Truth

I'm sure that when Buudy was with bands, those bands would "practice" different parts of song, or the entire set or show, at some point. To me this is practice. He may not sit in the basement and work on chops or rudiments, but practice he did. His one interview where he discovered where he got his band members was great but even those guys/gals didn't just show up the first night and play the show. Maybe semantics, but he did practice.
 
Bo you talk just the right amount. Plus what you have to say is useful to a lot of people. You are a pillar here, and even if the topic doesn't interest me, you help to get me interested by reading your take on it.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
 
larryace said:
Bo you talk just the right amount. Plus what you have to say is useful to a lot of people. You are a pillar here, and even if the topic doesn't interest me, you help to get me interested by reading your take on it.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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You're probably right. But this whole internet connectivity has me a bit flummoxed. I used to find time to physically do things, now I'm playing on the phone, I go to work and play on my computer. I feel like a drug addict. I need to balance out and do what's right. It's been a while since I spent 2+ hours at the kit just playing. It's always these 30-minutes or less daily spurts.

So what Buddy says is truth for me. I'm also pointing it at my online presence - I gotta change this.
 
OK I think I see where you're coming from....you feel you talk too much instead of practicing? Nothing wrong there. Guilty as charged too! But if I'm not practicing, I'm doing something else that's important to me too. Yea, even drummerworld. So it's all good.

In this world of struggle, damn straight I try and wring as much positive-ness from the drums as I can. I refuse to feel bad for not practicing if I feel like doing something else instead. Right now I stripped and painted my Tele, and am installing Joe Barden pickups and bridge plate. I'm almost done spray can painting it and am totally happy with the color it is now. I just got me a bitchin new to me totally mint condition Custom Shop Vibro King Fender amp with the classic wildly adjustable 3 knob reverb and creamy warm tremolo. All tube of course. I haven't played my guitars seriously in years. It's good to do something else music besides drums. Life's good.

But yea, gear-wise, I'm good. It free's me up to concentrate on the other, more important things.
 
Dang Larry that's inspiring. I use to play alto sax-was pretty good. Gave my sax to a nephew who had an interest-he returned it years later. I remember opening up the case and putting it together and though I couldn't cognitively remember squat my fingers remembered the scale- that I played perfectly and astonished myself like WTH??. That brother moved in my Mom's house after she passed and I'm hoping my sax is up in her attic. I may not have the "wind" for it anymore though. I like to do other stuff too-like outdoor side projects-I always have a fall and spring garden, upkeep my fence and deck, I live on a slope to a pond so I like using stacking stones to terrace it and make a natural garden path-been working on it for years. It will be my lil Garden of Eden eventually if the deer don't eat it all.
 
Now that you mention it, it seems familiar.
I haven't seen the movie for quite a while.

Knowledge is good unless you forget it - ha ha.
.
 
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toddbishop said:
Wow, who would have thought that was a controversial statement. Here's the context, it's from a MD interview in 1977:
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But that quote is, to be polite, nonsense. You can't play with a band until you practice the basics. So practice must have a purpose. And if you just play with a band and never work on your technique, you'll stagnate.

Surely the real 'truth' is that you need to practice _and_ play. But like all reasonable positions that's boring and it won't get a million replies or a nice argument started :p
 
There could be an exception. In some cases you get better by stopping playing. For example, many years ago before most of you were born, I was in louder and louder bands and my technique and my grip and my dynamics were all ruined. Only by stopping, waiting for a while, and then starting fresh, could I get better.

It's still true though. He didn't say never stop.
 
AllTheCoolNamesAreTaken said:
But that quote is, to be polite, nonsense. You can't play with a band until you practice the basics. So practice must have a purpose. And if you just play with a band and never work on your technique, you'll stagnate.

Surely the real 'truth' is that you need to practice _and_ play. But like all reasonable positions that's boring and it won't get a million replies or a nice argument started :p
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Who cares? Usually when somebody great tells me something about playing, I try to figure out what they're trying to tell me. I don't say "Screw you, jerk, the way you worded that, it's not literally 100% true in all circumstances!" That would be kind of juvenile, and I wouldn't learn anything.
 
AllTheCoolNamesAreTaken said:
But that quote is, to be polite, nonsense. You can't play with a band until you practice the basics. So practice must have a purpose. And if you just play with a band and never work on your technique, you'll stagnate.

Surely the real 'truth' is that you need to practice _and_ play. But like all reasonable positions that's boring and it won't get a million replies or a nice argument started :p
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And I suppose you've already put in the necessary time and achieved the world renown status of the one being quoted?

I'm not against the idea of having your own opinions and being a free-thinker. However, in the entertainment industry, I've learned to keep my mouth shut and learn something from those who've managed to create a career in it for mostly all of their lives.

Even for myself, with a career outside of drumming as I approach my twilight years, my word means even less to the people who are still on the full-time drumming path, regardless of what I've already done.
 
Matt Bo Eder said:
And I suppose you've already put in the necessary time and achieved the world renown status of the one being quoted?
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So if I find a world-renowned person who believes practice is necessary, would you change your mind? Or be frozen in indecision, perhaps counting how many albums each of them sold so you could be sure which to believe?

For example:
Vinnie Colaiuta said:
I couldn’t get enough of it. I was real interested in music notation and rudiments and technique whereas a lot of guys didn’t dig that stuff. I learned real fast because I was always practicing. I would go into English class and sit in the back of the room with a Remo practice pad and practice double-stroke rolls and get kicked out of class.
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Lots of famous drummers talk about how important it is to practice. Some don't. Lots of famous drummers talk about how important it is to use a metronome. Some don't. Figure out what works for you and do that.

I'm no great revelation as a drummer but spending my first three years doing snare and pad practicing, hunched over "Stick Control" at 2am and working on pillows with a metronome in my ear, that worked for me. Playing with a band later helped in different ways. Both were and are still necessary.

Matt Bo Eder said:
I'm not against the idea of having your own opinions and being a free-thinker. However, in the entertainment industry, I've learned to keep my mouth shut and learn something from those who've managed to create a career in it for mostly all of their lives.

Even for myself, with a career outside of drumming as I approach my twilight years, my word means even less to the people who are still on the full-time drumming path, regardless of what I've already done.
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Well, I'm not in the entertainment industry, and Buddy Rich has been dead for decades, so neither of those condtions apply :p

I always find it interesting when someone chooses to react angrily when I post something like "Maybe both sides of this argument have a point", and not to something like "Oh that's just dumb Facebook philosophy". I guess I just attract argument.
 
I can tell you that reading about drumming, arguing on online forums and generally anything that is not actually drumming certainly doesn't make one a better player:

Regarding Buddy: I studied with Joe Morello as a teenager and he told me that Buddy practiced as a youth but used to say that he "never practiced". Joe used to say: "You don't come out of the womb with this stuff".

He also said that Buddy was a spectacular talent, whose raw natural ability was impressive from the outset.

The superhuman athletes and musicians tend to not be the best coaches because everything comes so easily to them. They don't realize it's not that way for most.
 
AllTheCoolNamesAreTaken said:
So if I find a world-renowned person who believes practice is necessary, would you change your mind? Or be frozen in indecision, perhaps counting how many albums each of them sold so you could be sure which to believe?

For example:


Lots of famous drummers talk about how important it is to practice. Some don't. Lots of famous drummers talk about how important it is to use a metronome. Some don't. Figure out what works for you and do that.

I'm no great revelation as a drummer but spending my first three years doing snare and pad practicing, hunched over "Stick Control" at 2am and working on pillows with a metronome in my ear, that worked for me. Playing with a band later helped in different ways. Both were and are still necessary.



Well, I'm not in the entertainment industry, and Buddy Rich has been dead for decades, so neither of those condtions apply :p

I always find it interesting when someone chooses to react angrily when I post something like "Maybe both sides of this argument have a point", and not to something like "Oh that's just dumb Facebook philosophy". I guess I just attract argument.
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I did not use the word dumb. Please don't misquote me. I used the word typical. And it was used tongue in cheek to make a point in how much faith people put in one quote especially on a site like Facebook. Misquoting people is sure to attract argument. Thank you.
 
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I thought you "played" the drums and then "practiced" music you play. He didn't just wing it every time he would play drums. Now in learning to "play" the drums you can "practice" rudiments-but apparently you don't have to. I note many of these threads go off on the strangest tangents. I bet Buddy, with his huge ego, would be real pleased we are still talking about him-then smirk what a bunch of putzes.
 
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