I’ve got something of a mantra: BOREDOM IS A MYTH. This doesn’t necessarily mean that people can’t be bored… Rather that they shouldn’t be. This also doesn’t mean that there’s no value in downtime, just relaxing, idle chat with friends, or an aimless wander through nature. No, I’m aimed at the… Read More »The Death of Boredom
We live in some weird times. Smartphones, YouTube, the upheaval of the music industry, vitriol-spewing trolls, more information than we can possibly digest, bombarding us from every angle, every minute of the day… This is life on the internet. These relatively new (and harsh) realities are having an effect on… Read More »A Guide to Being A Drummer on The Internet
Habits are hard as hell to break… Especially when you’ve been reinforcing them year after year, gig after gig, to the point they’re no longer just habits – they are parts of your personality. As drummers, this isn’t an entirely bad thing. Our go-to grooves, the way we tune our… Read More »So, You’re an Old Dog Drummer… Want Some New Tricks?
Over the last three entries on this here blog, I’ve been trying to cover my current (loose) approach to learning and developing my skillset on the drums. I’m calling it “The Twofold Path” because there are, well, two primary elements – exactly what I looked in Parts 2 and 3 – “chops” and “groove.”
Surely there are plenty of other things to consider in this vast world of percussive music making, but for me… Right now… This is where my head’s at.
In Part 2, the focus was chops and technical facility on the kit, and that should be a pretty major part of everyone’s practice. Really, this side of the coin can be expanded into anything technically oriented – speed, independence, pattern memorization, technique…
The other side (covered in Part 3) can be expanded into everything musical and practical – including things that require the ability and facility mentioned above.
Where one side is physical, the other is mostly mental.
OKAY – we’ve made it this far into a murky topic… A daunting subject to tackle, but I’ll do my best to keep things on track. This is where we really have to start slogging through the weeds though, because there’s some terminology we might not all agree on, some… Read More »The Twofold Path – Part 3: The Groove
In Part 1, I laid out a little bit of my background thought process on this journey of “learn to shred, then don’t.” The first part of that ideology, then, is the shreddery – that is, chops, technical facility, speed, complex sticking, and so on. For me, this is an… Read More »The Twofold Path – Part 2: Building Chops
Big, sweeping platitudes only carry so much weight… But in the moments when we can put complex ideas into a concise little nugget of wisdom, it’s at least worth hanging onto as an easy reminder. My first introduction to what I want to unpack in this series comes from an… Read More »The Twofold Path – Part 1: Introduction
Making music is a joy in itself. Playing and creating is its own reward. Self expression is essential. All that is certainly true… but only part of the equation. If ALL the “value” came just from playing, why we would we bother to perform? Sure, you can make a little dough. You… Read More »It’s About People
Welp, I haven’t written anything here in a while… And I’m not exactly sure why. The ideas come rolling through my head from time to time, but for some reason, it’s been tough to actually sit down and type them out – so, why not make a post about not… Read More »Time, Habit, and Self-Imposed Guilt
As I become more and more drum-obsessed, I find myself turning to all kinds of outlets for information. I’ve never really been one for talk radio or podcasts, but as I began to look for drum and music-related information to occupy my ears (usually while my hands are doing some… Read More »4 Drumming Podcasts to Keep Your Head in The Game