State your unpopular drumming opinions

It's a bass drum ... not a "kick drum"

and nothing is more annoying than the term and the style of "Gospel Chops"

aside from maybe someone saying "kick drum"

I don’t like the term kick drum either... especially in French !
Now you’ve got French studio guys or damn guitarists talking about my Kick my Snare or Hats instead of The French equivalent: grosse caisse, caisse claire and Charleston.
Ridiculous.
 
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LOL

From my understanding, Jesus really digs ‘em.

Without jesus, there would be no double kick gospel chops. Let that sink in. He literally died so that we could do double kick gospel chopping.

Which begs the question, how many gospels could a gospel chop chop, if a gospel could chop chops?
 
Without jesus, there would be no double kick gospel chops. Let that sink in. He literally died so that we could do double kick gospel chopping.

Which begs the question, how many gospels could a gospel chop chop, if a gospel could chop chops?

Haha that funny, especially since the majority of double kick monsters do it for the other guy! Which leads me to...

...Iron Maiden is the nice girl you bring home to meet your folks; Judas Priest is the nasty skank you cheat on her with!
 
Without jesus, there would be no double kick gospel chops. Let that sink in. He literally died so that we could do double kick gospel chopping.

Which begs the question, how many gospels could a gospel chop chop, if a gospel could chop chops?

OMG James you slay me. This is why you got the BB, your humor.

Milk metaphorically came out my nose.

One of your gemiest gems for sure.
 
It's a bass drum ... not a "kick drum"

and nothing is more annoying than the term and the style of "Gospel Chops"

aside from maybe someone saying "kick drum"

Yeah, the "kick drum" thing used to bug me more but, as I'm sure you already know, the phrase came from engineers who didn't want to confuse it with the bass guitar when they wrote on their little pieces of tape stuck to the board.

From that POV, it's not as terrible for me.

"Gospel chops" is just stupid.
 
I prefer the term kick drum. It sounds cooler and more specific to me. The term bass drum is OK. I think of it as something my Dad would say if he was still here. (He hated that in the 70's I used the term tranny for a car transmission. I don't think he thought of it in a gender way, it just wasn't the proper term for the transmssion, very German)

I use both terms, whatever my mood.

The gospel chops thing...doesn't bother me. I know what it's referring to.
 
Yeah, the "kick drum" thing used to bug me more but, as I'm sure you already know, the phrase came from engineers who didn't want to confuse it with the bass guitar when they wrote on their little pieces of tape stuck to the board.

From that POV, it's not as terrible for me.
They could have just abbreviated to BD - takes up even less channel tab space. These days, it's all digital on the channel name anyhow, but I'm still organised on a full mic setup BD - SNT - SNB - HAT - OHL - OHR - T1 - T2 - T3 - T4.

Never seen anyone kick a bass drum either ;)
 
It's a bass drum ... not a "kick drum"

and nothing is more annoying than the term and the style of "Gospel Chops"

aside from maybe someone saying "kick drum"

Haha, that reminds me of a weird little pet peeve against this new term ‘a chop’ that people use in place of a lick or a fill. I don’t know why but every time I hear someone say ‘check out this sweet new chop!’ when talking about a fill or lick my eye starts twitching.

And...maybe a much more unpopular one, but drum sheds. Not a fan.
 
You don't need a metronome.

Play along with recorded music, and let the music be your timekeeper. Way more fun than a metronome, and it achieves the same objective.


And in this day and age of a metronome being an app on your phone, it's even worse. The first metronome app I downloaded kept abysmal time. I'd play and....go out. Start again, concentrating so that my brain hurt and...go out. Eventually I sat there just tapping in time with the metronome and...sure enough, it really was the metronome losing time, and not me.

This is a funny topic. I actually think it’s probably more common than we realise too. I often hear it in some form or another. ‘Makes you sound robotic’ and ‘music should shift and move’ are the two biggest reasons I hear.

You don’t find it too limiting though? Hypothetically, let’s say you’re playing a gig with a large band on very particular tempo tunes, 3 vocalists, full rhythm section (no percussionist though), full horn section all of whom have their own interpretation of the time and you hear a tune back, someone says something or whatever and notice you’re getting dragged around a bit by them or you’re rushing/dragging certain tunes/sections or find a particular tempo tricky to really sit in to. Whatever the case may be. The vocalist needs it at 73.6 bpm exactly and there’s a sax soli breakdown section where they all want to rush through it so they can get home earlier to see the latest GoT episode and the vocalist eyeballs you if they rush it and the tune doesn’t come back in at exactly 73.6 bpm for the final full diva chorus ... you know, standard stuff really.

Do you just play along to more music and hope it doesn’t happen again? What if you didn’t even notice your time moving until you heard it back? How can you really focus in on certain tempos and know, for certain, that you are leading the time and not just playing along with something that isn’t going to shift regardless of what you do or where your time is?

It’s a really interesting topic this one. I love the new apps they have to be honest. Time Guru, Soundbrenner one etc. The functions where you can set your own click for however many beats or bars, 2 bars on/2 bars off kind of thing, are absolutely gold and make it so easy to practice dedicated time focused stuff.

I guess I’m simply asking, despite the mass waffle above, is how do you practice purely time focused practice ie. exact tempos, fixing small tendencies, leading the time etc without the ol’ metronome?
 
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...Iron Maiden is the nice girl you bring home to meet your folks; Judas Priest is the nasty skank you cheat on her with!

When my Dad used to take off his work boots after work, he would say he was taking off his iron maidens lol. This was in the mid 70's.
 
..The vocalist needs it at 73.6 bpm exactly..

..you know, standard stuff really..


Unless you work on a daily basis with people like Barbra Streisand, i think this is not really that much the case to be honest and certainly not within an average (rock) coverband..

Another (among many musicians) unpopular opinion..:

About 99% (no exaggeration) of all the jazz-fusion music that has been made from the mid 80's untill now, is artistically speaking completely not interesting or relevant in any way..
 
Ok here’s my secret unpopular opinion:

As my ear has improved over the years, I find that most drummers are unlistenable. Bad time, bad sense of their role within the band, no sense of confidence in their grooves and cheesy fills.

Their phrasing, when not just a flat-out cop of some famous guy’s lick, is limited to one measure, squared off basic cliches. Of course they don’t read because that would “stifle their creativity”.

Rant over
 
...
I guess I’m simply asking, despite the mass waffle above, is how do you practice purely time focused practice ie. exact tempos, fixing small tendencies, leading the time etc without the ol’ metronome?

I've always thought that the metronome advice related to practising. I don't record, so I've never needed to learn to work with a click track, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Somebody way wiser than I once posted on here that "time is in the room" (I think it was "Who Is Tony?"). It's an idea that I like very much - that it is the whole band's responsibility to keep time, and the drummer just highlights the pulse along with any other drummery duties being fulfilled.

When it comes to monitoring what the band is doing, I use LiveBPM. I don't have it on all the time, but if there are songs or sections where we are concerned that our time might not be what it should, I use it. I call it the rev counter. It makes it very clear what is going on without acting like a strait jacket.

For the sake of clarity - I'm not knocking playing to a click; I don't know enough to do that. If playing to a click is what you need to do, like to do or prefer to do, that's up to you.
 
I've always thought that the metronome advice related to practising. I don't record, so I've never needed to learn to work with a click track, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Somebody way wiser than I once posted on here that "time is in the room" (I think it was "Who Is Tony?"). It's an idea that I like very much - that it is the whole band's responsibility to keep time, and the drummer just highlights the pulse along with any other drummery duties being fulfilled.

When it comes to monitoring what the band is doing, I use LiveBPM. I don't have it on all the time, but if there are songs or sections where we are concerned that our time might not be what it should, I use it. I call it the rev counter. It makes it very clear what is going on without acting like a strait jacket.

For the sake of clarity - I'm not knocking playing to a click; I don't know enough to do that. If playing to a click is what you need to do, like to do or prefer to do, that's up to you.

Yeah, I meant in general. Practice, playing shows, recording whatever. Sometimes it’s simply a necessary aspect of working. Agree on most points though. I love LiveBPM and it’s always chugging away on my stand! Brilliant app.

Yes, it’s absolutely everyone’s responsibility to keep time. That’s a given. Definitely not suggesting otherwise.

I prefer not to use a click if I can, but often, depending on the type of show, short notice reading gig, with segues, cues, timed stuff, whatever, with largely unknown/unmemorised tunes, it can just be part of the gig or for very long/multiple shows with a wide array of stuff, again it might just be part of the show and expected.

As with everything, practice is very dependent on the context you need it for. If it’s a show that uses a click, or recording or whatever, then obviously practicing with a click is necessary. In saying that, I would generally suggest across the board to anyone playing drums that it’s better to be prepared for any situation, especially if it can lead to more work. Or at least not suggest that certain aspects of practice might not be necessary ;)

I would definitely prefer playing to records. I think half the battle is finding ways to make metronome practice fun.
 
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