Would Today's Music Make Me Want to Be a Drummer? Part 2

Scott K Fish

Silver Member
Would Today's Music Make Me Want to Be a Drummer? Part 2

I posted my previous thread, Would Today's Music Make Me Want to Be a Drummer?, on two favorite drum forums: DrumForum.org and Drummerworld.com. Interesting, thoughtful responses. Conclusion: I am not alone.

Some forum readers said, no, they would not be inspired to be drummers by today's Pop music. But, charlesm on DrumForum writes, "eyond the mainstream pop-music megabuck machine, there is a ton of great, interesting and even innovative music being made. Bands and projects that are fusing elements of rock, jazz, classical, electronic, etc. Usually it's found in areas of music classified as 'indie' or 'indie-folk' or 'underground' and otherwise."

Charlesm also points out you have to "look for this music. You are not going to turn on the radio and hear it, certainly. But all it takes is one YouTube search of shows like NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts or Live from KEXP and you'll have access to a lot of really substantive music being made."

Another person said he was never inspired by pop music to be a drummer. He was, he said, inspired by jazz. A couple of posters said they were inspired by metal drummers, not pop.

In the main, I agree with everything written - including inspiration from metal drummers. For example, Blue Cheer's Paul Whaley and Tommy Aldridge.

What has almost disappeared from mainstream radio (i.e. pop and modern country) is good songwriting and unique sounding headliner musicians. My best guess? These songs are written primarily with video in mind. That is, what the song looks like, what the artist(s) look like, is much more important than how they sound. Music is a visual media first, an aural media second.

It's sad and disappointing. Early on I took to heart tenor saxophonist Lester Young's counsel on the importance of instrumentalists, including drummers, learning song lyrics. Instrumentalists do a much better job interpreting songs knowing what the songs are about. Knowing lyrics always helped my drumset phrasing. I phrased to the song melody, or I improvised melodic drum phrases around the song melody.

Mainstream Radio is Dead! Maybe that's real answer. Can't find inspirational music on mainstream radio? Look elsewhere, young man, look elsewhere. Instead of lamenting the death of what was once THE source of great music, accept that great music's new home is scattered around the internet: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

True Confession: Now and then a good song sneaks through mainstream radio's Sameness Filter. I like Beyonce's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), and Jamey Johnson's In Color.

I'm just now starting to use YouTube as a go to source of new and new-to-me music. Before I mostly used YouTube for researching, i.e. "Any old footage of Dave Tough? Big Sid Catlett?"

Twitter's been a new music source. I've had a few musicians "follow" my Life Beyond the Cymbals" posts on my @ScottKFish account. Trumpeter Jeff Oster did just that. I visited his Twitter account, then his web site, and ended up buying the MP3 version of his album, next, which I like very much.

Jim Fusilli reviews and interviews excellent "indie" musicians for the Wall Street Journal. His Twitter account is @WSJRock

Bottom line: No matter how it's made, there are still only two kinds of music: good and bad. Also, as a student of music history, I know music moves forward in waves. There are times when great music is coming from all over the place. Other times we're hard-pressed to find great music at all.

Circling back to my original question: Would Today's Music Make Me Want to Be a Drummer? I would like to say yes, but mine would be a very unsure yes. I love good songs, good lyrics, and good melodies. Today's pop music -- let's call it "Top 40" music -- with rare exceptions, is in a low wave phase with a Least Common Denominator sameness to it. To my ears, the same is true of Modern Country.

But, as others have said, great music is alive and well. And the internet is a showplace for tons of great musicians.

Final point: I'm not now, nor have I ever been, frozen in musical time or locked into one musical style. I've met people who think jazz died with Louis Armstrong, Rock with Buddy Holly, and Country with Hank Williams. Not me.

As for young drummers and would-be drummers? I suppose a bunch of them will come up through a phase of playing always loud on dead-sounding drums. (One of the forum posters points out playing drums has become more like an exercise machine than a musical instrument. I love that analogy! Bullseye!)

But, as always happens, a small percentage of drummers will get bored, will want to be creative, will want to express themselves in their own way. They are the future of drumming.

Scott K Fish Blog: Life Beyond the Cymbals
 
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I think the shift to a visual medium is going to inspire many drummers, I know it has me. Drums are one of the few instruments that are fun to watch, not to mention the role of drumming in other visual mediums like dancing. Right now there is just a bit of a culture lag.
 
There are many other sources of new music that are much easier to navigate that facebook or twitter. Soundcloud, Reverbnation, Bandcamp, Feedbands, Iloveindie radio, the list goes on. These are the sites that need to get exposure because they actually help bands get their music out. Facebook doesn't have a built in music player, it links to bandcamp, and they have started to charge bands that have over 1000 "fans" to reach their entire audience. Youtube is a great source of new music, but there is no filter that allows you to seek out what you are looking for. Listening to Slayer and the first suggestion is the new Jason Derulo song, not exactly giving me suggestions based upon my listening history.

Great post Scott, as a drummer in an independent band this is just a topic I am just passionate about. New music is out there, and people don't seem to know, or want to know, where to go find it.
 
No because today's music sucks, and it's mostly computers and click tracks even if you think it may be authentic.
 
No because today's music sucks, and it's mostly computers and click tracks even if you think it may be authentic.

You actually could not be more statistically incorrect if you tried.

For every 1 band out there using modern recording techniques (computers and click tracks as you call it) there are many, many more making authentic music in garages and basements and dive bars across the world. They are recording at home and in small studios using acoustic drums and live guitars. And lucky for you, this music is all out there ready for you to consume. All you have to do is look for it.
 
In answering the question as it is of the original post, I would say YES, a resounding yes because, well, some of "Today's" music/bands are:

Animals as Leaders
TesseracT
Monuments
Skyharbor

and etc. All great music with great drummers.
 
I think people answering "No, todays music sucks" No it doesn't.. go listen to Radio Moscow.. or something other than whats on the radio.. music is alive and well. In pretty much every genre there are new bands that are just out to kick butt and rock.. So yeah.. someone like radio moscow among others make me want to play..
 
The difference is good music used to be delivered via popular media.

But that was a long time ago now.

Now today you have to go looking for the good music.

It's a little more work, that's all.

Same thing with food. Most of it is crap. You have to seek out the good stuff.
 
The difference is good music used to be delivered via popular media.

OK, but if we think about it for now, today, isn't the internet popular media?

Apple TV, Netflix etc the new visual. Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora... the new 'radio'. My 19 yr old daughter for years has never watched 'network TV' nor listened to 'the radio'. The popular medium is the internet.

Difference is maybe more this. One will need to make time to seek out the good music. It won't be streaming through WRIF in a boogie van.
 
Completely agree with those saying there's plenty of fantastic music inspiring drummers today. It's just not on Top 40 radio (or radio at all). Like Larryace said, you just have to look for it a bit - it doesn't come as easy as turning on your car radio. Wolf Alice, Rival Sons, War on Drugs, Alabama Shakes, Jake Bugg, Aristocrats, Cage the Elephant, Trombone Shorty, Little Hurricane, and on & on - all newer band that rock and are not processed sound. Some of them I've found on here.
 
Completely agree with those saying there's plenty of fantastic music inspiring drummers today. It's just not on Top 40 radio (or radio at all). Like Larryace said, you just have to look for it a bit - it doesn't come as easy as turning on your car radio. Wolf Alice, Rival Sons, War on Drugs, Alabama Shakes, Jake Bugg, Aristocrats, Cage the Elephant, Trombone Shorty, Little Hurricane, and on & on - all newer band that rock and are not processed sound. Some of them I've found on here.

Indeed, and this has almost always been the case. Enthusiasts seek out interesting acts, interesting acts make it big and become mainstream. The industry compensates with boring clones. Repeat.

Early 70's good
Mid 70's Disco
Mid-Late 70's, blank generation bands and underground
1980 - Cars, police, talking heads, knack, tom petty, etc - make it big
by 85, things went back to shit. By 90, we had Shite (disco part 2)
91 - underground music becomes mainstream (nirvana, PJ, candle box, garden, etc)
By 2000, we're back to mainstream shite.
2002/2003 - we have Shins, Unicorns, Menomena, etc.
Back to shite
back to interesting
back to shite

So it's a cycle. Good bands become mainstream, the industry adapts, things turn to shite, good bands become mainstream.

The important thing to note is that 'good music' never really disappears, it just gets hard to find for a bit while the industry cashes in on the last wave of pop culture.
 
If the only rebuttal argument to 'every form of popular music sucks' is 'there are hidden gems still quietly doing good music', isn't that admitting that new music is horrible? Because all those indie quiet behind-the-scenes bands are mimicking something they already heard and carrying on old and established styles, not inventing new things.

It doesn't help me to know that if I dig I can find twelve bands playing XTC-like college rock. I can just go listen to XTC. It doesn't help me to find six bands that kind of sound like the Beatles that play small venues. I can listen to the Beatles. Yay, Vampire Weekend is doing a cheap knock-off of Peter Gabriel, but with more swear words!

The same thing applies to jazz. I love playing jazz. There's not much reason to listen to any jazz after 1960. There are crazy talented people playing it but it hasn't really evolved much, or at least the ways that is has evolved don't seem to improve it.

2002/2003 - we have Shins, Unicorns, Menomena, etc.

And who will remember them? Who remembers the Shins now? Their last album was four years ago (their last good album seven years ago, before Mercer fired his whole band). Nobody cares about The Shins anymore. Nobody will write books about The Shins. Nobody will film documentaries about The Shins. They have a mention in a terrible Zach Braff film (is that redundant) and that's about it. And I'm saying this as a Shins fan.

Music has changed. Music always changes. But society changes as well, and right now society is driving music, not the other way around. And when you have a vapid, pointless, shallow society, you get vapid, pointless, shallow music.
 
And who will remember them? Who remembers the Shins now? Their last album was four years ago (their last good album seven years ago, before Mercer fired his whole band). Nobody cares about The Shins anymore. Nobody will write books about The Shins. Nobody will film documentaries about The Shins. They have a mention in a terrible Zach Braff film (is that redundant) and that's about it. And I'm saying this as a Shins fan.

Those that spent their formative years listening will remember them, just as those who spent their formative years listening to Brian Wilson remember him. It's a cycle, where The Stones beget The La's, The La's beget Oasis. Every time a little guy gets big, the industry attempts to monetize it and we're back in the cycle.

I hear your argument that nothing is really new, and that's true. There's the occasional revolution, but everything else is just evolution. There's a comedy act that does the Pachelbel's Canon bit which both demonstrates your argument (because you're right) and counters your argument (because that's the way music has always been).
 
Pretty much every popular song form has been played to death and has been since about 1985. There are no new chord progressions or melodies. There are a few new sounds but nothing much has changed. I think Rock is dead and probably deserves to die, I think there's still life in Jazz and some life still in Metal.

Honestly though, a great song is a great song regardless of when it was released, how it was written or who wrote it. This idea that things 'used to be better' is such utter drivel that I hear regurgitated again and again. Can anybody honestly say that 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree' is a fantastic song? No. It's just as bad as anything you care to mention now.

It's just that time is a natural filter of detritus and many people that now have a disposable income and some time on their hands tend to have grown up in a period when a particular style of music was popular that isn't so popular now - at least in the mainstream or on the radio.

There's a lot of great music out there for a variety of tastes. Just turn the radio off and go and explore Bandcamp.
 
True Confession: Now and then a good song sneaks through mainstream radio's Sameness Filter. I like Beyonce's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), and Jamey Johnson's In Color.
showplace for tons of great musicians.

Guilty here too, I like P!NK, Shakira, Alanis Morissette, Anastacia, just to name a few, if you like what you hear, that's the main point, hell to cliché and what others think about what you're listening, what's important is that you like it.

Final point: I'm not now, nor have I ever been, frozen in musical time or locked into one musical style. I've met people who think jazz died with Louis Armstrong, Rock with Buddy Holly, and Country with Hank Williams. Not me.

Neither do I, an open mind in almost all kind of music has made me discover incredible artists/bands in a variety of styles, of course, my teenager's years of English rock bands had a several impact which lasted to today, but I'm always open to discover new music, in whatever style, I just trust my very good taste in music :)

As for young drummers and would-be drummers? I suppose a bunch of them will come up through a phase of playing always loud on dead-sounding drums.

Aaahh, this reminds me the good old days, yes totally guilty of this novice experience, and the funny thing is, I thought I was great, lol. Well, we all live and learn...

Honestly though, a great song is a great song regardless of when it was released, how it was written or who wrote it.

I mostly agree with you Dunc, except on the "how it was written" bit, granted, some "great" songs might have been written without the knowledge of the fame that's happen after their release, but almost invariably, for us the listeners, it's indeed how it was written very often which made the song so great.
 
Perhaps the environment.

To me, the fact that it might have been written by a group of songwriters or a single individual doesn't really have much bearing on how I rate a song. That's where I was going. To others it matters deeply. Was it written by the performing artist or another songwriter, etc.
 
And you're more than welcome to. No problem. That's the first thing I've read that you've posted in ages.

Thing is, trying to state that one tool is somehow 'better' than another is such utter cobblers that I sometimes feel the compulsion to comment on it.

You are the BEST TOOL
 
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