Desert Island drumset technique?

[murphinelli]

Okay, this is a thought experiment....Basically, I'm combining thoughts from the "crossing arms" thread and the "traditional vs. matched grip" thread...and devising a thought experiment. Hopefully instructional...

We know that there is history in crossing arms and how this came about. I won't go into details, read the crossing arms thread. We also know there is history in using certain grips....We also know there is history in the way drummers set up drums, cymbals, etc. Most of these things have evolved into something different from the original, but there are elements/techniques still around from the earliest stages...Nowadays, we have much more modern equipment and approaches that have changed a lot of how drummers set up and play.

Desert Island Thought Experiment

Envision a desert island with a small colony of humans living on it. These are humans with average intelligence. How they got there is unknown. They have no real contact with the outside world except for a radio. On this radio they hear all kinds of music. They've never seen the musicians. They've never seen pictures of musicians playing. They have no knowledge of what techniques musicians use to make their music nor how they set up their instruments to play.

We deliver a modern (2006) drumset to this island. It contains your basic 5 piece drumset (snare, 2toms, floor tom, bass drum with pedal). Ride cymbal, 2 crash cymbals, and a hi-hat with a remote pedal, and all HW, plus sticks. The only instructions you give them is how to mount the cymbals and drums and put the hi-hat together. Nothing about where to put them and what limb plays what. Nothing about technique.

You give them a challenge. They are to learn how to play this drumset along with the radio (jazz and rock songs). They have 5 years to accomplish this task. They must be able to play a basic jazz song and a basic rock song.

Questions:
1. How do you think they will set up this drumset?
2. What type of grip do you think they will play with?
3. Can they actually accomplish this task?
4. Others?

[samthebeat]

interesting.

I imagine they would play open handed, with a macthed grip, since this what an un nurtured child does (all my little cousins have done this when they vistit and play my drumset) and most of my mates if they ever have for that matter.

Im expect they would eventually figure the how to set it up so they could play what they were hearing on the radio, they my set up left handed for instance, even though they were right handed, though they would probably go through some changes throughout the period. Much like any other player does. It is natural for people to epertiment.

I think that they could complete the task over that time period, proviided they were'nt a bunch of musical spanners. One must have some sort of affinity for a drumset in those conditions, and if no one had that then i dont think they could manage it.

[wybasher]

The only instructions you give them is how to mount the cymbals and drums and put the hi-hat together.

If you take away the constraint on mounting the toms... you might get some interesting answers. Possibly put the snare on the floor and mount the kick pedal to it; and hang bass drum from a palm tree and play it with the hands/sticks. Or play drums vertically (like marching bands). Or hit turn the snare upside down and play on the resonant side with the snares facing up.

I think it's also highly dependent on the particular music that they hear and trying to duplicate. If they hear basic rhythms, then many different configurations will be "optimal". But if they hear a "quick roundhouse fill" then having one tom above your head and the other one behind your back won't work for that. That's the case if it's a short experiment and narrowly focused on recreating a slice representation of music.

But if they hear 50,000 songs across all genres and rhythm sytles, and have to create ONE geometric configuration that works for everything, I suspect they'd stumble onto the configuration we're using today... with matched grip.

[Shinx]

I think they'd all pick their own drum to play. Why do we even play all these drums anyway? I've seen guys playing with just a bass drum, a snare, and a ride playing amazing stuff. Hell, I've seen guys with a single plastic bucket play stuff that got everyone going. Imagine how it would sound if you split up your set and a different person played each instrument. Once everyone learned to play with each other, they could get a great sound going.

Drummers are selfish, they want all the drums to themselves :)

[murphinelli]

Shinx,

Now that is thinking out of the box & probably a very possible outcome. Everybody plays something different....However, coordinating fills across toms would be difficult especially if everyone is playing a different drum....

Kind of like watching the kids play the bells in church...Very difficult to get the timing right...But practice makes perfect....Or should I say perfect practice makes perfect?...

My original intent was to have one person play this set. I should have said that in the hypothetical....But let's leave it as is and keep this possibility open.

-Murph

[Shinx]

Heh, I figured as much, but its just what came to mind. Like you said it may be hard to coordinate tom fills and certain beats, but thats what playing together is for. Everyone (especially me) needs to learn how to play well with other people, giving the other musicians room to breath and play what needs to played.

[Auger]

I think they'd all pick their own drum to play. Why do we even play all these drums anyway?

I'm guessing the one word answer to this one is improvisation.

A drumline can play a far more complex beat than any single drummer could, but, while it would probably be interesting to watch a drumline in an improvisational situation, in my opinion the drumset player's at a decided advantage in terms of being able to make all the drums act as a cohesive single voice while improvising.

[Illicom]

Open handed playing is an almost 100% guarantee. Anyone who doesn't know drums (myself included) will naturally want to start out open-handed. If no one tells them otherwise, I'm sure they'd stick with it.

The music type comment is a good one, as is the point about using the drums "correctly"--that is, playing the bass with the pedal and so forth.

In all, I think they could do it, with 5 years of time and assuming they actually wanted to do it and put the necessary effort in. Their technique might not be the best, but on the other hand, it could be incredible. The result would certainly be interesting.

This almost exists in real life--think about tribal/religious drummers in other cultures. Some of that drumming sounds great, and I'm sure a lot of that came with experimentation. All of drumming is like that, really. There was no stone tablet found in a cave that contained the guide to drumming. Everything we know today was figured out by someone. So like the old saying about 1000 monkeys with typewriters, I think that the people on that island could become very good at drums, just by experimentation.

[Shinx]

Another thing I just thought of, after 5 years with no guidance, who knows what they would do. Any number of things could end up happening

[murphinelli]

Another thing I just thought of, after 5 years with no guidance, who knows what they would do. Any number of things could end up happening

True enough. The only guide they have is the radio and their ears....The rest is up to them...I think they could figure out which drums/cymbals are required to make each sound they hear on the radio. The hard part, without guidance, is the coordination thing.

Anyways, I think we can agree on the following:
1. They'd be using matched grip.
2. They wouldn't be crossing over their hands.

They have no history, tradition, or reason to do otherwise. Traditional grip is traditional. It came out of necessity from marching drums. The way a marching drum hangs over the shoulder and is tilted...required a variation of the grip...traditional grip. Try playing a titled marching drum with matched grip! (Aside: most modern drum corps don't tilt their drums anymore, but still play traditional grip...why?...to uphold the tradition, not because it is a better grip for playing marching music)... The traditional grip was transitioned to set drumming. Remember the earliest New Orleans Jazz music was a marching band derivation. The first set players played marching drums first. So, they kept the same grip they already knew and used it on the set. Not because it was better for the set or better for jazz. They tilted the snare drum just like the marching drum was tilted...They never thought of changing their grip to matched and leveling the snare.

Same goes for crossing hands...this came out of the inadequate equipment of the day and made it easier to play at the time. There was no such thing as a remote hi-hat cable...

So, if you were to start from scratch today without any tradition or history and using modern equipment, you'd be using matched grip and open handed playing.

[bonzo49]

This is intresting, Its hard as drum kits have developed since, the caveman first hit a trunk with a stick, so to place a modern item in what i presume to be a premitive society. I think you could pick things up over 5 years also you never know there way may be better. They may also find ways of making different sounds.

Alternitively they would break a stick or head the first day say, 'ug' then go back to picking flies of each other.

[syaoran05]

given that instructions were given on how to mount the drums, i think the setup would be this way:

all cymbals to the right.
snare at the center, like how we do it.
floortom to the left of the snare
bass at the left, hi hat pedal to the right
low tom at the left side of the bass drum, the high tom at the right side.

i thought, since tuned indigenous percussion have the highest note to the right and the lowest to the left, the toms would be placed that way.

they will also figure out that the snare is the most frequently played drum so they will place it at the center and use their left hand because the cymbal work will occupy the right hand.

[fat in the middle]

This is interesting,,i can't help thinking about the film; The gods must be crazy", where a coke bottle was tossed out of a plane , and landed on a tribe in africa,,and how that changed the dynamics of the social life.
I would feel that the drumset in question would give a development to the access of new 'tools', rims etc,traps for hunting.,,,stands,,the focus would change.,,but that does nothing for your experiment. This is what could happen given the parameters of the thread here;
I think they would play matched, yes,, i think they would figure it out fairly soon, with lots of town meetings revolving the ergonmics of the new instrument,,if a coke bottle can change a society, imagine a drumkit!! how many drum keys do they get??
interesting........