State your unpopular drumming opinions

Tbonez

Member
I've have controversial views on a few drumming topics. I will add mine, please add yours...

1) Natural talent is virtually 80% of the game...I've seen 10 year old kids smoke me and I've been playing 25 years. These kids have skill, time awareness and coordination that is not possible from "hard work" alone at only 10 to 12 years old. You can be "great if you practice enough" is a sales line used by drum instructors. You can master an instrument technically but you will never have "it"...

2) Snare price points...As long as you buy a quality snare there isnt much difference in a $300 snare and a $1,000 snare (as long as they are the same material size, etc).

3) The vast majority of peoples practice time is wasted. They have no plan and achieve very little. Practice doesnt make perfect...Perfect practice makes perfect.

4)99% of players play too much/over the top and the music suffers because of it. That sick lick you just pulled...No one cares but the other drummer sitting in the back.

5) 99% of drums sound like crap and dont sound like the recordings everyone is striving to achieve. Tuning and heads only matters to the extent you get the tone/attack/sustain you desire but it wont make your kit sound beautiful. In 20 years I've listened to two kits that have sounded "beautiful" live. They were both vintage kits from the 60s. They were lightening in a bottle and everyone that heard them knew they were something special. They were both owned by studios and had been offered major money for them and they wouldnt let them go. The beautiful drum sound we hear on records have been compressed, eq-ed, gated, filtered and sounds nothing like a real live acoustic drum set.
 
The point is not to disagree with me. The views are supposed to be unpopular. The idea is to add your own unpopular opinions..
 
1) Bonham was over-rated
2) Cymbal brand allegiance is 90% vanity

I agree with 1-3 of yours, though I'd haggle with you on the percentage of number 1 (I'd say nearer 60%)
 
1) In the 1970s Tama/Hoshino revolutionized the drum kit with well built hardware.

2) DW/Camco lugs are the ugliest piece of hardware every put on a drum shell.

3) The hardware of a modern, quality drum kit (lugs, mounts, stands, pedals, etc.) matter more than the build of the shells.

4) Cymbals made from ingots are not better than cymbals made from sheets.
 
1) In the 1970s Tama/Hoshino revolutionized the drum kit with well built hardware.

2) DW/Camco lugs are the ugliest piece of hardware every put on a drum shell.

3) The hardware of a modern, quality drum kit (lugs, mounts, stands, pedals, etc.) matter more than the build of the shells.

4) Cymbals made from ingots are not better than cymbals made from sheets.


Agree with all of these...In regards to your first point I will add another controversial view...

Tama is still the leader in quality hardware. Every time I pull a piece of Tama gear out of a box I'm immediately struck by the quality for the price. No other brand outside of high end customs gives me the same impression.
 
Almost every (if not all) my ideas are unpopular on drumming and music, the only subject I studied with intensity for about 50 years of my life.


On the other hand, all the other ideas I have about things I didn´t study and I know nothing about are popular. I wonder why? Hahaha!


Best regards!
 
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2) Cymbal brand allegiance is 90% vanity

)

I won't hazard a percentage, but MOST drum brand allegiance is vanity/esthetics. Most brands offer mid-line kits that are sufficient for pro use IF the hardware can take the hardships. If I'm honest, the kit I want is not significantly better than the kit I don't want, it's just that I like it. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as I don't pretend it's rational :)
 
1) Neil Peart is/was overrated

2) The finish is just as important as build quality/Shell composition to most buyers

3) The difference between a $1500 shell pack & a $3000 shell pack sound-wise is barely noticeable
 
How about your popular opinions? What's up with the negative content.?
Take a happy pill. I guess my unpopular opinion is negative content on a drum forum.
 
It isn't hooey when it allows for more ergonomical adjustments.

I understand mounting from a stand for offset toms (which I agree is indeed quite ergonomic), if you have many toms, the kick is huge like a 26", you like your one rack tom smack in the middle, etc. I get that, and that's not what I'm saying. My issue is this idea that's been pushed that mounting toms to a kick is somehow primitive and sacrilegious to this concept of a "virgin" kick. Just the use of the word "virgin" screams evocative marketing to me.

The drum isn't even that "virgin" to begin with! It already has several dozen holes drilled into it for the lugs, spurs, and air vent; what's a few more for a mount? Does mounting a tom really affect resonance that much? And if so, does it matter? After all, it's the one drum in the entire kit subject to the most removal of resonance by muffling. Funny enough, when I see a drummer with an unmuffled, unported, resonant kick (i.e. jazz guys), more often than not the rack tom is mounted to the drum...

So I say: marketing hooey! :D
 
What's up with the negative content.?

I think we all have opinions that aren't popular and the OP was trying to create a thread where people could air them without debating them.

The most contentious I've ever heard is that "Rudiments are the cancer of drumming." There's a strong argument to be made for that statement (they replicate uncontrollably, eat up all available resources and kill everything else around them) but I've moved away from it. Studying rudiments is great if you can avoid the OCD vortex and ignore advice to play them "at all speeds".

Most of my unpopular opinions have become popular over the years, or I've been convinced they were wrong.

Charlie Watts is a drum god. I still have to defend that one on occasion.

And then there's a lyric from one of my band's songs, "Don't mind Zep, can't stand their fans..." That's really a tongue-in-cheek reference to the tension between garage bands playing original music and cover bands. The cover bands are usually more technically proficient and don't have much regard for the garage bands, so the garage bands like to poke fun.
 
Keith Moon is over rated.

Putting good heads on a stencil kit is a waste of money

You don't need a fancy drum seat

The species of tree used to make your drums is largely irrelevant

Pearl tom arms are perfectly acceptable

Country of manufacture is irrelevant

Odd time signatures are crap unless you or the song are so good that you can make it groove.

And finally, expressing a negative sentiment does not make for a negative post.
 
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