For some reason, this thread has mostly been covering Gear vs Technique, maybe because of Brady's reply. Zak appeared to be thinking more generally.
A sax player can buy a Selmer and stick with it for life and have no thoughts of gear whatsoever, apart from maybe finding a quality brand of reed that doesn't have 7 duds in a box of 10. They tend to have a more personal relationship with their instruments than we do (maybe because they spend all their time kissing them?)
Drummers, on the other hand, are terrible gear sluts. I revived my old love affair with Paiste 2002 only to cast it aside months later for a new sexy Zildjian A. The gear section is like dating feedback for drum gear. Most think that ZBT and Pitch Black are creeps while drooling over K and Istanbul.
We post drum porn (like the hot little rosewood number DMC's been dating) and Bob talking about his Rhythm Traveller was akin to telling everyone that he's been dating the fat girl with glasses that nobody rates ... but he found she had hidden pleasures (hence all the posts in his thread).
Yet it's safer to talk about our lovers, er, gear than
what we do with them. That's
personal. Then again, it can be like esoteric scientific research - you know it's useless but you continue hoping that you'll eventually stumble on to some super-valuable insight in your travels.
I can conceptualise till the cows come home, but once the band strikes up
Summertime or
I Can't Stand the Rain, all I can do is try to ensure everything is grooving and vibing. More than anything, that depends on whatever the tuned instruments and voice are doing on the day, and what I'll play will invariably be cookie-cutter stuff.
For me, almost everything hinges on how tuned in I am in the moment. I might practice flammaparadiddlysquatamacues or Texas shuffles to increase my arsenal, but if I'm not tuned in on gig day I'll play those songs worse than before I learned that great new rudiment.
You trust that there'll be some flow-on effects from learning new stuff, even if you don't use them - more control - but I don't find the relationship to be all that direct in the short-to-medium term. It seems to me that nothing helps my playing more than completely subsuming my individuality to become an anonymous part of the band sound. That doesn't leave much to talk about. Once you cover metronome use at slow tempos and building up, relaxed shoulders, and soft hands that allow the sticks to resonate that's pretty well it. From there it's just how lucidly and spontaneously you react in time.
And, of course, it can get political, something that polite people avoid. Gear vs Technique is a much safer topic than Feel vs Technique. I know, because I came out of that one with two black eyes and a broken little toe (from a miscued kick ... through technical shortfalls, no doubt).
In short, it all boils down to
Shut up 'n play yer drums, but it's nice to have a chat