Enjoyment vs. Ability

T

TMe

Senior Member
Does the following graph match your experience at all?

The idea is taken from golf, where people half jokingly say that the better you get, the less you enjoy the game.
As a beginner, it's great fun. Then there's the trough of mediocrity, where you're good enough to be credible but... you still sorta suck.
Amateurs can get to that stage, but very few can equal the pro's who have a lot more training, practice time, and musical experience.

If you can relate to this, how do stay in that slump without becoming frustrated or discouraged?

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Continue to be unconcerned with your credibility maybe? I’m not much of a R Beato supporter but one thing he said stuck with me, that one of the things we love about some of our music heroes is that sometimes and only rarely but sometimes they are flying by the seat of their pants, barely squeezing out a phrase. (Risking their credibility iow)
 
Avoid the slump. Be happy with who you are and your abilities. Don't be jealous. Play in bands with people you like.

90% of golfers never break 90. It's true. Doesn't stop them from playing the game with their friends on weekends. They are the golfers that smile the most and will let you play through. It's the other 10% that are uptight that take forever to play act like they're on the Tour and get mad if you want to play through.

Same could be true of drummers. The 90% that DON'T participate in forums like this. Just the average Joanne or Joe who plays a beat up Gretsch Cat on weekends at the local bar who just enjoy playing smile a lot play for beer money don't read charts don't care if they're sticking isn't exactly what was played on the original recording they're covering and never hit that trough. It's that 10% like people on here and other forums who hit that low point.
 
Luckily it's an art form and not a sport, so ability isn't the only basis for deciding someone's any good at it.

Appreciate what you can do. People need to listen to some music at the level they're at-- or at a level they can conceivably achieve in the not too long term. Somebody could be sounding pretty good in Phil Rudd terms, but if they're only listening to Antonio Sanchez, they're not going to appreciate it.
 
I'm still waiting for that rise like on the chart ;)

I've gotten better, in small ways. I recognize it occasionally. And I'm enjoying myself pretty much as much as anytime playing. The only times I'm not enjoying myself is not related to the playing, but the business side of things, or personality conflicts. Fortunately, both don't occur much in my world, recently.
 
I think the trough represents the time where you realize you need to improve and that can happen at different stages for drummers. I think that’s overly simplified though, if I was graphing out my enjoyment over time it would look like lots of troughs along the way, a big one would exist but I think the constant thing for us is going stale, getting frustrated, working hard and overcoming it before falling back into a trough when we find new challenges.
 
I recognize and identify with this chart. I fully enjoyed just playing rock drums as a self-taught drummer for years. Then, I went to college and studied my butt off. I still enjoyed music, and the pursuit of getting better, but things got a bit “heady” for me, and I lost touch with the emotional connection to music that had drawn me to it in the first place. It took me a few years to get that emotional connection back, and once I did, life was good again. During that time of learning/unlearning/relearning, I was in the “enjoyment slump” of that graph, wondering if I was ever going to find the joy in music (and life) ever again. I found my way through, and here I am, enjoying every moment of playing again. It truly is a pleasure!
 
the fact that I know that I will never know everythign there is to know about drumming/music keeps me going. The constant evolution of the activity is enough to help me avoid slumps

my goal was never to "be done", or master drumming. My goal was to float along with it, and experience all of the many facets and changes.

Developing ability IS my enjoyment
 
I think it happens really quick to a lot of people and not so much for others. The short way to put it is you start to get enough knowledge to understand the deeper aspects of drumming and see what you're doing wrong, but don't have the skill-set caught up to your understanding yet.

It's a natural curve in any deep or complicated task. Getting good enough to see that you suck is just something that you have to get past, that or give up, a LOT of people just give up on things that they realize they aren't virtuosos naturally at... And this still applies to those who we would consider to have natural talent, probably even more so because that natural talent carries them further before they start to realize that they've only scratched at the surface of a very big lake.
 
I've always tried to focus on the music. I get enjoyment from playing music, especially with other people.
I get down on myself, I get frustrated. I once attended a Zildjian day with Dennis Chambers and Simon Phillipps and apart from leaving with a headache, I wanted to throw my sticks on the fire and give up.
But once I'm playing a simple groove in a song and everyone is smiling - it's all good.
 
Chris Whitten said:
I've always tried to focus on the music. I get enjoyment from playing music, especially with other people.
I get down on myself, I get frustrated. I once attended a Zildjian day with Dennis Chambers and Simon Phillipps and apart from leaving with a headache, I wanted to throw my sticks on the fire and give up.
But once I'm playing a simple groove in a song and everyone is smiling - it's all good.
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Was that the Zildjian day in London in 1993? If it was I remember it well!!
 
Enjoyment and ability aren't necessarily related. You can enjoy things you aren't very good at and hate things you really are good at.
 
GetAgrippa said:
Enjoyment and ability aren't necessarily related. You can enjoy things you aren't very good at and hate things you really are good at.
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Yup. I'm REALLY good at washing dishes, but I hate it.

I don't know if I really buy into the graph totally, but I can see some value in it. I think for me, it would look more like an EKG reading over and over again due to the learning process.
 
Maybe it's all a trough, beginning middle and end. There's always something wrong, needs fixing, maintaining. You're always deciding what you can change, what you can't, and going forward despite frustration.
 
Chris Whitten said:
I've always tried to focus on the music. I get enjoyment from playing music, especially with other people.
I get down on myself, I get frustrated. I once attended a Zildjian day with Dennis Chambers and Simon Phillipps and apart from leaving with a headache, I wanted to throw my sticks on the fire and give up.
But once I'm playing a simple groove in a song and everyone is smiling - it's all good.
Click to expand...
That's it. Exactly. Playing a simple groove in a song and everyone is smiling - it's all good. That avoids the dip. Just have fun.
 
toddbishop said:
Luckily it's an art form and not a sport, so ability isn't the only basis for deciding someone's any good at it.
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Brilliant post (would love to be able to remember it someday at a dinner party conversation).

I think if anyone were to ask a producer, singer or songwriter if they care to have the winner of the WFD contest in their band, we'd know the answer.
 
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Embrace the slump!

Be aware that this is how we learn...apply the idea to all your endeavors...succeed and seek happiness outside of high/low difficulty experience.

Always wanting happiness from something is the sure way to destroy it...but maximizing happiness is do-able.
 
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