How to Tripletize - The 80/20 Drummer

"I'm saying, when you're ready, you  won't need to..."

Aaaaaaah Morpheus analogies.

Is there any complex-learning or flow-state phenomenon we haven't resorted to The Matrix to explain?

Today, I was rolling with a purple belt from Marcelo Garcia's academy. (Can anybody else say "bad idea"? 😉) And suddenly, I was Neo, on the mats with Morpheus.

The dude was countering things I hadn't even thought to do yet.

In the military, they call it the OODA loop. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act.

Wondering what it feels like when somebody's got a faster OODA loop than you? Try shedding with Dan Weiss. Or Nate Wood. Or Andy Prado. Or Maison Guidry.

Time is clearly not moving at the same rate for these guys as it is for us. (Will it move slower for Conor McGregor or Floyd Mayweather?)

I've long taken the controversial position that the way to stack up better in sheds is not to spend countless hours making your hands faster. It's to make time slower. As Morpheus puts it, "do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles? In this place?"

In Juijitsu it's utterly uncontroversial that the way to win is not to increase your brute strength (though, as in drums, that will help), but to shorten your OODA loop. The beer-bellied account black belt who taps a younger, bigger, stronger opponent handily, simply because he knows what the opponent's going to do before the opponent knows is so mundane as to be a day-to-day occurrence.

Soooo, besides just "grinding it out", how do you shorten your OODA loop with the drums? Luckily, an idiosyncrasy of the human brain helps: chunking.

Quick illustration: you used to think of a paradiddle as eight discreet strokes. Now you think of it as a unit.

Now that you've got that unit, you can orchestrate it, vary it, change its rate, etc.

That's chunking.

So, when Devon Taylor seems to reorient gravity to a right-angle in a solo over Knower's What's In Your Heart, he's actually applying a learnable "chunk", albeit at a super high level.

And it's this chunk I'm going to teach you in this week's lesson.

It won't be second-nature until you shed it a while. You'll know you've got it when you start "hearing" ideas without thinking consciously about them.

Check that lesson out. 

Now, if only I could do that with juijitsu...

Check you next weezy,

N8

Fake Mark Guiliana Lick - The 80/20 Drummer

It's been a little over a week since I shot this latest lesson, but I keep returning to the beat, even without consciously trying.

So, first-things-first...

I've been working on inverted ride stuff. As in, instead of "one, and-a two, and-a-three", it's "...and-two-and, ...and-three-and". It makes sense, because it you're doing the Keith Carlock/Jojo/Spaven beats, there are a lot of implied beat shifts.

But instead of keeping a common "one", you can shift the implied ride pattern along with the beat.

None-of-which, it should be noted, is a particularly good way of keeping a gig.

But let's get to the larger point. I'm thinking about the Guitar Center Drumoff for this fall. And it's most inconsequential whether I participate or not, but it's focussed my practice once-again, around a single thought:

I don't want to sound like a second-rate version of somebody else.

What if Spanky had tried to sound exactly like Aaron Spears?

Or Nasheet Waits like Tain?

It's crystal clear in martial arts. If you've got reach, you've got to play a game that plays to your advantages. Ditto if you've got power.

So how come there's not more of this type of thinking with the drums?

What does this all have to do with the drumoff? Everything I'm practicing, I'm thinking "does this sound like me, or a second-rate imitation of somebody else." Gradually, I think I'm starting to become "known for" some things.

Hemiloizing licks.

Orchestrating common six-based rudiments with the right hand on the hats.

4 note groups over a 3-based pulse in an implied 12/8, and transposing those ideas to sextuplets over the same meter and tempo at a 16th base.

And, were I to compete, I would want to do the best possible version of what I do.

All of which brings me full-circle to today's (fake) Mark G beat. Sure, I was hearing Mark's style in my head, if not consciously so. But it was only in retrospect that I realized it was idiomatic to Mark's thing.

See if you agree...

Everyone Wants To Rule The World - The 80/20 Drummer

I'll come right out and say it... 

My hair does not look good in this lesson.

Imagine a muskrat sleeping off a hangover, strapped to my head like a fur helmet. And not at a flattering angle.

Want to hear my excuse? I haven't even gotten to the best part yet...

Between the hair, my sunken-in, bloodshot eyes, and my cancer-survivor wanness, I figured I'd better just lead with it, like the one armed guy who preemptively nicknames himself Tony One-Arm. 

The rest of the story later, but first let me at least acknowledge the pretense that I have a drum channel ;) 

Tears for Fears. Everybody Wants to Rule The World. Right? The classic 80s rock shuffle. The default when the metronome's at circa 120, and you're thinking triplets or 12/8. 

[keyboard lick] "Welcome to your life..."

Anyway, if you got that gig, it would be strictly pocket.

For, like, 99% of the tune.

But if you know the tune, you know there's one perfect spot for a Nick Smith fill. One spot to just shellac it, then go back to quietly dealing pocket, with a "who me" look on your face. 

And it's for this spot, friend, that I've created a little fill. A little tasty one. But just slightly blistering. Like Jason-Borne-disarming-two-dudes-then-picking-up-his-coffee tasty. 

For more, click here.

Vinnie Lick - The 80/20 Drummer

I first heard If I Ever Lose My Faith at the gym.

"Is this the police guy?"

Later, I was at a local drum shop, and a DVD of the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert was playing.

"Soooo many mullets" was my first thought.

"Who's this completely dominant guy who plays traditional grip?" was my second.

"Oh," said my friend. "That's Vinnie. He plays with Sting."

"If I Ever Lose My Faith guy?" I thought?

Sidebar - if we didn't know who those guys were, doesn't that sound like a line out of Westside Story? Or maybe The Untouchables?

Then Vinnie's solo album dropped. Attack of the 10-Pound Pizza. Bruce Lee. Chauncy. John's Blues.

"What the entire fuck just happened?"

But I liked it.

And not until very recently did any of it start making sense. For instance, check the John's Blues solo. Hot. Damn.

Here's the other funny thing about Vinnie..

He's the only drummer from that era who doesn't sound like...that era.

Even the guys who kept shedding - and they're few - sound like a throwback. They'll play on the sides of the snare instead of the center. They'll play a china, when everybody's moved onto the stack. Their backbeats are pre-Chris-Dave.

Not Vinnie. He still sounds scary.

As I believe I said in a Facebook post, he sounds better and fresher than 98% of the young guys coming up.

But goddamn it with that mullet and wifebeater, man. You can get a haircut. It won't hurt your drumming. I promise.

Anyway, today's lesson is a throwback. Back to my slack-jawed afternoon in that drum shop watching Vinnie play with the Buddy Rich band.

Today, I bring you part of that solo...