I was once told by a former employer, "They'll never replace you with a computer; no-one's invented one that can do f*** all yet..."
Your perception of YouTube/IG/TikTok drummers
- Thread starter bermuda
- Start date
MattRitter
Senior Member
You pose an interesting question, Bermuda, but I think you might be making the mistake of assuming that other people would enjoy what you enjoy...and have the same aspirations that you would have. I say that with all due respect and no intention of criticism. We all do it. We all find something we like—perhaps a certain food—and then we feel completely baffled when other people don't care for it.
My point is...
No, I don't think we can assume that YouTube drummers are hoping that their online presence will lead to opportunities for playing in a band. It's entirely possible that they simply aren't interested in that.
I also don't think we can assume that they're only doing YouTube for the money...especially since some of them probably don't even make any money.
I think, in all likelihood, these people are doing what they do because they find some inherent value and satisfaction in it. I can image that many of them do indeed feel that it's a kind of art to rehearse something, film it, edit it, and broadcast it via YouTube.
Last edited:
Chris Whitten
Platinum Member
If you do it to any level of quality it is hard work and time consuming. I think a lot of people are doing it for money....and I also think a lot of people start making drum videos for YouTube thinking they can make money at it, when as you say, they often can't.
The sure fire way of knowing whether it's a fun hobby or an attempt at a career is seeing how many videos they put out a week. Most people trying to make money are uploading one very good quality video a week.
Chris Whitten
Platinum Member
You need a decent recording set up. You need to purchase lights and a half decent camera, then there is the time spent editing.
The fun hobbyists are using their phone for sound and vision. If it looks like decent quality and sound good, a huge effort has usually gone into it.
DrumDoug
Senior Member
Mary Spendor is not a drummer but she is a YouTube musician. She put out a video a while back saying how grateful she is that YouTube enabled her to have a music career. She talks about how she absolutely hates performing live. She records all her own music playing all the instruments and uses social media to market herself. In the good ole days she wouldn’t have pursued music because she didn’t like performing in front of people. I agree with Bermuda that playing live with other people has always been my only goal, for some people it’s not.
Chris Whitten
Platinum Member
In the days before piracy and then streaming, a lot of artists didn't play live. Song writers made a decent living staying at home, writing songs and not performing. Burt Bacharach for example is a terrible singer.
Kate Bush stopped playing live because she hated it. Kraftwerk and Steely dan didn't play live for years.
It is only with the collapse of income from records that people have 1) had to play live and 2) had to try and monetise social media like Youtube and Tik-Tok.
Personally I preferred the old model where you didn't have to wade through a mountain of mediocrity to find something well done.
Kate Bush stopped playing live because she hated it. Kraftwerk and Steely dan didn't play live for years.
It is only with the collapse of income from records that people have 1) had to play live and 2) had to try and monetise social media like Youtube and Tik-Tok.
Personally I preferred the old model where you didn't have to wade through a mountain of mediocrity to find something well done.
I know that not everyone takes up an instrument (or hobby or whatever) and continues with it into their adult life. And that's okay - they're not making an effort to expand their (temporary) pursuits.
I'm curious/fascinated as to why these players invest the effort - some of them are quite technically proficient - but don't seek the next level. Or maybe they do want to be stars and just don't know how to promote themselves in real life? Are they waiting for someone to stumble upon their video and rescue them from cyberspace?
This could be my misconception/expectation of today's youth. Are there any 40+year-old drummers emerging on YouTube?
I'm guessing she plays a 'solo' type instrument and is creating music in that context, which is fine. My interest with YT drummers is that since drums are not a solo instrument (unless you're Bozzio...), why are YT views somehow satisfying, but playing in a live situation is not?
Drumolator
Platinum Member
The only drum thing that I watch on Youtube is Sounds Like a Drum. I really like playing with other musicians live in a room (or outside).
Seems as though the assumption is a drummer with a strong social media presence is not playing live or playing with other musicians outside of their content.
How do we know these drummers aren’t playing in their local scene or working on other projects that aren’t featured on their channels?
JimmyM
Diamond Member
Nope, they had a guy who went to The Offspring last year and now Grayson is there.
brady
Platinum Member
For me personally, I think that is the perfect balance of success and public demand...to make a comfortable living playing music while still remaining relatively anonymous.
doggyd69b
Platinum Member
I go back to the example of Stevie T, (a phenomenal guitar player) who, was invited to play for Dragon Force, an internationally touring working band. He declined because of anxiety. but in reality he has over 2 million subscribers so he is making a very decent living working from home, he even has a video of buying a new house and jeez it's a very nice house for such a dorky guy, but more power to him.
Now if we go to YouTube drummers, 66Samus is one of them who did not start in YouTube, he was playing in several bands then went the YouTube route. To this day several bands have asked him to join, but he has declined the offers citing health issues. The reality, he is making a decent living (not to the level of Stevie T but still a decent living) and he has collaborated with several artists including Devin Townsend, he also offers lessons and his services as a session musician so he is for all intents and purposes still a working musician who also happens to be a successful YouTuber.
Another example is Ola Englund, he started kind of both bands and YouTube around the same time, and for a while was touring with those bands. Then he got married and family took precedence, he started his guitar company and now does YouTube full time and has said that he has no desire to tour anymore. He is perfectly happy writing and producing everything himself.
A good point. I would suggest that based on their penchant for exposure, they would be heavily promoting such outside work.
Seafroggys
Silver Member
I know in the case of Meytal Cohen, people tried to dig up proof of any live footage for years, and they were only able to find a couple of clips, and nothing else. Not even any credits for being on a recording or a band or anything. This was a few years before Covid so maybe things with her have changed. Its a common trend.
There is one that comes to mind. I forget her name, but she's like known as the drumming grandma or something. Been invited to be on Drumeo too. I'm pretty sure she got famous solely because of youtube and social media, I had never heard of her prior to that.
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX
Local Boob
yep...thanks to the whole "me first"/look at me culture of social media
the drum things I watch the most on Utube are drum and bugle corps and indoor drumline videos. I also sometimes watch the play through videos by some of the younger touring drummers.
but I also will always choose playing with other musicians, and would NEVER even think of posting any kind of videos of me playing by myself b/c it would bore me to watch (so why would other people want to do it...), and I don't have the time or energy to learn how to do all of the technology to do it right
dcrigger
PRO DRUMMER
So not really disagreeing with you pre se - more just adding my 2 cents....
Why and when did Burt choose to perform live?
First money was never the motivator at all. After his incredible early 60's rise to the top of the songwriter heap - and the giant disaster that happened at pinnacle of that rise (The big budget flop of the musical remake of the classic movie, "Lost Horizions" - Burt was to a great degree burnt out. Basically disenchanted with continuing to the pursuit of writing hit songs that had driven him throughout the previous 15 years. So he retreated into sort-of retirement... playing tennis.... ultimately bored out of his mind. Some close friends kept saying "Burt, why don't get out and play - like play Vegas". To which he would scoff - "and do what? Go out on stage and write a song???".
But the fact is - before Burt was the successful songwriter - he was top level pianist and musical director/conductor for some really big acts. And he was a far more than competent arranger. So taking a big pile of his hit songs - he concocted a full length show with full orchestra featuring him playing piano, conducting new arrangements and medleys of his hits. Lots were done as instrumentals - with bits of vocal interjections made by a trio of girl singers.... with Burt singing a bit here and there. Choosing bits that he could sing effectively in a sort of quirky song-writer singing their own stuff... all Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, etc.... "Writer's prerogative" he used to refer to it as.
And so, from about '68 to the early 80's - he performed live and made albums in this same sort of style as an artist for A&M Records.
Then it was future wife, Carole Bayer Sager, that got him to re-engage with pursuing writing pop hits - leading to "That's What Friends Are For", "On My Own", "Arthur's Theme", etc.
And so he remained engaged in pursuing writing new stuff until his passing - but also had come to enjoy getting to share his songs directly with an audience as well. Along the way - the sort of orchestral instrumental approach was abandon in favor of a more pop style touring ensemble - with three lead singers, two keys, two horns, bass and drums. He still did appearances with orchestras - but it was now more like any pop act approving with an orchestra.
Personally I got to play in both eras - and found both challenging and rewarding - though any different ways.
None of which to say - that Burt wasn't a horrible singer.... he was. Just that it was never something he sold himself as - and his move to live playing far pre-dated the later shifts that our industry has gone through.
I mean, of course, the onset of the technology of recording is what drove things to that place. Because obviously it hadn't been that way before.... since the day's of the troubadours - artists sang live "for their supper". Recording technology changed that.
And for awhile - for as long as the big companies controlled the entire process - recording, manufacturing, marketing and distribution (which they controlled because all aspects were expensive). But now, just as technology threatened to destroy the economic viability of live performance - which it basically did (Record companies routinely subsidized touring throughout the 70's and 80's). Now technology has stripped control of all aspects except probably marketing - and thus, just like the radio orchestras of old, we are suffering through a major upheaval.
I can't say I'm surprised - as the era of recording money totally dominating the industry was only around for 30 years, give or take.
None of which is to say it doesn't suck
Burt Bacharach isn't really a good example for the point you are making.
Why and when did Burt choose to perform live?
First money was never the motivator at all. After his incredible early 60's rise to the top of the songwriter heap - and the giant disaster that happened at pinnacle of that rise (The big budget flop of the musical remake of the classic movie, "Lost Horizions" - Burt was to a great degree burnt out. Basically disenchanted with continuing to the pursuit of writing hit songs that had driven him throughout the previous 15 years. So he retreated into sort-of retirement... playing tennis.... ultimately bored out of his mind. Some close friends kept saying "Burt, why don't get out and play - like play Vegas". To which he would scoff - "and do what? Go out on stage and write a song???".
But the fact is - before Burt was the successful songwriter - he was top level pianist and musical director/conductor for some really big acts. And he was a far more than competent arranger. So taking a big pile of his hit songs - he concocted a full length show with full orchestra featuring him playing piano, conducting new arrangements and medleys of his hits. Lots were done as instrumentals - with bits of vocal interjections made by a trio of girl singers.... with Burt singing a bit here and there. Choosing bits that he could sing effectively in a sort of quirky song-writer singing their own stuff... all Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, etc.... "Writer's prerogative" he used to refer to it as.
And so, from about '68 to the early 80's - he performed live and made albums in this same sort of style as an artist for A&M Records.
Then it was future wife, Carole Bayer Sager, that got him to re-engage with pursuing writing pop hits - leading to "That's What Friends Are For", "On My Own", "Arthur's Theme", etc.
And so he remained engaged in pursuing writing new stuff until his passing - but also had come to enjoy getting to share his songs directly with an audience as well. Along the way - the sort of orchestral instrumental approach was abandon in favor of a more pop style touring ensemble - with three lead singers, two keys, two horns, bass and drums. He still did appearances with orchestras - but it was now more like any pop act approving with an orchestra.
Personally I got to play in both eras - and found both challenging and rewarding - though any different ways.
None of which to say - that Burt wasn't a horrible singer.... he was. Just that it was never something he sold himself as - and his move to live playing far pre-dated the later shifts that our industry has gone through.
Reflecting on this last sentence. Looking back - I think the age you and I sort of came up in - where live performances had become primarily a way to market recordings. And where recordings were the primary generator of an artist's revenue may have actually historically been the anomaly.
I mean, of course, the onset of the technology of recording is what drove things to that place. Because obviously it hadn't been that way before.... since the day's of the troubadours - artists sang live "for their supper". Recording technology changed that.
And for awhile - for as long as the big companies controlled the entire process - recording, manufacturing, marketing and distribution (which they controlled because all aspects were expensive). But now, just as technology threatened to destroy the economic viability of live performance - which it basically did (Record companies routinely subsidized touring throughout the 70's and 80's). Now technology has stripped control of all aspects except probably marketing - and thus, just like the radio orchestras of old, we are suffering through a major upheaval.
I can't say I'm surprised - as the era of recording money totally dominating the industry was only around for 30 years, give or take.
None of which is to say it doesn't suck
Her band is Meytal, no gigs listed on her site.
Looked up Cobus, he's still promoting his instruction DVDs, which is fine. I have no problems with teachers. But no gigs listed on his site either. My teachers were all working drummers, not just working teachers.
Anika Nilles actually has gigs and events posted. Props to her for not stopping at YT with her creativity.
MaskingApathy
Member
I think Meytal had a band at some point but it didn't really go anywhere. She had a baby recently so that's her main focus now.
Dorothea Taylor, she's great.