shorter.)

Today on 80/20 - "hitting harder" as a way into playing with more dymamics and intensity, and the epidemic of "tentativeness" amongst today's drummers.

Enjoy this one, and see you soon,