Approaching the drums as if it were an Olympic sport.

dcrigger said:
And that is why bass drum parts just like that were so common in that era. Modern production has elevated the bass drum to level of prominence just shy of the vocal. As we can hear in the original - the bass drum just isn't that loud in the mix, nor that bass heavy. Even that YouTube cover features a bass drum sound far bigger and fatter and LOUDER than the original.

The bass drum just didn't play such a prominent role. It was just part of the timekeeping texture. So it could be used - particularly in this new, louder rock and roll music - to move some of the shuffle pattern off of the snare drum and onto the bass drum. Remember in days before this - all of the motion of the shuffle would've been played on the snare - plus the back beat. With the bass drum just supporting the bass with 1/4's. But by the time this was recorded - the bass was electric and didn't need supporting. And the back beats were needing to be way louder than in the past.

And this really didn't change for quite a while after this record - here's Jeff Porcaro playing virtually all of the shuffle notes (except 2 & 4) in 1976 -

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Just Great! Jeff was less busy on the kick here. But definitely the production brings the whole drum track up. I think it was Rick Morotta who said about playing on Steely's "Peg" it was the first time he could hear every note of his performance. Probably right around the time Lido came out actually.
 
joedrum said:
No you're right it didn't hurt it. It was a smash. Both songs came out in 69. Like I said average listeners didn't even notice probably. But as you alluded to a session guy probably would have laid it down a little less busy.
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Not in '69... heck not necessarily even ten years later.

I think a good lesson in the fact that.... things change. What is deemed tasty. What is deemed powerful. What a record sounds like it. And how players play on them.... has changed. Many times over the years....

And why an important lesson? Because they will change moving forward. Having started playing in the 60's and worked in the 70's, 80's, etc, until today.... I can only suggest that change is the only constant. The way we play now will certainly inform the way we play 10, 20 years from now - but those who insist on holding on to today's specific priorities will get left by the wayside.
 
Progress can be a two edged sword ; very beneficial things worked on for decades can get shelved a point where we might now be
I think there's a limit to throwing away casting off things for sake of imagined progress
 
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Since drums don’t play notes it’s been an ever evolving use and development like creating a new language. It speaks to ages. Different drummers speaking their drumming language- like Ringo for instance did things “his way” and everyone then emulated him as all the drummers who have similar influenced the language. I remember fast songs, that took some degree of chops, from 60’s onward in classic rock, funk, and jazz. It’s not like it’s new- just changing. The fusion and crossing over into different genres isn’t new just producing something new. Simple can be complex and complex simple which is whole beauty of it.
 
“Some of the most revered players in history could hardly execute at all in the scholastic rudimental sense. What they did to an extraordinary degree was relate to the musical situation at hand, and to comment with their instruments in a unique and individual manner.

This is a far more effective means of becoming indispensable than striving to be a drum athlete.”- Jim Chapin

jazzprofiles.blogspot.com

Dave Tough: 1908 -1948

A blog about Jazz featuring CD,and book reviews and postings about the music and its makers.
jazzprofiles.blogspot.com jazzprofiles.blogspot.com
 
joedrum said:
Spiral Staircase - "More Than Yesterday"
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This thread, and all other threads are meaningless, because that bassist’s sweet moves are the only thing that has ever mattered in this consarned universe.
 
Duck Tape said:
Is this trend really worse today than it was in the past or do you just notice it more because you’ve matured?

I remember overplaying as a youth and my young peers overplayed too, we lacked experience and as we got more experience we learned to play for the song. Same with fast/dangerous driving, many of us have that thrill seeking phase that we need to get out of our system.
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It is worse today because, pre-FB and Youtube, there were no outlets like that to show off your speedy talents to the world. Now it's the era of look at me. You have 8 year olds filmed by their dad's doing incredible covers and fast things. Or super-model looking young girls and women showing off incredibly fast chops. El Estepario Siberiano reminds me of those Chinese acrobats who can do impossible things. The Olympic Youtube drumming is a phenomena of the social media narcissism era we now live in. Yeah you had fast chops before the Internet but you only saw fast chops in a performance and the drummer was playing with a band. The chops were part of the band performance and had to work with what the band was doing live or in a recording session.
 
doggyd69b said:
I agree you can't make music so simple because it then becomes basically a one man show, Pretty much any blues band I have seen live, the drummer is playing the same stupid slow pattern (looking like he wants to kill himself), the bass player is also playing the same "Dum du dum du dum" pattern with no variation and the only one really playing anything different is the guitar player. You could not pay me enough to be the drummer or the bassist on any of those bands. In that case what the "back up" musicians are playing could be considered the money beat but man I would die of boredom within the first song I would much rather be a broke metal drummer than hate playing drums.

I see a lot of commenters here just putting down any drumming style they don't like (myself included probably).
I get it a lot of people don't like metal, guess what? some of us don't like bands like The Beatles, or most of the bands from that time frame... because we simple didn't find them appealing, the style is not enjoyable to us, and yes I get it a lot of more modern bands took their queues from them and their contemporaries, just like they themselves took in from their own influences. But drumming is about enjoying what you play, so if you enjoy those styles great, if you don't, then play what you like. I like fast metal drumming, Ringo doesn't play that so there you have it.
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You're describing me and my blues band! Money beat and appropriate fills. I get very excited when groove leans towards a little NOLA 2nd line. But that's the tradition of blues and I like to listen to blues. The original rockers liked blues too. The Beatles. The Stones. Eric Clapton took it to another level. And jazz evolved from blues. I appreciate classic blues.

But there is something to be said for the points you're making, Doggy. I'm a published writer. Fiction, stage plays, and poetry. I don't much like poetry before the 20th century. That might be analogous to your opinion of blues and playing drums in a blues band. I read a lot of mid 20th century poetry. Frank O'Hara is my go-to poet. His poems might be said to be on fringe of "Olympic", but not pushing it the way, say, Ginsberg did. Ginsberg I might equate his poetry to Olympic drummers. John Ashbery, too. But I enjoy Ashbery's Olympic poems much more so than Ginsberg. There seems, to me, to be more life and purpose to Ashbery than Ginsburg. To me like Buddy Rich (Ashbery) compared to the Youtube El Estepario (Ginsberg).

About metal - I don't like it. But played live or recorded the drummer is playing what the music calls for so that's cool. So maybe my distinction is playing Olympic style just so people will watch on Youtube, vs playing with a band and playing what the music requires, which crosses all genres blues jazz rock country gospel metal punk etc.

And we're leaving out some of the most talented and schooled PERCUSSIONISTS - those well schooled and learned musicians who play in orchestras. That's gotta be the most boring gig ever. I played in my share of orchestras and wind ensembles back in the day. That's when I had to read music (another long thread lol). I might count 64+ measures on a piece just to get to place where I did 4 quarter notes on snare. Or maybe a 5 stroke roll. I was very excited if we played 1812 Overture and I got the snare part. Or a Shostakovich symphony and I had the tympani part. No blast beats required and percussion parts most often very boring, but the music as an ensemble was breathtaking and rewarding to be a part of. Which may be where I contradict you, Doggy. Some of us enjoy playing simple parts and complimenting the major melodic components of the music be it blues or in the extreme orchestra. Maybe I should do a Youtube video sorta antithesis of El Estepario with a typical orchestral percussion part with me just counting measures for 10 minutes just to do one cymbal splash at the end.
 
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Frank Godiva said:
“Some of the most revered players in history could hardly execute at all in the scholastic rudimental sense. What they did to an extraordinary degree was relate to the musical situation at hand, and to comment with their instruments in a unique and individual manner.

This is a far more effective means of becoming indispensable than striving to be a drum athlete.”- Jim Chapin

jazzprofiles.blogspot.com

Dave Tough: 1908 -1948

A blog about Jazz featuring CD,and book reviews and postings about the music and its makers.
jazzprofiles.blogspot.com jazzprofiles.blogspot.com
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Yes - but I think it's good to keep in mind that that quote comes from a man that codified a then new level of extremely technically challenging approach to independence that became foundational to the whole language of jazz drum set playing that followed.

I take what he said to mean that facility doesn't trump musicality - and it doesn't. All the facility in the world won't make an unmusical drummer valuable.

But I think the danger comes from those that want to imagine that then facility doesn't matter.... just musicality. Facility is the tool with which we express our musicality. All music requires the drummer to have some facility - some music requires more facility. Attempting to play music beyond with out the necessary facility renders the fruit of our musical expression - stunted, laden, ponderous - basically unmusical. We might have it in our sole, but if we don't also have the necessary tools in our hands and feet - nobody is going to hear what we are trying to express.

I just cringe when I see quotes like that - because they so often get paraphrased into "Jim Chapin said technique doesn't matter" - which isn't what he is saying at all.

As for Davey Tough - like so many influential drummers, I've always heard him as one with incredible musicality with more than enough chops to pull it off. But in my book, that makes him more similar, than different to Buddy, Max, Tony, Weckl, etc.... as I've never heard a drummer play anything that I couldn't hear as a legitimate expression of their musicality...

youtube.com

âï¸ Davey Tough Solo

44 seconds · Clipped by David Crigger · Original video "DAVE TOUGH -Rare Records" by Billy Ponzio Jazz
youtube.com youtube.com
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
...
the Gravity Blast is just as musically important as the Purdy shuffle....and both used in the wrong place and time are just as bad
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...ohhh...I want to develop a Purdy Blast....wait...isn't that DrumN'Bass?
 
Otto said:
...ohhh...I want to develop a Purdy Blast....wait...isn't that DrumN'Bass?
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I will have to check out Drum'nBass....I have never heard that before (that I know of)

but that would be an interesting combo/texture!!!!
 
I think it really depends on what you see the function of the drum solo is. I recall Beato analyzing different forms of elements of surprise. He gave one example disordered drums to ordered drums. He gave Rush's "Spirit in the Radio" as an example.

I like that interpretation. I think it is interesting that Native American music and their proclivity for 4/4 quarter notes often feature this exact paradigm in sneak up or ruffle dances alternating between seemingly random disordered drumming with accents to heavy 4/4.
 
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