Alex Cohen - You Couldn't Write This Stuff

Alex Cohen is like the Keyser Soze of a certain milieu of drummers. The hub of a dark web that includes players like Andy Prado, Maison Guidry, Steve Lyman, Jerad Lippi, JP Bouvet, and a gaggle of students who themselves are well known. Like the one ring that secretly binds them together, everyone with a secret “Alex” connection, or a shed. (You realize after looking that he’s been on Drumeo and won one of their awards.)

And that’s probably the least interesting thing about Alex.

How about this one: after surviving a brain tumor, he discovered he could play in different time signatures at once. And not like 6 in one hand and 4 in the other, or anything pase like that. I mean he can lay down a hat ostinato in 4 with his left foot, improvise in 5 with his left hand, and improvise in 7 at the same time between his right foot and right hand.

Or that he uses drums to keep him going through sessions of chemo-therapy.

Alex is like the real life David Goggins of drums, if David Goggins were interesting.

Behind the scenes, though, he’s just a kind, enthusiastic drum nerd who can talk drums for hours. And I mean hours. After we stopped recording this interview, we talked for 2 more hours.

I hope that’s within a stone’s throw of an introduction for the man for whom every introduction falls short.

I know you’ll enjoy this one. And hopefully forgive some audio foibles as we learn how to do the “live” podcasts.

My Favorite Thing I've Ever Recorded

First things first - grab your discounted tickets to my New Paltz clinic next Saturday the 3rd at 1:30pm. Save $5 by buying early.

When Meinl reached out to me in late summer of last year, asking if I could record a series of educational videos for them, I had one condition: let me play an unstructured drum solo.

I’d been inspired by “clinic” performances of people like Guiliana and Marcus Gilmore, and had been practicing “free form” solos for about the last year. Here was an opportunity to have such a solo recorded professionally, on an exquisite kit in a beautiful studio. We did it in one take. I felt like I’d reached exactly the right psychological “zone” - not nervous, not thinking, not “showy”; just creative.

I’d recorded it on my iphone, and listening back, I was satisfied.

When Meinl sent me the rough take, I was even more happy, hearing it through the “real” mics for the first time.

Then I made the mistake of reading the comments.

The first dozen-or-so were very kind and supportive. But then began the backlash. “This is what happens when people spend time creating content instead of practicing.”

“I guess they’ll sponsor anybody with a following these days.”

“For sure don’t play a beat or anything, or try to make any music.”

“This guy sounds ‘self taught’.”

I listened again, mystified.

Still thought it was good. Sorry. Then I did something I recommend even less than reading the comments. I followed some back to the source. And many of them were from “pretty good” prog drummers. Guys probably with better singles than mine, and for sure better double kick.

Gradually, with full awareness that this was at best a “break even” - between healthy (i.e. getting inspiration to work harder) and unhealthy (i.e. picking at a wound) - use of my time, I started putting together a picture of what this type was looking for.

1. Do something musically impossible to fake, like playing with an odd meter track. If you’re only soloing against a referent in your head, it’s like abstract art.

2. Play with more volume and/or power. It’s true that I was a bit intensity-limited.

3. Do something technically impossible to fake, like single strokes, or playing 2 meters-at-once.

So began the bootcamp that inspired last month’s “cave” video.

Single strokes on the ride cymbal with both hands. Then neoprene mutes. Then around the kit, like Richie Martinez or John Hoffman.

Trying to translate that back into the improv, and practicing with noise-cancelling cans to try to prime my muscle memory to play harder.

And more practice with ostinatos, to allow a listener to keep a reference of what I was doing, including in odd times (though nothing verging on Cohen or Lyman territory.)

And I was happy to say that, looking at some of the “before” and “after” videos of the progression, I think I did get some decent growth out of it. And it sure inspired a whole bunch of videos.

This past week, I went back to the Meinl video, expecting to see a ton of new areas in which it “fell short”.

To my surprise, I think it held up.

A couple of days later, at total random, I was watching the Drumeo video of a hero - one of my favorite modern solos. I happened to check the comments, and they were brutal.

“Who’s this guy.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a channel for great drummers.”

Wait a minute. You’re never going to please an anonymous youtube commenter in his mom’s basement?

And so continued the not-completely-healthy push-pull of using haters to fuel me with getting pulled off track. And the hopes that with each swing of the pendulum, hopefully I get a little perspective.

But to you, the viewers, go the spoils. The cave video. The “gen-z beats” video. The new upcoming single-stroke bootcamp video”.

And what should you take away from it if you’re reading this, about to go down to the shed. Well, reality is messy. I could say “don’t worry about what anybody else thinks”. But then you’d be missing a key-ingredient to push yourself. It’s not a coincidence that the “average” level of drummers everywhere shot up as soon as Instagram was widely-available.

But neither is “always read the negative comments” great advice.

But that imperfection and those contradictions show up in the art as well. No comedian makes it through years of open-mics without a thick skin about crowds, no attending physician makes it out of residency without some road-wariness, and every musician you see on SNL has thousands of bad performances and thousands of negative comments behind them.

At any rate, here’s hoping some of you are finding the sweet spot on this Sunday in early spring.

Best to you.

Why All Kick Drum Advice Seems Contradictory

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I’m fascinated by ecosystems where, depending on who you talk to, you get completely different advice.

This was the case in nutrition for an age. The paleo/carnivore/keto people never seemed to be talking to the “calorie balance” people. Depending on which podcasts you listened to it was possible to get an almost completely opposite impression.

You might expect to see that in “squishy” areas like nutrition, where effect are hard to tease apart from confounders, and most of the studies are of self-reports of people in real life, because nobody’s going to “squid game” two cohorts in a lab for 30 years to observe things in a controlled setting.

But in drums, where the feedback is immediate and palpable, I couldn’t figure out how such contradictory approaches developed.

The slide.

The heel-toe.

Heel up. Heel down.

And each with its adherents shouting from the rooftops about its superiority.

So why hasn’t anybody reconciled all these seemingly-totally-contradictory techniques?

Part of it is something I discuss in the video - the difficulty for one person to feel what it feels like to be another. So we have to communicate using sh#tty proxies, like visuals, and words.

But part of it is also that the cadre of players who have done a lot of the experimentation haven’t quite made their way to the mainstream yet. (But, if yesterday’s live podcast guest is any indication, they soon will.)

In any case, I’ll throw my hat in the ring in an attempt to decode the “contradictions”.

See if you like the results.

Nathan Shingler - Alfa Mist, The Love Cave, and The World as His Oyster

A few weeks ago I did a video on caves.

The idea was that practically every great artist has a period where they go into the workshop, strip things down to the studs, go super deep on one or two things, and then reassemble themselves as a "2.0" version.

I mentioned that my own motivations are very often anger and jealousy, that I'm completely self-aware and at-peace with that, and that I use it to fuel me. I gave examples of other players who I considered "rage cavers". (Thomas Pridgen features largely.)

But I also mentioned there's another type of cave. One in which pure creativity is the primary fuel. In which the enjoyment of creating and high intrinsic standards drive you.

(One imagines the origin of NASA and the first moon mission as a rage cave, with the soviets as the haters, and the birth of Apple as a love cave.)

Anyway, it's hard to think of a better avatar for the love cave than today's podcast guest, Nathan Shingler.

Nathan won the best UK drummer award a few years back, and started playing with artists like Alfa Mist. Now he's touring with Alfa, and has his pick of the "who's who" in the small/exclusive UK music scene with who to create. And create he is.

Nathan describes getting into producing and drum and bass, as well as following his creative whims with writing and recording.

None of which stopped me picking Nathan's brain about how it feels to be him, what he practices/practiced to reach his current level...

...and bog-standard human psychological stuff like shedding the need to impress others and flow states.

If you could use an inspirational "pick me up", I know you'll love Nathan.

But wait there's more:

I very rarely do clinics in the New York area, but May 3rd is the exception; especially if you consider New Paltz in the "area".

What it is is a short drive from the city, and gorgeous this time of year.

And my former student Sal, whom you may recognize as one of the admissions reps for my coaching programs, is arranging the whole thing.

Details here. You also save $5 by booking tickets in advance.

If you're nearby New York and want to meet me in person, this is your best and most affordable opportunity.

Enjoy!