Scott K Fish: Would Today's Music Make Me Want to Be a Drummer?

Scott K Fish

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Scott K Fish: Would Today's Music Make Me Want to Be a Drummer?

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I rarely listen to my car radio. Music? I plug in my MP3 player. Audiobooks and podcasts? I plug in my MP3 player.

For three days this week I am driving to Florida with Eileen, in Eileen's car, and she always listen to music on her car radio. Plus, she likes to bounce between radio stations whenever one is playing a song she doesn't like.

To make the best of this experience I decided to listen, focus, on the drummers in all the radio songs. Something I've not done in a long, long time.

Mostly I'm hearing pop songs from the 1960's to today. Also, contemporary country.

First impression? At some point, recording techniques for drummers changed. And on contemporary pop/country music, so far, I'm hearing a sameness to the drumming. Start to finish, every drum beat, every cymbal crash is the same volume, played with metronomic sameness. I know, in some cases, I'm listening to drumming, but not a drummer.

At one point on this trip I asked myself, "If I was growing up on this music would I want to be a drummer?"

Well, I have to get back on the road for the last leg of this trip. I'll write more on this topic in a day or so.

Scott K Fish Blog: Life Beyond the Cymbals
 
Todays music wouldn't want me to listen to music. Yes I am old but I have pretty much stayed current with the music scene since the late 50's. I like a lot of different genre but in my car now most of the buttons are on talk radio. I was turned off in the late 80's. Drummer, no thanks.
 
Pop music from any generation isn't the type of stuff that is going to inspire musicians. I dont remember listening to Wham or Madonna in the 80's and thinking, wow, I really want to play the drums now. It was 80's metal that made me want to pick up a set of sticks for the first time. Kids today are experiencing a rebirth of metal in a sense, and that will definitely inspire the next generation of drummers.

Your last sentence is what hits the nail on the head. There are no drummers playing on Taylor Swift records, so of course it wouldn't inspire drummers.
 
Mostly I'm hearing pop songs from the 1960's to today.

Well, 1960's to today's music is quite a broad spectrum and I'd probably hear some drummers who'll inspire me to be a drummer within this 55 years span :)

It probably will be the very same drummers that made me want to start drumming all those years ago, lol.

At one point on this trip I asked myself, "If I was growing up on this music would I want to be a drummer?"

There's still a lot of music nowadays where drummers keeps influencing me, although I agree that I don't hear them on mainstream radio station or TV music channels.
 
Pop music never inspired me to pick up the sticks. It was always the prog or jazz or not so commercially viable music that made me say 'wow that's really cool, I'd love to be able to do that.'
The thing that would really turn me off these days is the general lack of live performance opportunities for young musicians. I just don't equate advances in technology (YouTube, video chat, file sharing etc...) to live interaction on a bandstand.
 
Well I'm a younger guy, and have only been drumming for about 8 years now, so I'd say that today's music has indeed inspired me to be a drummer.

I mean, as eclipse said, pop of any generation isn't likely to make anybody want to be a drummer. For me, it was modern rock/metal/prog that made me pick up the sticks.
 
I'm the first one to come out and say there's alot of rubbish pop floating around but I think a steady pulse (even just a lone bass drum) is enough to get any kid tapping away, it's in our genes.
 
I started playing in the late 60s and it was never "pop", we had to go looking for rock and "underground" and later, Prog. I did start playing on pots and pans in the early 60s to Beatles, Searchers, Stones etc, but realy got into it when Rock reared its ugly head.
 
Hard to say.

While it was Neil Peart that got me interested in drums, it was Keith Moon on Live at Leeds that made me want dedicate my life to drumming, and Keith had long since passed away at that point.

And what it was about Keith's performance was the dynamics, and how the drums controlled so much of the dynamics of the band's live performance.

Today, modern production, record companies and radio all add so much compression to music to make it all sound the same level, that dynamics are largely lost.
 
Today, modern production, record companies and radio all add so much compression to music to make it all sound the same level, that dynamics are largely lost.

It's very true. Many people point to Live at Leeds, or other live albums as turning points.
Are there even live albums in modern pop music?
When is the last time you heard (on the radio or even iTunes) a cut from a 'new live album' by some of todays' pop artists.....Taylor, Katy, Gaga...etc.
 
I hear a lot of people say that pop (now or then) wouldn't inspire someone to play drums, but I kind of disagree. I am assuming that, by "pop" you mean music played on mainstream radio, which is pretty all that was available to me as a kid, unless I bought a record. And I rarely bought a record unless I had heard something from it first. There were only a few radio stations out in the sticks where I grew up - AM talk radio, one FM country station and one "rock" station.


Anyway, long story short, the pop music of my youth did indeed inspire me to play. We're an American Band, Birthday, Cherokee People, Just Like Me, Witchy Woman, Hotel California, Rock and Roll All Night, Calling Dr. Love, The Logical Song, Bennie and the Jets, No Time, American Woman, Black Magic Woman, Carry On my Wayward Son, Baba O'Reilly... those were all songs in which I loved the drum parts, and they were "pop" music in my youth. They didn't have to have musically complex drumming to inspire me - the songs were individualistic and identifiable, fascinating and fun. And yes, you could tap your foot to it.

As for today, it's harder to find, perhaps, but there is still SOME interesting stuff that might inspire me.
 
I was told by a 50 year old sound guy the other day that because I watched The Wrecking Crew I was living in the past, Huh? So I gave the DVD to a 16 year old bass player I know and he really dug it. Conclusion -- musicians dig music,sound and production people dig money. They can have there doof doof, because it is in the genes, you are right Duck.
 
IMO, no. Today's pop music seems all about the vocalist. DrumEatDrum had it right when he said "Today, modern production, record companies and radio all add so much compression to music to make it all sound the same level, that dynamics are largely lost." Thus the importance of all accompanying musicians has been diminished. Sorry to be so cynical, maybe I'm wrong, but something sure has changed.
 
IMO, no. Today's pop music seems all about the vocalist. DrumEatDrum had it right when he said "Today, modern production, record companies and radio all add so much compression to music to make it all sound the same level, that dynamics are largely lost." Thus the importance of all accompanying musicians has been diminished. Sorry to be so cynical, maybe I'm wrong, but something sure has changed.

Yea, but music has been heavily compressed for decades. Classical music not so much, if at all. Its the music that inspires me first, If it has great drumming then thats just a bonus, but if the song is not great I dont care what the drumming is like.

There are lots of technically great musicians out there but if they dont have great songs to inspire us, we will never hear of them. Its the overall sound that counts.
 
Coming up in the 60s and 70s I was in RnR heaven with a catchy melody, a catchy riff, some sweaty oaf screaming like a banshee and a guitarist diddling away on the fretboard almost as though he was pulling himself.

If I was growing up today I'm sure my tastes would have probably been just as crass :)
 
Really, mainstream pop music from any era isn't going to be very creative or original. Two of the most popular songs from the 50's were "How much is that doggy in the window" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" Neither of those would have inspired me to be a drummer.

In the sixties everything was the same three backing bands with different singers. Plenty of good stuff, but not much diversity. Recordings were all made the same way as each other, with the same musicians and producers.

In the 2010's this continues. And as always, there's some really good, classic stuff, and a lot of copycat rubbish. Same as always.

So - today's mainstream music would inspire me just as much as any other decade.
 
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