GUITAR CENTER DRUM OFF

jcdrum14

Member
hello folks. i was just wondering if anyone online has participated in this competition. i was interested in possibly competing in it next year to see how far i make it...i dont intend to win...(nor do i think i could for that matter), plus the prizes are damn good.
 
hello folks. i was just wondering if anyone online has participated in this competition. i was interested in possibly competing in it next year to see how far i make it...i dont intend to win...(nor do i think i could for that matter), plus the prizes are damn good.

Ah man, I wish I could have done it. I asked at 3 different stores, and they all declined me because I was too young. You have to be at least 16.
 
o man that sux. how many more years until u reach 16? i have a few more months before i turn 16 so i dont think it will be much of a problem
 
And you know what I hate?
That they let tony royster compete when he was just 11. that's retarded that they would change it now. :/
 
o man that sux. how many more years until u reach 16? i have a few more months before i turn 16 so i dont think it will be much of a problem

Well, this May I'm gonna turn 15, and the May 2010 I'll be 16, so I'll have to wait through one more drumoff until I can compete. Not that bad, I guess.
 
I wonder if the age was raised due to the fact that sometimes the grand prizes are cars.?.?

not sure but that seems pretty reasonable...do a lot of older players compete in the drum off? if so maybe they raised the age so as not to be such an age difference in the competitors??
 
I'm guessing they changed it to 16 this year because it was the lowest possible age that kids could drive themselves to the store(s).
 
I never got why GC tacked on that age limit a while back. If the kid who wins can't drive there's always a family member who can. Besides, the largest reason for that particular comp was about getting people into the store, and nobody creates a crowd like a kid and his extended family. Crowds like that never leave without buying stuff.

I think in most cases it's going to be obvious that younger guys do better at drum comps. Professional older players with a boatload of gigs and endorsements aren't getting near a contest where they have a chance of losing to a much younger person. Failing in a situation like that can lead to a number of unfortunate outcomes. So you often see the top end young guys alongside pretty good adults who play well, but aren't as seasoned as the best players their age. In that kind of situation, the young guy will always come out on top because they're usually better technically and can pull off a drum solo. Of course there's also the delusional older guys who can't play and the 7 year old wonder kids that their parents think they're going to make money off, but I think most of the participants are the former. That's at least my observation.

I was in a bunch of drum comps from the 9th grade until last year, and won and lost my fair share. But I never did the GC contest because I thought the local and regional level judging was pretty terrible. In my mind results never came out right, and I just didn't think a lot of the local judges were good enough players themselves to be judging people.

I never will forget goofing around on a pad at a local music store, when this person who I first thought was a homeless guy started asking me all these questions about single and double stroke rolls. Then he tried to do some things himself and just fell apart. A few weeks later I was shocked to see him judging a GC Drumoff. It was a total fiasco. Results were so screwed up I thought there was going to be a riot in there. People were so mad. Then there were these guys who were all upset like they now believed they were failures because this guy who couldn't even get around a real feel didn't like their playing. I just thought the whole thing was a mess.

Now to be fair, all the GC drumoffs I've seen haven't been that bad, and I once saw a state comp where the outcomes weren't perfect, but better than usual. But you have to get that far before you get guys who know what they're looking at. GC is also tied into that goofy show biz score that can be judged any kind of way, which weighs heavily towards a person who brings 50 people into the store to cheer for their awesome stick twirls. Again, just my observations.
 
I never got why GC tacked on that age limit a while back. If the kid who wins can't drive there's always a family member who can. Besides, the largest reason for that particular comp was about getting people into the store, and nobody creates a crowd like a kid and his extended family. Crowds like that never leave without buying stuff.

I think in most cases it's going to be obvious that younger guys do better at drum comps. Professional older players with a boatload of gigs and endorsements aren't getting near a contest where they have a chance of losing to a much younger person. Failing in a situation like that can lead to a number of unfortunate outcomes. So you often see the top end young guys alongside pretty good adults who play well, but aren't as seasoned as the best players their age. In that kind of situation, the young guy will always come out on top because they're usually better technically and can pull off a drum solo. Of course there's also the delusional older guys who can't play and the 7 year old wonder kids that their parents think they're going to make money off, but I think most of the participants are the former. That's at least my observation.

I was in a bunch of drum comps from the 9th grade until last year, and won and lost my fair share. But I never did the GC contest because I thought the local and regional level judging was pretty terrible. In my mind results never came out right, and I just didn't think a lot of the local judges were good enough players themselves to be judging people.

I never will forget goofing around on a pad at a local music store, when this person who I first thought was a homeless guy started asking me all these questions about single and double stroke rolls. Then he tried to do some things himself and just fell apart. A few weeks later I was shocked to see him judging a GC Drumoff. It was a total fiasco. Results were so screwed up I thought there was going to be a riot in there. People were so mad. Then there were these guys who were all upset like they now believed they were failures because this guy who couldn't even get around a real feel didn't like their playing. I just thought the whole thing was a mess.

Now to be fair, all the GC drumoffs I've seen haven't been that bad, and I once saw a state comp where the outcomes weren't perfect, but better than usual. But you have to get that far before you get guys who know what they're looking at. GC is also tied into that goofy show biz score that can be judged any kind of way, which weighs heavily towards a person who brings 50 people into the store to cheer for their awesome stick twirls. Again, just my observations.

What you say is true, in fact, you should send an email (or letter) to Guitar Center corporate and tell them this.

About the judging though...I know, it's pretty horrible to have terrible drummers judging these things, but in some cases, it can give you an advantage if you know to do cool visuals, like sticks twirls, blast beats, and lots of cool things that appeal to non-drummers. I know it's still not fair to people who can just groove, but if you CAN do the stick spins and twirls, you're almost guaranteed to place.
 
this guy who works in the drum department at my local music store entered last year, and got pretty far.

I don't think I would enter a competition like that though.
I mean, I didn't even like it the time my old band was in a battle of the bands!
I just don't think music should be made into a competition.
 
I did it once when I was younger, and will never get near it again. Matt Smith and I have had similar experiences. The one year that I competed, only one of the three judges was a drummer. I actually heard him yelling at the other two judges after the competition was over, because their scoring was so off compared to his. The next year, I didn't compete, but went to check out one night of it...they didn't have judges there. They finally found a few, but the one clerk there, who knew me from making some purchases, but has never seen me play, asked me to stay there for a while, in case they needed me to judge. It was pretty messed up.

Matt's also right about most pros staying away, and nailed the reasons. I will say, though, that at the one I almost had to judge, one local pro drummer walked in and just blew everyone away. It wasn't even close. He came in all cocky, and blew away the 16 year old kids there, etc. It was especially funny because there were two kids there who were clearly rivals...their bands both showed up, and almost had a brawl before the contest. They kept shouting about how this would decide once and for all which of those two was the best drummer in the area, and then they proceeded to both suck (easily the two worst drummers that night). The whole scene was just weird.
 
This is quite interesting, i sure wish i could win stuff from being good at drumming (or even stick twirling if that's true) to be fair about that point though i was saying to my friend on fb that i think stick twirling is actually almost as hard as drumming, I was joking of course but i sometimes wonder just how different they are in terms of difficulty 'cos it's really fustrating for someone with little hand eye co-ordination like me. One afternoon i was playing ball with my mate (in the uk we tend to use just our hands and a tennis ball which i believe is different to the us way of playing "catch") anyway he must have thrown it about 50 times from about 2m away and i caught it twice. Both times i believe were a fluke.

I can definetly see what you mean about pro drummers but i think it shouldn't have to be like that since you wouldn't not hire a professional driver just because he can't beat lewis hamilton on a track? I mean as long as they can actually play the drums without making any mistakes to the songs required then that's all that matters right? Plus at the end of the day you wouldn't really want a little kid drumming as a professional backing band for an adult artist since it would look very odd.

However i guess it's all about competition and these days if your reputation is even slightly chipped, cracked or even keyholed a bit (see what i did there :p) then there's plenty more where that came from.

drumguyfromwi i completely agree with you however people are always going to compete for money, maybe the best musicians are the ones who think they are better then some silly GC competition and/or maybe they already are rich enough to buy the cars and stuff or perhaps they realise that they've got all they need just from being an accomplished musician and it doesn't matter what stuff they play it's how they play it. Or maybe i'm just being overoptimistic a bit here.

This was a pretty intresting thread though thanks for sharing that with me i might never have known otherwise (i like to know things, i realize this makes me a very sad and pathetic loser WHO SHOULD REALLY BE PLAYING THE DRUMS RIGHT NOW!!!)
 
drumguyfromwi i completely agree with you however people are always going to compete for money, maybe the best musicians are the ones who think they are better then some silly GC competition and/or maybe they already are rich enough to buy the cars and stuff or perhaps they realise that they've got all they need just from being an accomplished musician and it doesn't matter what stuff they play it's how they play it. Or maybe i'm just being overoptimistic a bit here.

Well, the way I see it, if you have what it takes (even if "what it takes" is not good drumming, just showmanship), then why not enter the competition? The prizes are amazing.
 
Might as well try, but judging from what I read don't get too cocky when you win and don't feel bad when you lose. With a jury consisting mostly of non-drummers (and possibly even non-musicians) it means squat whether you win or lose.
 
wow the situation with the judges really is quite the opposite of guitar center. it seems to me that since they have such quality products and service, why is it so hard to hire a competent judge? such is life...

i agree with drumguyfromWI...music really should not be a competition but i think it would be a good idea to go just to see what other local players r doin and what not right?
 
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