Pros Use This For More Exciting Drum Fills - Do You?

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

We spill a lot of ink and occupy gigabytes of SD cards talking about “secrets of pro drummers”, like subtle stickings that you wouldn’t see are the same unless you slowed them down, or weird “below-the-surface” muscle memory stuff you won’t understand until you feel it.

Today’s video is not about that. Today’s video is about something everybody sees great drummers do every day, then promptly forgets about when we go back to our own drumming.

I’m talking about bog-standard, stupid-simple, boilerplate, block-and-tackle subdivision changes.

Like, “use a sextuplet for once Seamus! It won’t kill ya!”

Then Seamus screams “nevaaaaaaaah!” Across his pint, then steps out into the rain and shuffles away alone, to a sad violin soundtrack. And scene. I’d like to apologize for any negative Irish stereotypes in this vignette.

But I bet if you added up the variety of subdivisions our favorite drummers use in their improvisation and compared it to the average drummer, they’re doing it way more. And I’m not saying “spam” it. Just, it’s like we all have an obvious musical tool, and they use it, and we always forget.

Why?

Well beyond simple “this is how I’ve always done it” inertia, I can think of 3 reasons. 3 reasons we’ll try to “de-claw” in this video:

• They seem faster, which is “scury”.

• They have a base of 3 or 6 instead of 2/4/8, so we worry our existing ideas won’t work.

• We worry we’ll get lost with the counting.

Beyond this, there’s also one “secret” reason people don’t think about, but which I think is actually the biggest issue. But you have to watch the video to hear about it. Woooooo.

But in all seriousness, let’s normalize the musical use of subdivision. We wouldn’t talk in monotone, at the same speed always. So why not make our playing more fluid, so we can make better music?

Hope you enjoy!

Is The Metronome Hurting Your Drumming?

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Is the metronome hurting your time?

Like many things, I think there’s an “adult” and a “pre-school” version of this discussion.

I don’t spend much time entertaining the suggestion, for instance, that a metronome “kills your natural, human feel”. The reality, in my opinion, is that our inherited time perception instincts are badly calibrated to produce danceability, filled with distortions as they are.

We rush offbeats, hemiolas, double time, and most syncopation, while we drag downbeats or sparse rhythms.

What’s more, the “natural” rhythms many cite as examples of our “innate human timekeeping” - take folkloric drumming, for example - result less from anything innate and more from decades of training, beginning in early childhood.

The “natural”/”innate” timekeeping we’re born with mostly results in boring, weighty, unreliable, at-times-frantic playing. Not very danceable.

So we use the metronome to train our perceptions so our groove listening back to our own recordings matches our perceptions in the moment/as we play. (And play along with recordings to capture that “loose”/”human” feel I argue is the result of years of training and refinement.)

But there’s an “adult” version of the argument. Can the metronome be a crutch?

Absolutely.

At first, simply because we use it on quarters for too long, and only learn to “follow”, but not to “lead”. (Plus it becomes easier to ignore.) That’s the reason for unorthodox placements like 16th offbeats and beat “4”.

But eventually, because we can become used to having it accompany us in any capacity.

So - advanced players only, use with a grain of salt. But yes - sometimes it is important to turn the metronome off and rekindle your trust of your own timekeeping. It’s something I’ve been doing increasingly lately.

For the whole in-depth argument, you’ll want to watch the video.

Hope you enjoy!

If You Don't Know This Rhythm You Won't Understand Modern Drumming

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Watch enough music and you start to notice patterns.

And the pattern that inspired today’s video was hard to ignore.

There’s this…rhythm…that underpins so much of modern drumming, and modern music. It satisfies my two major conditions to be considered “a thing”:

• 30 years ago and further back, you hardly heard it

• It’s near-ubiquitous today

Just a few examples:

What About Me, by Snarky Puppy

The Grid, by Tigran

A bunch of the prog rock catalogue, including Periphery

And I’m sure once you know what I’m talking about, that you’ll think of tons more.

It’s this syncopated, serpentine rhythm that’s hard to pin down. It feels like it should be “hemiola”, or cycling groups of 3 over the barline, but it’s not.

The answer?

5.

Not quintuplets, necessarily. Just groups of 5 notes against a quarter note.

If you’re in 5/4, than your rhythm will cycle neatly. If you’re in other meters, we need some simple math.

But that’s what you’re hearing.

Two of my favorite examples are What About Me - the chorus and subsequent drum solo section - and a VF Jams ear-worm with Devon Taylor. (Both featured in the video.)

But there’s also Tigran’s The Grid, and Dracul Gras by Periphery.

In this video, we’ll delve into 3 facets:

• Why is this suddenly everywhere (my hypothesis is musicians get bored with stuff)

• How do we play it in the simplest terms

• How do we use it practically over normal meters (and what are those song examples doing)

Once you get this pattern in your ear, modern music and modern drumming will make a lot more sense, and you might even hear some of these ideas in your own playing!

Hope you enjoy!

Self Taught Drummer? You Should Watch This

Today's video starts with a counterintuitive truth - not every drummer needs drum lessons.

And not every drummer who might benefit from lessons needs them at every point in their development.

This may surprise you coming from a "drum coach", but the truth is I see two periods when some drummers can really benefit from having an expert check out their playing and save them "trial-and-error" steps...

...and in many other periods, they might be better off saving their money, or joining a membership site for courses, but working them on their own.

The specific periods in which I would recommend lessons to most drummers are...

...close to the beginning, when an expert can help show you the shortest path to basic proficiency and save you ending up in "local optimums" - I.e. with habits you have to unlearn in able to progress...

...and in the upper-intermediate stage, when most of the "easy wins" are out of the way so you need more specific mentorship, but you're not so advanced you can see clearly where to go and most of the time playing feels easy to you.

But what about drummers who are good candidates for being "career-long"'self-taught?

For that, if you're tremendously disciplined and organized, but also gentle with yourself and able to detach emotionally from the hard parts and see them just as "part of the process", you might be a good candidate.

We hear from some past podcast guests who embodied some of the qualities I'd consider important.

And finally, I end the lesson with some advice to drummers who choose to "go it alone".

Who should try to succeed as a self-taught drummer? And when? And if you are, what's the best way to do it?

We'll discuss all of that in today's video. Hope you enjoy!