Can you be a good drummer with bad math skills?

I debated with myself if I should go with the opposite "blonde - math is hard" stereotype, or the "Asians are automatically good at math" stereotype. The decision was based on the aforementioned fact that the latter is more of a compliment, as who doesn't want to be good at math?

It's not easy having such a complex decision making system, but I'm pretty successful in hurting the least amount of feelings possible, I think. Very important in this day and age that you not offend anyone who's offend-able.
 
I just assumed you were referring to their nationality. According to National Geographic " Today, Asia is home to the citizens of Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen." So it's a good bet someone in those countries is good at math-since that is the majority of the population of planet. There is no biological race so using the term "Asian" has to refer to location because it is like calling someone "Big Foot" because both are mythical.
 
So you're saying there's not one Canadian in Asia?

Wow Art.

Art. Short for smart.

James, was this debate with yourself said aloud or were you just debating silently? Just so I have the clearest possible mental image. If it was out loud, was there any slobber involved?
 
You've left out the all important detail:

Was she hot?

So, we weren't sure if this person was male or female -- they were very androgynous-looking. I suspect female but don't actually know, so to simplify the story I used female. The next question is: Is that a turn-on for you? ;)
 
James, was this debate with yourself said aloud or were you just debating silently? Just so I have the clearest possible mental image. If it was out loud, was there any slobber involved?

Unfortunately, internal debate. I'd get in all sorts of trouble if I just said everything I was thinking about the idiocy around me.

I'll make you a deal though, as we share our first beer, I'll go full stream of consciousness running dialog for you until you call uncle out of embarrassment and we get kicked out of the McDonalds play area for having beer.
 
So, we weren't sure if this person was male or female -- they were very androgynous-looking. I suspect female but don't actually know, so to simplify the story I used female. The next question is: Is that a turn-on for you? ;)

Not so much.

I preferred it when she used to be a hot blonde Asian girl with a fondness for German beer and the guitar stylings of Stevie Ray Vaughan.
 
I'll make you a deal though, as we share our first beer, I'll go full stream of consciousness running dialog for you until you call uncle out of embarrassment and we get kicked out of the McDonalds play area for having beer.

Hmm. Let me think about that.

OK I'm done.

As attractive as that sounds, I'm gonna hold out for a better deal :p
 
True story, when I first started out with music, I didn't even get the concept of counting to 4. I knew that music was cyclical, and I knew that we always counted to 4 before starting to play, but I didn't put the two things together in that the pulse you counted off relates to the tempo and length of the cycle.

So you don't even really have to count at all if you just pay attention to the rhythms in what you're playing.


And I think that's totally fine. I see all sorts of things with my younger students. Sometimes older students, too.

Anyone can learn anything provided a bit of realism, patience and a teacher who doesn't give up until he/she finds the way that helps you understand.

If something on the drums is mathematically challenging to yuo, then you're trying to progrss about 100 000x faster than you should if you want those skills to have any artistic, musical, pedagogical or personal technical relevance.

Baby steps and as close to total mastery as you can get at that point in time. It's not the only way, but I'll argue for it being the best until my dying day.

If you can't actually use it, it has no all value.
 
It sounds enough reasonable, however, I have doubts if mathematics is so useless when playing, since it is about knowing how to make the ideal formula of being a drummer. Yes, Arne is right when claiming that it's not the only way, but I dare to get up this old thread and assert that my mother (yes, an adult woman who is a drummer) wanted to get a role in a band and couldn't because of "law level of mAthEmaThics".:mad:
 
I’m OK at math. I won’t be redefining physics but I’m ok. Don’t think you really need math skills beyond being able to count to 4 to play music, though ;)
 
Great Question. Math is helpful for complex jazz fusion hemiolas especially over the bar.
It helps with theory and understanding bar breakdowns.
It is not necessary......IMHO... to play a solid grove on a hit record.
It is for the complex stuff.
Pythagorus was a mathematician. Nerds are good.
 
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If No Way Jose buys a cymbal pack for $ 1000, how long is it going to take him to payoff his investment at his current income of peanuts per bar gig? Ha even I can see where this is headed.
You should only apply it to drumming itself, not the money you spent on drums. I applied it to the money I spent, and all it did was make me depressed.
 
How many groups of 3, 8th notes will fit into 4 bars of 4/4?
Hemiola 3 over 4.
 
mathematics is a pretty big subject..hell, I wouldn't even say it's a single subject.
I'd say probably speed arithmetic down in the single digits is going to be more useful than tensor calc
or latin hypercube stats

I'm not enough of a drummer to tell you, but I used to be good at various forms of math and pretty good at speed calcs (it's a practice thing that has an edge to hone, kind of like sight reading)
and one thing about it is you sort of simplify the problem and use a "bag of tricks"

One thing I have noticed about drummers, esp non-western drummers...is there are ways of keeping/expressing time that encode the divisions non-arithmetically...like I've talked to african drummers that tell me they are playing a spoken phrase "I went to the store and bought me a ding-dong" (not a real expression) that encodes the complex rhythm.
Indian solkatu (sp?) seems somewhere in the middle ish??? I mean it is divisions based, but the count seems more lyrical to me (from an outsiders perspective) -- like the divisions are sort of pre worked out into the language

I suppose in western drumming too (again as a baby drummer, but played other instruments) there's that speak in onomatopoeias like paradiddle ( maybe even flam with a looser non-specific division )where divisional or rhythmic or pattern information is encoded lyrically
So I guess in a word...cadence

that's a lot of words for "couldn't tell ya" -- but just some thoughts from a drumming outsider
 
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Saw a drum video of linear patterns wherein the author described the pattern as a group of 5 notes, 3 notes, 5 notes and 3 notes. Just call it 2 groups of 8, guy. Because that's the feel it had and made it easier to understand and replicate.
 
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