Are we being dumbed down?

trkdrmr said:
People tend to get "lazied" down. That is, not practice eclectic styles or practice effectively. The general attitude seems to be wanting instant results. Drumming gets dumbed down enough from the outside. Non drummers have no clue how much work it takes to be a great drummer, vs a simple time keeper flailing on bronze and mylar.
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You read my mind trick, non-musicians/musically inclined people really have no idea what it takes not just to be a good drummer but how much effort, talent, and TIME it takes to make music of any kind...its just not within their realm of understanding. Just like how I can never comprehend how people can work IT jobs for 8 hours a day sitting down the whole time maintaining networks, i could never allow myself to be in that position. Its not that I dont respect their abilities, its just that my head would probably explode trying to comprehend all of that technical crap they need to do their job... the same thing that happens when someone with no musical background watches Jojo myer or Terry Bozzio or any of the elite drummers out there.

In no way is drumming dumbed down by all the information out there about it, if anything the bar is being raised even higher than ever before, and new technology (AXIS pedals, electronics, etc) has and will open up many new possibilities for everyone. The playing field is so much more level than it was 5 or 10 years ago...
 
Most of the great drummers had a lot of opportunities available to them that the average joe stickpack doesn't today. First of all, the scene was very different back then. A lot of underage kids could sneak into bars and see what was going on. The great drummers were all located in a few central locations (most notably NYC), and if you wanted to play jazz, you went to one of those places. Jam sessions went all night, and people were encouraged to get up and play. Also, according to Miles' autobiography, it was pretty common for an older musician to take a younger guy under his wings, and sit and chat with him about music, show him stuff, and get him up on stage.

Now you don't have that. But, instead of all of that, you have books, DVDs, clinics, and private instructors. You can't go to 42nd Street and wander the clubs and in one night see Art Blakey, Buddy Rich, and Philly Joe Jones, then go and sit in with Bud Powell for a few songs, all within walking distance of each other.

On one hand, it took a lot more work back then to get into that scene than it does to buy a DVD. On the other hand, a lot of those guys, once they got into the scene, were basically carried along, and didn't have to keep pushing themselves. They all pushed each other. But because of that, you also have to see that it takes a lot more self-motivation and dedication to sit and work through a book or DVD by yourself, with no one really pushing you.

I don't think it's easier, or harder. I just think it's different.
 
I'd say that the core of this discussion is that there is really no substitute for listening and playing. Alot. But, I believe there's always room to improve your drum vocabulary, regardless of how that knowledge comes to you; teacher, book, DVD or good ol' playalong. Your own voice will only develop with repitition and internalization of any and all styles. A lifetime of experience can't be learned from a book, but it don't hurt to hear what that lifetime has to offer you. Great thread for finding your own musical voice!
 
John Riley here:

This is a very interesting, but somewhat perplexing, discussion.

If you even knew that the drum set existed before there were recordings, not to mention books, DVDs and the internet, the only way to learn how to play the drum set was: you had to see someone doing it in person. Unless you happened lived along the Mississippi, and could hear Baby Dodds on a riverboat, your odds were pretty long.

Of course, having access to information is helpful and we have more access than ever before; I am grateful for it. The result is that people everywhere are able to get good information, from reliable sources, so it's easier for more people to achieve a high level of competency then it was in the past.

Achieving a high level of competency is different from making a musical statement or finding your own voice. Living life, understanding music as a whole - not just being dexterous on the kit - and getting a lot of guidance from and experience playing with people more advanced than you are the critical components that lead to wise musical decisions once the basic skills are solid.

Recordings, books and DVDs offer us all kinds of information so that the process of acquiring skills and wisdom isn't so mysterious. Still one must have a clear direction in mind and prioritize so that they make the best use of their practice time. Getting good, on any instrument, is a long, lonely, solitary act. Becoming a musician is done with a group on the bandstand.

It is a flawed, romantic, notion to think that all the old timers were artists; we know who the few artists were - memory of all the clones and simply good players has faded. It's also a flawed notion to think that there are no artists today, I would guess that the proportions are about the same as they've always been. The difference today is that we get distracted because of our access to so many players that are truely exceptional, really mind blowing, in one dimension of playing but not complete musicians. I imagine memory will forget them just like it always has.

Are we being dumbed down by access to too much material? There are more virtuoso drummers today than ever. I wish the materials available today had been available when I was a kid - my understanding and growth would have been faster. Access to information can't be a bad thing. Perhaps it appears that we are being dumbed down simply because, for too many drummers, becoming a virtuoso has become the goal. The goal should be to become an exceptional musician who happens to express their musicality from behind a drum kit. One should focus on identifying the music they love. Then search out every source: listen to, read books by, watch DVDs and go see live the masters of that idiom - not just the drummers, but all the instrumentalists - to understand what the music calls for and to learn what to practice and how it should sound. Then get as much experience playing as possible. If you have the tools, the mindset and the inspiration, you will find your own voice - just like in the riverboat days.
 
Thank you for coming in & putting it all in perspective, John.

Virtuosity so often becomes the be all end all with so many of us & it is here that we perhaps need more hand holding, course correction and a recallibration of musical goals.

Coming from you who 'wrote the book of knowledge' so to speak, and a drummer who commands universal respect & admiration as a player, this should be a must-read post for every drummer.

Thanks again.
 
John Riley said:
John Riley here:

Achieving a high level of competency is different from making a musical statement or finding your own voice. Living life, understanding music as a whole - not just being dexterous on the kit - and getting a lot of guidance from and experience playing with people more advanced than you are the critical components that lead to wise musical decisions once the basic skills are solid.
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I spent YEARS working on technical competency while practically ignoring the entire reason why I started playing a musical instrument. It took the birth of my daughter to snap me out of my technical obsession. I finally realized that, if a musician is supposed to express his feelings via his instrument it sure helps to have some feelings to express.

Thank you, Mr. Riley, for putting this in historical and practical perspective.
 
Thanks John for your insight and putting it all in perspective.

Not only do we have all these wonderful books, of which John's are some of the best. We have the internet, and Drummerworld, where we can access this stuff, and interact with some of the finest players and teachers out there.

I think for a lot of drummers, drumming as a vocation was not a reality because we really didn't know where to go to get the goods. There were so few schools where you could study drum set. And they were very expensive. It's on one level frustrating to know that all this material was out there if you knew where to find it; while it's liberating to be able to access this information on such a mass level, and discuss it with other drummers. The future of drumming is so exciting. :)
 
I am currently working with a highly schooled guitar player. Everything that he plays is perfectly correct. When I listen to the recordings, There is no feeling. The others in the band feel the same way. We are encouraging him to be a bit looser when he plays. There has to be a balance between technique and feeling.
 
Quote, "...If you have the tools, the mindset and the inspiration, you will find your own voice - just like in the riverboat days."

This is exactly the problem I see with som amny posts about, "how does Joey get that sanre sound, or how does xxx get that bass drum sound" It seems to me that the younger guys just want to copy whats out there rather than work on their own sound.
In the context of the thread , that is dumb. Today it is so easy to type Google get an answer and move on rather than do the research and learn something. Again that is dumb.
 
Coming from an old (47 year old) drummer...

Waaayyyyy back in the '70's, the thing to do for a beginning student was to enroll in beginning band in school, get a teacher or find a mentor - usually an older kid, and buy some books on snare drumming, and practice, practice, practice. Rolls, rudiments, flams, paradiddles, etc. Three things were taught: reading music and note values, listening and playing by ear, and how to tune a drum properly. Then came the drum set lessons. Usually Jazz. The private instructors taught some basic rock, but it was usually jazz or jazz fusion. "The Drummer's Cookbook" was very popular, as was "Haskell Harr's Drum Method for Band and Orchestra" for snare drumming.

Keep in mind this was the early to late 1970's - no lessons via internet (as we know it now), DVDs, VCRs, etc.

I was told to find some LPs by Buddy Rich, Sandy Nelson, or any of the jazz greats and listen and play along. That would develop the listening skills.

Old school? Sure, but it worked!
 
FunkyJazzer said:
Ok, maybe the title of my post is a bit harsh, and it's not an accurate or fair way to describe my thoughts - but I couldn't think of anything else...

Is there too much information just handed to us drummers on a plate? When I read all the stories and interviews of all the greats (Tony, Elvin, Philly Joe), all I hear about is them putting on records of music they love, and assimilating their favourite drummers. Building technique with just Stick Control, Rudiments and Syncopation (Alan Dawson), and using a bloody good ear.

I get worried with so much great material about in book form, that people (including myself) are finding it all too easy to just pick up Art Of Bop Drumming and work through the comping in that, rather than do what all the greats did, just use their ears. I'm not having a dig at the authors of these books, I love them! The books are incredible. But every time I pick up a book (one of many!) I just think to myself deep down...This is too easy. This can't be right. Just reading through this book, repeating the patterns, manipulating them, trying to internalise what's already been given to me. John Riley's done all the hard work.
It just doesn't seem as...noble...if that's the right word? I can't help thinking that maybe there's a direct correlation with the amount of books and info that's handed to us today, and the fact that there will never be another golden era.

I'm not talking about a solution that would be "don't forget to do your daily hour of transcribing". I'm talking about what all the greats did - 8 hours a day of solid listening and internalising by ear, probably without slowing things down too.

I'm sorry if I've caused a stir, I'm not annoyed with all the books! I love them, especially John Riley's books, Stick Control, Master Studies, Syncopation, The Weaker Side, Mike Clark, Afro-Cuban Rhythms For Drumset, Groove Essentials, The New Breed, Wilcoxon. Books that break down your vocabulary and build it back up from the very core. I just often wonder what will help me develop my own tasteful voice more efficiently. A lifetime worth of study for 10.99? It seems fishy. And I know it's easy to say do both. But you get like 8 lifetimes worth of studying in 8 different books and it's not easy to turn your back on that.

I hope I haven't made a fool of myself.
Love you all! :D

Lloyd.
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Interesting but I think I must disagree. The most effective way to improve is to study and practice combined with live experience. No matter how much material exists, simply reading it will not help one become a better drummer. There's no shortcut.

Personally I like having as many books as I can get. I spend lots of money on buying books and keeping up to date. Usually I will expose students to various, say 3 to 5 pages of a particular book and if the method and information suits a student they can then buy and work from that book. This saves me having to write everything down. ;-) That way regular rock beats and funk grooves, jazz exercises are already there and I can then write more individualised parts.

I love all the books and wish there were more. Especially devoted to ethnic percussion. For ex' I really want to learn Italian tambourine. Haven't found a book yet.
 
John Riley said:
John Riley here:

This is a very interesting, but somewhat perplexing, discussion.

If you even knew that the drum set existed before there were recordings, not to mention books, DVDs and the internet, the only way to learn how to play the drum set was: you had to see someone doing it in person. Unless you happened lived along the Mississippi, and could hear Baby Dodds on a riverboat, your odds were pretty long.

Of course, having access to information is helpful and we have more access than ever before; I am grateful for it. The result is that people everywhere are able to get good information, from reliable sources, so it's easier for more people to achieve a high level of competency then it was in the past.

Achieving a high level of competency is different from making a musical statement or finding your own voice. Living life, understanding music as a whole - not just being dexterous on the kit - and getting a lot of guidance from and experience playing with people more advanced than you are the critical components that lead to wise musical decisions once the basic skills are solid.

Recordings, books and DVDs offer us all kinds of information so that the process of acquiring skills and wisdom isn't so mysterious. Still one must have a clear direction in mind and prioritize so that they make the best use of their practice time. Getting good, on any instrument, is a long, lonely, solitary act. Becoming a musician is done with a group on the bandstand.

It is a flawed, romantic, notion to think that all the old timers were artists; we know who the few artists were - memory of all the clones and simply good players has faded. It's also a flawed notion to think that there are no artists today, I would guess that the proportions are about the same as they've always been. The difference today is that we get distracted because of our access to so many players that are truely exceptional, really mind blowing, in one dimension of playing but not complete musicians. I imagine memory will forget them just like it always has.

Are we being dumbed down by access to too much material? There are more virtuoso drummers today than ever. I wish the materials available today had been available when I was a kid - my understanding and growth would have been faster. Access to information can't be a bad thing. Perhaps it appears that we are being dumbed down simply because, for too many drummers, becoming a virtuoso has become the goal. The goal should be to become an exceptional musician who happens to express their musicality from behind a drum kit. One should focus on identifying the music they love. Then search out every source: listen to, read books by, watch DVDs and go see live the masters of that idiom - not just the drummers, but all the instrumentalists - to understand what the music calls for and to learn what to practice and how it should sound. Then get as much experience playing as possible. If you have the tools, the mindset and the inspiration, you will find your own voice - just like in the riverboat days.
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This is an old(er) thread, but the wisdom John share's in this post is timeless...
 
I would rather have the advantage of learning more sooner, and being great at 25. The amount of information available is a luxury, but not the "lazy" kind. It's the productive kind. It's a type of force multiplier. I don't think it replaces or negates hard work. It facilitates working smarter. And we should still listen and absorb just as has always been done. Without that, you're drumming would likely sound sterile to some degree.
 
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I wrote a blog post about this awhile back, specifically about Art of Bop Drumming-- like, was it giving up too much.

I think it's one thing to have the information available, and something else to be able to recognize what's valuable-- and actually use it, and use it as intended. That relies on a long term commitment to music. Without that, it gets twisted around, and people focus on the wrong things, and take them weird places, and it doesn't actually help their musicianship. See 90+% of what's on youtube.

It is better to have the information out there. You shouldn't have to just get lucky that you have the exact right collection of abilities and traits to figure everything out on your own, and be around the right people on the right day to get the information you need to be able to play.
 
I think having the info is great. It’s always good to have tools to help you work on your craft (in all fields). I just think it must be balanced with actually playing with other musicians too. The greats are the greats because they were all out playing with other greats. Nothing teaches you quicker than the sneers from other musicians on the bandstand, or actually getting fired where you’re forced to discover what it was that nobody liked. It’s not just regurgitating what you practiced eight hours a day in (insert favorite book here). You need to know how to humanly react to what’s going on. What you know gets you in the door, but how you react to who you’re playing with determines if you get to stay, no?
 
Work exclusively on technique and books, you'll sound like you work exclusively on technique and books.

Round out your studies to be about actual music instead of only exercises and playing from book work, you'll sound like you're playing music.

That includes tons of listening in many genres, it includes study of other's work and playing along with them where you can. Overall it includes remembering to make your studies about what makes your music work, and not worrying so much about how fast you can play 16ths in doubles as a number.

I know way too many guys who can whip up a storm of perfect rudiments and have flashy fills that would fill books on their own, but they have a hard time getting gigs because they neglected to study the end goal. Like memorizing the alphabet and dictionary full of words but forgetting to ever focus on sentence structure and how to write in a logical way.
 
It's a generalisation and as most of those I think it's just a description of a personal journey.

Now, my story is a bit different. I did work on mainly technique and conditioning for the longest time mainly because health isssue prevented me from practicing more holistically. This means I did that mistake, but I also was aware that was what I was doing. I was also in the middle of nowhere with no one to play music with. I just hoped to build as much basic facility and knowledge of the instrument as possible and then things would hopefully balance themselves out in the end, which they have. My routine now is very much musically based and I focus on one or two things at a time.

Some not so fun things happened after that, so the time and resources I have to practice the good eay right now is very limited, but hopefully that'll change shortly.

In any case.

Most of the more well known books represent the essence of material the author have used for their teachings. It does not provide the whole picture, which is where a lesson from the author or one of their students can provide a fuller picture. These provide ideas I can base my own method for my own situation on. I have lots of books and they're not just for my own development as a drummer, but also for my development as a teacher for many different types of students of many different levels. Without having access to and at least skimmed through all the books I have I wouldn't be the teacher I am today. Learning beginners and amateurs is very different from helping a pro with some icing on the cake. I try to sort of bridge the gap and I am able to do that with pretty much any student, which it seems very few teachers are able to do.

If I didn't have access to these resources, because of my location, I'd pretty much be out of luck.

Though I pick up a book now and then, I feel my sort of general hoarding is over. I have the most important texts, 500+ books, and I only get stuff now that really relates to something specific that I'm working on. I hardly ever take lessons any more either. If I do, I go to a specialist and hire them for a whole day or two so my travel time is worth it. I've usually already studied the topic and studied them, so I'm prepared in regards to what I want from them. Not all of them are teachers really, so then it helps that I am.

As for the attitudes we don't want. That's part of my job to fix. The local environment isn't what it used to be and that's one of the reasons the way teach has to, in most cases, be different from how we were taught. Look for what's missing and if it's important to make things work we have to compensate.
 
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It is an interesting topic, for sure and one that can surface various opinions.

This thread was originally posted 11 years ago. Had anything changed? Since then, there’s been more material released into the marketplace and more online video instructions to select from.

I began playing with other ‘musicians’ in garage bands when I was 13. Coming from a family of musicians we played together almost weekly until I was 17. When I was 17 I became a steady working drummer and did so until I was about 42 years old – some of those years that was all I did.

However, I had great teachers who knew how to slice/dice educational material and knew how to bring the musical element from all of it. It made and still makes for an amazing journey to develop various technical and reading skills required to execute in a musical environment.

I know some of what I’m going to say next can be local economy based, but looking where we are there seems to be a colossal reduction in playing opportunities – especially if you want to make any decent money. Personally, I’m way passed the stage of playing gigs for free just to play. I’d rather be home with my family than out playing for free.

Based on other similar threads and posts across the web, the reduction in playing opportunities seems to be more than just where I live as well.
I’ve lived in 2 different houses for 31 years. I have never once heard kids playing in a garage or basement. When I was 13 – that was all I ever wanted to do.

For those that pick up this instrument (or any other instrument) the educational learning opportunities are endless today. However, I’m probably not going to be alive to see the impact that the reduction in playing opportunities presents for kids (or otherwise) that don’t get out of the practice room to their play music with others. I’m sure that transition has already begun but I’m too blind to see it.

Lastly, I think it’s important to remember that people pick to learn an instrument with different goals in mind. For some (and I have taught some of this type), developing enough facility on the instrument meets their dream if it allows them to play along with their favorite songs. Nothing wrong with this.

I think it all boils down to the ‘why’, which is personal in nature... Why the desire to learn? What’s the goal. Everyone’s answer can be different. Doesn’t make it wrong.

Are we being dumbed down? I don’t think so. I do think, however with all of the information out there it can become very messy without focus if you are easily distracted with the next ‘shiny’ thing you come across. A good teacher can help keep you on track to meet the goal you set out for yourself.
 
rogue_drummer said:
Coming from an old (47 year old) drummer...

Waaayyyyy back in the '70's, the thing to do for a beginning student was to enroll in beginning band in school, get a teacher or find a mentor - usually an older kid, and buy some books on snare drumming, and practice, practice, practice. Rolls, rudiments, flams, paradiddles, etc. Three things were taught: reading music and note values, listening and playing by ear, and how to tune a drum properly. Then came the drum set lessons. Usually Jazz. The private instructors taught some basic rock, but it was usually jazz or jazz fusion. "The Drummer's Cookbook" was very popular, as was "Haskell Harr's Drum Method for Band and Orchestra" for snare drumming.

Keep in mind this was the early to late 1970's - no lessons via internet (as we know it now), DVDs, VCRs, etc.

I was told to find some LPs by Buddy Rich, Sandy Nelson, or any of the jazz greats and listen and play along. That would develop the listening skills.

Old school? Sure, but it worked!
Click to expand...

Not heard Drummers Cookbook mentioned in quite a while! I got a copy when I was around 18 (59 now) and still have it. Great book.

Back on thread, the great Mr. Riley nailed it.
 
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