What It's Like to Record at Drumeo (And How I Did It)

First things first - if you haven’t seen the Original/Protptype drumeo video, check it out here.

While over the years a decent number of YouTubers have collaborated with Drumeo, I guess I'm lucky that so far noone has vlogged the experience.

So it was that it fell to me - reluctant/amateur Casey Neistat to document things. To be Your Man On The Inside.

And, as I say in the video, "vlogging ain't easy". It's not like ten years ago, when people would look shocked if you pulled out a camera and started talking to it in public Today, it mostly just elicits eye-rolls - "Oh, you're one of those guys."

"Outtake" moments include my lens cap falling off and rolling down the long aisle of an aircraft, for everyone's amusement, while taking off from Laguardia.

But I made it, and I managed to smuggle the footage out with me.

Expect to discover:

• What it actually looks like inside Drumeo HQ and what the studio looks like

• What it's like to work with them

• How I got the gig in the first place

• Why Montreal in March is no bueno

Hope you enjoy!

I Played Intentionally "Bad" Drums Over Bieber's Most Popular Songs

I don't actually dislike Bieber. The man has pipes. And I've done videos about his drummer, Devon Taylor.

But one day while I was forced to listen to Sorry for the umpteenth time at the gym, I decided it would be hilarious to do some troll covers of Bieber.

To make sure my covers wouldn't be like a tree falling in the woods, I'd need a place to post them. I quickly settled on the Bieber subreddit. Which also solved the problem of which songs I should cover.

I posted a quick message that I was a new fan and wondering which songs I should check out, and waited for some replies. Good! People were responding.

From among the many suggestions, I narrowed it down to one, and I knew already what I was going to do - play 5/8 over the whole thing.

I held my breath and posted.

A good result would be some people saying "I'm not sure what this is". A great result would he outright bile - "this is the worst thing I've ever seen."

But a fantastic result would be the type of "damning with faint praise" condescension I sometimes see in my comments - "Nate, I really want to help you out, and as a friend I have to tell you I know what you're going for, and it's way off the mark. I know that hurts to hear."

I have a growing file of such comments that I send to my friends for amusement.

Anyway, if you want to find out the result, the second cover I decided to do, and the response to that one, you'll have to watch the video.

(Not to mention you can hear for yourself the artistic choices I made.) 

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

The Thomas Pridgen Lick I Got WRONG

Grab your transcription here.

I talk a lot about playing in "flow", especially since that's the theme of the course I'm co-coaching.

Yes, we have to check out other people's licks...

I mean, drums don't happen in a vacuum. Everybody has influences, etc. Besides which good luck seeing a Thomas Pridgen instagram post and not trying to ape it.

And this particular Thomas post is one of my favorites - it's just Thomas "chopping" at a sound check. He does his thing, then a particular part of the solo pops out at you. "aaaaaa what is this?"

So of course I tried to transcribe it.

But I've never been big on just showing you exactly how to play something and leaving it there. The "hard part" is breaking down how to incorporate things into your own playing.

Of course there's only so much you can do in a 12 minute youtube video. That's why I give you:

• The licc, both wrong and right

• How I'd f@#$ with it to make it my own, in both 16th and triplet/sextuplet contexts

• The way I take licks/idioms and incorporate them into fills between both straight and swung grooves

Enjoy!

Why I Charge a Lot of Money for Coaching (And You Should Too)

Today’s video is partly tongue-in-cheek and partly dead serious.

Because whenever I encounter stigma for something, my reaction is to drag it out into the light of day. Either we should be doing it, in which case let’s shine some light on the stigma itself - let’s unpack the arguments against it and see if it really makes sense - or let’s stop doing it immediately.

It’s with such an eye that today I take a detached view of the very coaching program I’m co-running with Jacob Evans, and its low-four-figure price tag. That’s a non-trivial amount of money.

And I’ve gotten some pushback on some of the ads I’ve been running.

At the risk of “feeding the trolls”, I decided to address the subject once-and-for all, so I can go back to ignoring any such feedback. The reason I decided it needed the spotlight, though, was that the same week as I caught criticism for charging money in any form for my own teaching…

…I was also receiving comments about how tough it is to be a music teacher, how music teachers need to be paid more, how we need more affordable housing in urban areas because it’s pushing out the musicians and music teachers, etc.

All stuff I agree with.

But you know one way to get paid more as a music teacher? Charge more.

Which leads us to good and bad reasons to charge a lot of money for your services. Should you charge $100 for a bottle of water? Probably not, but people simply won’t buy, because they have a lot of other options, and bottled water is a commodity.

Should you charge $20,000 for an airplane seat? Sure, it’s “rich people wasting their money cringe gold”, but I think most people would agree there are enough affordable options around to get from A to B (and the credit card miles game for those who want to nerd out and play it) that “go nuts”.

But there are legitimately skeezy ways of earning money, like pyramid schemes, false promises, and profiteering. What are those? Are music teachers in danger of running afoul of any of them?

Finally, if there are no ethical hurdles to charging premium prices for music instruction under the right conditions, where does the actual stigma come from? Let’s break down the best arguments against charging a lot of money - nay, charging at all - for music coaching - and see if they hold water.

That’s all in the video.

P.S. Finally, to go completely meta, if you’d like a look inside the rather-expensive coaching program that all the fuss is about, our open enrollment is for the upcoming quarter is open for a few more days. (We’ll probably close it Monday night.) Is it for everybody? No. I’ve got free materials, and cheaper “self-directed” courses I think are great. But if you’d like a peak at what intensive, live group coaching with personal feedback can be like, you can learn more below, and book a free, no-commitment consult call to learn more about the program and get an audit of everything you’re doing in the shed, so that even if you don’t end up signing up, you’ll still get value. Check it out below.