Should Drummers Boycott AI?

First things first - download your free transcription here.

The “bad future” is here.

AI tools can now write songs for you, replace band members in a DAW, quantize your drum parts without any fidelity loss, and transcribe songs for you.

(That last one…needs a few tweaks.)

And the internets are awash with critics, decrying the new generation of music tech.

But what if you’re a drummer who just wants to make some songs to play along with?

Does that make you the equivalent of somebody buying factory-farmed meat instead of free-range? Or, worse, burning coal in their back yard?

In this video, I attempt to separate the “society-wide” arguments from the personal ones. We take a hopefully-sober look at the tools that are actually available to drummers, through the lens of a bunch of feedback I received from Instagram, Reddit, and members of my private Discord.

Then we ask “would even the most shrill critics of AI music tech decry this use case.”

And, short answer: maybe.

You’ll find people impugning any use of AI because of “ick factor”. You’ll find plenty on the polar opposite side, opening shilling it. And between the two polls, some arguments we ought to consider, like “de-skilling”.

Are drummers who use AI at risk of stunting their brains?

Well, color me skeptical.

To me, the much more clear and present danger has almost zero to do with private use, and much more to do with the large companies that stand to adopt - and are already adopting - AI in cases where they could have, and would have, afforded human creators.

And, in my opinion, it’s these cases we should be most concerned about.

Can we split our brains in 2? Go easier on individual drummers who just want a fun song to accompany them, and harder on big companies replacing human producers, drummers, and composers?

We’ll get into it.

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.

Cinque "Ignabu" Kemp - Macklemore/Ana Tijoux' Drummer Joins Me Live

Cinque “Ignabu” Kemp is someone I’ve been trying to schedule for the podcast for ages.

Beyond his creative approach to the drums, Cinque has a million stories and a unique outlook. And he’s lived multiple lives. As a drummer for people like Macklemore, Flatbush ZOMBiES, Ana Tijoux, Melanie Charles, a producer, and - not making this up - a model. Google him.

But Cinque is also “the guy upstairs” from the days when I used to have a secondary studio on the other side of the labyrinthine complex of studios in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. From time-to-time, I’ve shared walls or floorboards with somebody who made me think “damn, they’re heavy”. I’d hear somebody shredding upstairs, and it turned out it was Cinque.

From time to time we’d bump into one-another on the elevator and say “we should do an interview.” When Cinque finally had time in his busy schedule to swing by 8020 HQ, I had to jump on it.

You’ll enjoy this interview as well if you want to see a less-”produced” side of me. What can I say - Cinque brings it out of me.

In this engaging conversation, Cinque weighs in on flow states, the role of practice in his life these days, his almost mystical appreciation of creativity, how the “non-drum” creative hats he’s worn have informed his approach to drums, tour stories, and more.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.

The Drum Setup Change That's Suddenly Everywhere

First things first - download your free transcription here.

Notice one drummer doing something, and you’re like “hmmm, that’s novel.”

Notice two doing it, and you’re like “that looks familiar.”

Notice 3, and you’re like, “needle scratch. That’s a thing.”

So it was with the drum setup change that’s the subject of this lesson. I’d see the odd drummer doing it on Instagram, and think “those kids, always experimentin’”.

I’d notice Anika Niles doing it in a Rush soundcheck, and think “hmmm maybe I should try this.”

Then, like the snare cowbell, or the bass drum bongos, it started to take over.

I’m speaking of course of switching the position of the “high” and “middle” toms in a “5-piece”, which is to say any arrangement in which you’ve got at least 2 toms more-or-less over the bass drum, as opposed to the “4 piece”, in which you’ve got only one, usually in the left-hand position, and the others are floor toms.

Was this a viral meme? If so, who started it?

My research indicated no single point-or-origin. Anika, yes. But also Macro Minnemann, Kenny Aronoff, Jimmy Chambelin…all the way back to Bernard Purdie.

Hmmm, well maybe everybody’s doing it because it serves some musical or ergonomic purpose. Digging deeper, I found out that a lot of drummers like the “4-piece skeleton”, with a medium-high tom on the left-hand side, and a space for the ride cymbal to the right.

By putting the high tom on the right, you leave more space for the ride, and also “preserve” the layout of the 4-piece, allowing you to play this kit as if it were a 4-piece, but with an extra tom in case you want it.

As we’ll cover, the 4-piece is the original incarnation of the tunable drum kit, which Slingerland and Gene Krupa popularized. And many of the jazz and subsequent rock greats created a lot of the canonical vocabulary on the 4-piece. Such that, if you’ve played any jazz, let alone simply played the layout a lot, it “feels great”.

Switching to a “high/middle/low” 5-piece can feel awkward, since your melody now changes. Sure, you can still “play it as a 4-piece”, but the high tom sounds higher. And you have to reach to play the middle-tom with the left hand.

Finally, I discovered a third great reason to switch the toms: modularity. If you quickly want to revert your kit back to a 4-piece for space or the preferences of other drummers, the “inverted” tom layout allows that - just pull the high tom off the stand, and you’ve got your original 4-piece.

At any rate, we explore this “weird” setup, complete with some tom flow vocabulary, and why it’s fast becoming my preferred way to set up the drums.

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.

This Exercise Will Change Your Drumming Forever, But You Might Hate It

First things first - download your free transcription here.

There’s that old saying: “knowing the path and walking the path are 2 different things.”

I’m fond of another: “I said simple. Not easy.”

Sometimes the solution to our blockers is in plain sight. We just don’t want to do it.

Today, I’m going to make the case to you that, if you can get over the initial trepidation and bore, yes, you actually do want to do it.

For starters, because agnostic to your level, it’s one of the most powerful exercises to help your playing across-the-board.

But also because, once you get going with this, it’s actually quite meditative.

I’m talking about slow practice. Like, absurdly slow. So slow it feels like an eternity between notes. So slow that when you use a metronome, you have to keep remembering not to rush.

So - why do we do this?

I’ve often said great drummers do 3 things differently from mediocre ones. Taking speed, flashiness, etc totally out of the equation. These are things that the most minimal groove players and Eloy Casagrande have in common.

1. Control of timing - note placement.

2. Control of sound - stick height differentiation, “zones” on drums, “vertical spacing”, etc.

3. Control of ideas - always within the protective “improv bubble” where it feels like they can’t play a wrong idea.

And I’ve complained that, in my travels, the average drummer mostly doesn’t grasp how insanely better than most of us great drummers are at the first 2. (Well, all 3, but this exercise deals primarily with the first 2.)

Timing and sound control are like the “secret gravity” of great drummers. The hidden matrix giving your ideas snap and danceability.

And there’s simply no better way to ingrain these than absurdly-slow practice.

You could make a spreadsheet of all the places your notes are early or late on the grid, and practice them one-by-one, and try to remember “on the 3rd 16th, I’m always 2 milliseconds ahead, so I have to compensate”…

…or you could simply put yourself in a context where you can tell intuitively the difference between on-the-grid and not, and (much easier) just let your subconscious bootstrap all the subtle shifts to get you grooving.

At any rate, this video explores the “why”, “what” and “how” of The Cult of Slow Practice. And I hope you’ll join me out on this branch.

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.