But you were working-- that happened on a professional gig. People get caught up thinking that these finer points of musicianship are a prerequisite for even daring to venture out of the practice room.
Oh yeah, see what you mean. I always forget how much folks draw this big line between the "professional gig" and ever thing that comes before that. Certainly I can see how when looking forward towards the professional thing, it might seem that way. But I can honestly say for me - looking back - it doesn't seem that way at all. The whole time since the first time anyone asked me to play with them - for me, probably when in middle school, the modern dance teacher had an idea that maybe a student drummer could play something like this one section of a piece on Henry Mancini's "Hatari" soundtrack (Shelly Manne playing pseudo jungle drums on the set) and whatever else they could come up with for this modern dance piece - Ta Da!!! - my first gig! (Actually my first "road" gig - as that dance troupe performed that piece at all of the local elementary schools over the next few months) - then being asked to play with a rock band, then asked to play for a musical (that wasn't part of normal class work) - then a little later getting calls for wedding gigs, then the Ellis band, then more local jazz groups, some touring, sessions, etc. on and on.
And they were all exactly the same - here's an opportunity to play. Do well at it and more will likely follow. The pre-professional opportunities were no less important than the professional ones - in fact the parade of non-professional ones lead directly, seamless to the professional ones.
And to your point - there's no prerequisites. Beyond getting someone to ask you to play with you - then probably more important, making it so they want to play with you again. None of us ever have it all together - it simply isn't possible. So we just put out there what we are able to do - and play with whoever that level of skill "buys" us. For me, always being inspired to play better, so I could play with bettering better players.
To me, it just seems like like one solitary path...
Me too, I never had actual lessons on drumset with a really great teacher. Most of what I know I had to figure out from playing and being around people, mostly after I was out of school.
I get kind of arrogant about it-- like, you had 8 years of lessons with great drummer X, how come I play better than you?
I think there's a belief among students (and hopefully not teachers) that you can learn to play drums, the way one learns to be an engineer... or a doctor. I mean, take all of the classes, all of the tutelage and you can become a doctor - that's how you become a doctor.
But with drumming, no one can take us step be step through the vocabulary building process - the sheer amount of musical listening, the playing with records, the early playing with ensembles. Add to that - it is not a definitive set of skills. Unlike being a doctor - players ( particularly jazz/pop/rock/etc players) create their musical personalities from their personal course of study.
Lessons, instruction, etc. on drum set is excellent - for laying out basics - teaching rhythm, basic hand /feet coordination, etc. - all with the goal of just greasing the wheels for the inevitable self-study that must happen... At least IMO.