The Simple Lick You Didn't Know All The Pros were Using

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

I’m endlessly fascinated by the disparities between what we think is going on when great players play, vs what’s really going on.

Almost a decade ago, I would transcribe stuff from Justin Tyson or Thomas Pridgen, and eventually came up with a rule-of-thumb, kind of like Drum Occam’s Razor: “if you have to do something that feels super physically awkward to play this lick you think is happening, it’s probably something else.”

Not exclusively - certainly sometimes drummers have worked out unique ways of moving around the kit - but usually. If you hear hoofbeats, think horses instead of zebras, and if you hear thunderous Thomas licks, think paradiddle permutations with kicks and cymbals until you learn differently.

It’s just such a lesson that underscores the theme of this week’s youtube entertainment - a simple lick that’s a bit of a “missing link” in the playing of a lot of great “choppers”. The humble RLK.

At the beginning of the video, I show 2 prominent examples of great drummers who, when the lick seems to permutate and “warp”, if you slow it down, the root is this RLK. Simple, but not easy. Because in 16ths or 32nds, introducing a 3-note phrase is introducing chaos. A rotating dynamo that will drag you across barlines whether you’re ready or not. So not easy. But, in theory, simple.

The third musical example I offer in the opening minutes of the video is drummer whose focus is not necessarily RLK. But I show his playing to illustrate that I could drop this RLK in the middle of the street, and unless they had connectors, a conception of improvising, and fundamentals, very few would be able to “pick it up”.

So we use that as a jumping off point to discuss 3 points of the “how” of playing like “the greats”.

Also if you’ve made it to the end, you might be interested in going deeper with these concepts, and it just so happens I may have the thing: enrollment closes soon for one 1:1 coaching slot I came by “accidentally” this month. If you’ve been waiting on the fence to check out the Impossible to Fail program, now might be your chance. More Info here. Because this will go fast, I’ll delete this paragraph in 24 hours.

Do You HAVE To Play Rimshots on Drums?

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I love “hidden-in-plain-sight” controversies. A few weeks ago I was contemplating the necessity of teaching rimshots. So I decided to post about it on my Instagram. Little “black tile with white text” thing. Immediately got almost 80 comments and 10x the engagement of, say, me drumming.

“Ok,” I thought. “This is a topic”.

So - if you’re learning to play the drums, do you need to learn rimshots?

They’re prickly things. It’s almost like adding another whole dimension to the things we already worry about. Now it’s not just accents and subdivision and timing and ideas and orchestration, but also nailing this exact angle when you strike the snare, and damn it would nice if you could do it without any tension and with the same sound with both hands at multiple stick heights.

So yea - prickly.

So in this video we look at the use cases. Are 100% of drum beats rimshot beats? Not even close. From classic Ringo tracks of the ‘70s, to Steve Gadd beats of the ‘80s, to songs like John Mayer’s Vultures, to most jazz swing beats…

There’s a lot you can do without rimshots.

And don’t they kind of have a bad brand? We picture Chad Smith or Joey Jordison - the cannon-fire-against-the-temples of the type of music we’d probably scream at our neighbors to “turn it doooown”.

But in this video, I’ll make the case for the humble rimshot. Illustrating, hopefully, that they’re not just for speed metal. (“These aren’t your parents’ rimshots”.)

Drummers from Ziggy to Clyde Stubblefield to Brian Blade have used them tastily. And, with this handy guide, so can you!

At any rate, hope you enjoy this exploration of drums’ most undersold controversy.

Calvin Davidson - The Prog Metal Prankster Holds Forth

A few weeks ago I caught up with my new friend Calvin, from High Fade and his solo project Perry Dimension.

If the latter rings a bell, it’s because the instagram account associated with it had some viral memes. In a manner of speaking, Calvin represents exactly what social media has “done to drums”. That’s why I wanted to dig deeper.

Calvin and I first connected late last year when I saw him doing an exercises that reminded me of a tom flow thing I’d been practicing at the time. (A lesson that ended up earning me a rare reaction video.) I’d already seen the Instagram account loaded with drum comedy - covering Beatles songs with over-the-top drum fills with captions like “Ringo shoulda cooked here”.

If you’ve seen this meme, you can thank Calvin for its origin. It simultaneously participates in “everything that’s wrong with drums on social media” and critiques it. As do Calvin’s comically over-the-top out-of-context drum solos from live shows.

Anyway, after our initial conversation, I’d wanted to get Calvin back on, because behind the memes, he’s deeply dedicated to real, live music. (Unlike, I suppose, Yours Truly. I’m working on it, you guys;) As the drummer for High Fade, Calvin has tasted the tour life, and has thoughts on touring and record labels, and an ongoing inside joke about pink yachts. When I asked him to choose between “internet famous” with zero label interest and label interest but zero followers, he actually chose the latter. (The faster path to the pink yacht, to explain the yacht thing just a little more.)

And despite his theatrics and memes, if you peep Calvin’s solo project, Perry Dimension, it’s thoughtful and analog, and the songwriting and music video are clever.

Finally, as with all of my guests, I wanted to know how Calvin had become this good at drums by this point in his life. (22 years old as I write this.) His uncomplicated relationship with the drums reminds me a bit of Chris Turner’s. Calvin’s only known high standards for himself, so it wouldn’t even occur to him that there were people putting in less time on the instrument.

I hope you enjoy this light-hearted chat with Instagram’s funniest memer, who, under the surface, is so much more.

Do Drum Lessons Take Away Your Soul?

Does formal instruction take away the grit and rawness that makes you an individual? That gives your playing soul and wabisabi?

When some random commenters implied as much, I was at first defensive of the idea. (As a drum coach myself, I would certainly hope not.) And indeed you can find multiple soulful drummers, from Max Roach to Adam Deitch, who received formal training, and don’t seem the less soulful for it.

Still, it’s hard to get that example of “teaching birds to fly” out of my head. The archetypal illustration for my generation is the show choir from American Pie. Memory is sketchy, but one character joins show choir to meet girls, and accidentally ends up soloing in the end-of-year concert. Not the point. The point is the choir covers a song Marvin Gaye and James Taylor made famous - How Sweet It Is to Be Loved By You. And they do not do it justice. The “academic-ness” of their performance is played for laughs, but it sticks with you.

Did Marvin have a choir director shouting “chest voice” at him? Did James sing “bumble-bee-eee” to warm up? What about Bob Dylan? What about Eric Clapton or Robert Johnson.

Schooling, you see, gets a bad rap.

We picture square, untalented paper-pushers, pushing “square pegs into round holes”, and preaching “one-size-fits-all” pedagogy probably developed by somebody equally untalented, smoothing out all the individuality. Filing off the grit. Stealing the soul.

But how real is this?

First, there’s the issue of good vs bad pedagogy to confront. Yes, bad teachers can probably take a natural talent and kill it, mostly by killing the drive. But good teachers can foster and nurture that talent.

Next are two sets of very different things that can seem the same.

At the beginning, there’s “novice sloppiness” that can, at first glance, seem like “soulful wabisabi”. And while there’s certainly a rawness and abandon some students exhibit that we don’t want to squash, for most novices, including me, that sloppiness is nothing like the grit of the greats. We rush and drag in decidedly-unsoulful places, have inconsistent dynamics, are passive instead of proactive in playing for the song, don’t listen well, etc.

Next, there’s the “crucible” every learner needs to go through as part of the learning process; a natural artifact of taking something innate and intuitive and deconstructing it and making it conscious. A good educator can do this in a more “as necessary”/”microsurgery” way, but some self-consciousness is probably inevitable.

We’re seeing Nate Smith and Adam Deitch at the end-state, not during their first 2 years of drums.

So what was going on with that show choir?

Probably nothing very representative of the overall effect good training can have. I too have been in high school music programs, and the emphasis is to take a group of people with various levels of training and interest and create a serviceable performance on a deadline. You’re going to round off some edges. But considering the experience levels, it’s probably not like you clipped the wings of a fledgling Erykah Badu either. If she was in the choir, she had plenty of time to keep going on the journey.

Just like you, dear reader.

Hope you enjoy!