I've posed this question many times-musicality-taste. You can be accomplished technically but have no musicality I believe. Like playing a song rote sight reading with no emotion or feeling just seems dead-musicians animate a song with their own personalities. I see that some get really caught up in chops or the technicalities of it-no criticism if can use it musically. But I think sometimes you can miss the forest for the trees getting so caught up on being technically proficient and dazzling playing that you miss the songs needs. Andy reminds me of that with my videos and I get carried away with my kick- I should just play the song but I want to embellish or I forget about it and it goes into an autopilot. It's distracting at times-so knowing how and when to use something musically just separates us I think. I experiment a lot trying to find my musicality but it just doesn't flow natural it seems.-but it is improving I think. Art is the same way-you have to be clever with symbolism and creative in how you convey a message in subtle ways if that is your intent. You can make a statement with the song or in the song. Buddy Rich made a statement in the song-Charlie Watts made a statement with the song.
I think that someone who is truly accomplished technically HAS to have also ingrained the musical reasons behind learning a specific technique.
I also feel there is musical/artistic direction to ANY kind of playing, regardless of whether it is "tolerable"....
The big issue I have always seen - and not only in drums - is that it is split into 2 factions
(hmm....sounds like other aspects of our lives...)
faction one: technique is bad, and not important; feel is good
faction two: feel is "uneducated", technique is paramount
and BOTH factions are completely incorrect...
the BEST players have equal amounts of both, and one needs the other to exist
To become an artist, you have to understand how the art piece is built...even the most outlandish, avante-garde artistic endeavor started in knwoledge of the fundamentals, and then how to tear them up, or break them
so to necome a more musical drummer, you need to study AS MANY ELEMENTS AS YOU CAN about your art, and not shun any of them
case in point: I can not stand to use Musser grip on mallet instruments;
hate it; so uncomfortable....BUT...I had to learn it and use it to understand that..AND.. to understand how Musser used it to come up with some great marimba literature that was written around using that grip; AND it helped me understand why Stevens came up with his grip and I now know why I like Stevens better than Musser...AND, all of that knowledge helpd me get in touch with, and learned how to manipulate my smaller finger muscles which DIRECTLY related to my playing on drum set
^^^^ that all invovled knowledge of technique, to make my artistic/musical playing better