Old School Drumming

Hollywood Jim

Platinum Member
I'm visiting Salt Lake City Utah right now. I went to two local open mic jams this week. There were three other young drummers at these two jams.
One was a Juilliard graduate, one was a self taught kid and the other was a high school drum line player. All three were very good drummers. I was amazed at how different jamming is here compared to Phoenix. Very different kind of music. More modern fusion type music here. Very few regular songs played here.

The drummers all played matched grip and they all provided a rim shot for every back beat they hit. I'm 65 years old and I play exclusively traditional grip. And I don't use rim shots for the back beat.

The drum line kid twirled his sticks while he played, just amazing. The Juilliard guy had some fantastic bass drum licks. I learned at lot from them. However all three lacked in the soloing department. But they all liked my solos.

At the end of my playing the second night two of them commented how great it was to hear some old school drumming. I think it was a compliment. But I'm not sure........


.
 
I'm sure it was a compliment. They were probably surprised that you could do more than a single stroke roll at 20 BPM.

They just see somebody over 40 and immediately think "old school."

To me, old school sounds better, anyway.
 
At the end of my playing the second night two of them commented how great it was to hear some old school drumming. I think it was a compliment. But I'm not sure........


.
That's the s*&t right there Jim, & very open of the young guys to recognise a skill set that's different to theirs.

Specifically on rimshots - to me, it's another tool to be deployed as appropriate. It's not great playing to use them all the time in every context, equally, it's not good to exclude them from your repertoire. I use rimshots a fair bit, but that's because I'm working in that context. Even so, they're still a tool that's deployed as appropriate - essentially when I want to really drill the backbeat. I use rimshot too at lower dynamics, & I especially like them as a lower dynamic flavour with wires off :)
 
Well, with the short lifespan in the musical genres nowadays, take comfort in knowing that they will be old skool sooner than later ;)

And really, stick twirling? Bass drum licks? Extreme chops? Drum athletics have been going on since the dawn of time - and they wonder why all the girls are dancing' to Gene's 8th notes in Sing Sing Sing.....
 
Hollywood, your critique of the kids shows an excellent eye and ear. But what did you mean by saying "Very few regular songs played here." What's regular? My regular is Rock as played (stuck) in the 50's - 70's. Now you've got me wondering if I'm regular or irregular ;)
 
Last edited:
That's the s*&t right there Jim, & very open of the young guys to recognise a skill set that's different to theirs.

Specifically on rimshots - to me, it's another tool to be deployed as appropriate. It's not great playing to use them all the time in every context, equally, it's not good to exclude them from your repertoire. I use rimshots a fair bit, but that's because I'm working in that context. Even so, they're still a tool that's deployed as appropriate - essentially when I want to really drill the backbeat. I use rimshot too at lower dynamics, & I especially like them as a lower dynamic flavour with wires off :)

Yes I understand. I wish I could hit consistent left hand rim shots. Sometimes I do need that sound. However I do hit very hard when needed.
 
Well, with the short lifespan in the musical genres nowadays, take comfort in knowing that they will be old skool sooner than later ;)

And really, stick twirling? Bass drum licks? Extreme chops? Drum athletics have been going on since the dawn of time - and they wonder why all the girls are dancing' to Gene's 8th notes in Sing Sing Sing.....

Just a note here the guy who was twirling his sticks dropped a stick twice.

Ha Ha Ha Bo, last night I used that exact sing sing sing rif on the floor tom in my solo. The audience loved it. It is so predictable. LOL


.
 
Hollywood, your critique of the kids shows an excellent eye and ear. But what did you mean by saying "Very few regular songs played here." What's regular? My regular is Rock as played (stuck) in the 50's - 70's. Now you've got me wondering if I'm regular or irregular ;)

In Phoenix when you play in a jam you will eventually play stuff like four bar blues, Led Zeppelin, Stones songs, southern rock songs etc.
Here in Salt Lake they played songs that were more like jazz. No singing. I even played a funk song, no singing, just chord progressions. Sometimes hard to tell where we were in the chord progression. Lots of fun, but more of a challenge. I don't think these younger players knew any classic rock songs. Or else they just don't like that kind of music. Ok with me. In fact I learned a lot about my playing through this experience.

I need to learn some go to grooves for different styles of music. What I'm used to is knowing the drum parts of specific songs.

.
 
I'm guessing Old School because you played to the music and not Gospel chops to a Cha Cha
 
I like going to the jams around town to get me out of my comfort zone a little bit. Age-wise, I consider myself in the middle of the old school and the new school being in my 30s. Mostly the older established guys playing around town are in their early 40s at the youngest, up into their 50s. These guys are usually doing what are ostensibly blues jams, but usually incorporate some soul, funk, and the occasional classic rock bits. I feel pretty comfortable in those environments because even if I don't know the material the players are good enough at steering people in the right direction with phrasing and dynamics that it's no problem. At times I feel like maybe I'm a little too choppy or 'out' for their tastes, but I suppose that comes down to my generation interpreting older things.

There's one drummer in particular that I see often that resonates with me in a weird way. We play nothing alike. He plays super simple, pretty much right down the middle, short simple fills. When he's doing blues, he's like an old school juke joint player. Really phenomenal double shuffle. I guess to me, that's old school. And I like it, but it's just not me.

Then there's another place I go to where the band hosting the jam is entirely younger than me. I think the oldest player is 25 at the tops. Almost anything goes there, with varying degrees of success and authenticity. Hip hop, jazz, art rock, various hipster things that I don't know how to categorize. I don't know if I struggle because the players aren't fully developed or if I've reached a point where I'm just too old to get it.
 
Where did you go? I live in Salt Lake but never really go to any open mics. Maybe I should.

They told me that the green pig on Monday nights is the best. But I missed that one. I went to Liquid joes Wednesday and the woodshed on Thursday night. Woodshed is normally on Wednesday night but they switched this week to Thursday.

.
 
At the end of my playing the second night two of them commented how great it was to hear some old school drumming. I think it was a compliment. But I'm not sure.........

Is there any other type of compliment?
 
Back
Top