Too Many Song Writers Not Enough Players

Finding time to write creative and intelligent drum parts can be a challenge. There is always an inspiration but does it depend on the ability of the individual, who is fluid and comfortable playing alone or the other who needs stimulus from other musicians?

Is this also down to the style of  music we play, how we identify with our chosen instrument and the way music influences us in our lives?

Finding inspiration can be a challenge too, depending on external pressures, work, relationships, finance, peer's and mental health; all can enhance as well debilitate one's own pursuit of the perfect groove. This of course doesn't even involve the environmental logistics and problematic storage and build of drums and their sound, a complex and sometimes more ridiculous "put off" to playing at all.

When writing a song, some would argue that extending a complimentary arrangement of  beats and rhythms is merely enough, unless of course you can write music and play other instruments too, never the less there are many who don't play other instruments but can write out and follow drum notation yet struggle with arranging a complete song. I have struggled for years under this category, having ideas and formula's but no real way of effectively directing these plans to a guitarist or other members of a band. I have been lucky on the other hand to have musicians who know my style, interest's, ability and thought process who have worked with me for years, therefore the frustrations over time have been less.

I'm not going to lie, I have been guilty of being lazy. I have not bothered in the past to want to learn even the basics of guitar, it's totally alien to me so I'll never get it, even after years of attention it will never be good enough to write with. However with a keyboard these ideas suddenly become more tangible. I never had any music lessons or music software till pretty recently but now that I do I have found a way to capture the essence of my thoughts and better express my musical voice.

Even after having these aids available I must admit that my nature is more of a jam drummer. I have a greater ability and enjoyment playing live in a room with other musicians that sat at a computer. Does this equate to the genre of music in question? I'm not a Dub step artist, I'm a rock and metal drummer, so the need to play live is higher surely than the a fore mentioned.

Still, at the same time there is the old question that there are too many song writers not enough players! I have had the experience of both bad and extreme highs of each scenario and its probably more individual to each circumstance. Every band finds its own groove and way of doing things, being at the back of  the room, metaphorically speaking - like the goalkeeper analogy, we can see and usually hear the whole package; for good and the bad!

Perhaps there are too many bands, musicians, singers, artists etc who think that they know best and that they can write anything and it will be successful! After all, the media does tell us we can do it, make some money, have some fame and enjoy the good life for some small years even without talent. It's not like I'm that old either, I can appreciate a world without downloads, Facebook, You Tube and endless media platforms offering all these "golden" promises to still remember that it was about gigging, doing the donkey work and being social: Without the internet.

I might be bitter and slightly nostalgic but being a drummer over the years has changed little really. I still firmly believe that playing live, writing music with friends and meeting new people is the best feeling in the world. It's not intended to be a lonely pursuit, it's part of the sum.

I love playing and I have not even begun to start learning. I'm always thinking and trying new things, being around others, listening to other people and developing my ear at the same time as my composure.

Inspiration is all around us, I write down my thoughts, talk a lot! I breath off others, read, watch and take in as much as I can. I am not a naturally optimistic person, in fact I'm sort of proud of my Tragic Melancholic label.

There are too chief's and not enough Indians sometimes. Less can be more! My conclusion is that we need to talk more, using an online community and friendship is healthy with that being matched outside the virtual world.

Writing a song is one of the most challenging but rewarding experiences I have ever had.

Get out there and do it!

You Tube: The Drummers Achilles Heel?

You Tube has a growing viewing platform of millions

I love You tube, it has transformed the way in which we view music, video’s, film and interests from the sheer bizarre to the down right evil. Search for anything and it’s probably there. I have!

You tube is a huge market, its free, has a global audience, it’s a great way to advertise and sell a product – it is a multi-layered facility to reach a large population and can make an artist, or anyone with a little nous, make a lot of money. See Psy – Gangnam Style!

I am particularly interested in where this will go and how big it will get? I use You Tube mostly to watch music video's and I also use it as an educational tool to research certain pieces, styles and techniques in drumming. I am fascinated with it but I also can’t escape the dark nature rearing up.

I am, depending where your disposition lies; unfortunately under the category that see’s You Tube as a negative quality. I come across a lot of video’s that are more in the low budget concept of trying to adulate and comply with more feeling about the original artist rather than their own ability.

I am not pointing out that making your own video’s and posting them on You Tube is necessarily a bad thing, except for all the negative “traffic” and haters you can appeal to, its more the agony of people seeming to use it as an way to under perform.

There is a lot of good that can be done, for an unknown and un-signed artist using You Tube with a quality, well thought out and focused video it can transform the identity of the everyday struggler to a welcome city of blinding lights. Is this all gold or a hidden Midas touch?

John Bonham. The Greatest?

History lesson:

Many drummers out there of an older generation will cite that they grew up on artists they could only hear and read about. Many video’s if they had any before the 1980’s, were poor in production and certainly not the calibre you would use to study a style or trick of your favourite drummers! Not to mention the availability of these video’s, many were recorded from the audience perspective and the drum solo was usually obscured by the very instrument you wanted to see being played!

Many consider and I certainly agree that Bonham and Moon are two of the best drummers of their generations and still regarded the same today. 

Keith Moon. Drumming Icon.

When you look at drummers like Stewart Copeland and Neil Peart, it is a lot easier to gain footage of them playing as the video market was and is growing. Their performances can be easily sourced, they are recent enough in their careers and are still playing to have a lot of material available but who did Messrs Peart and Copeland study in Video’s? What of Buddy Rich, Ginger Baker and Gene Kruper? There was no internet, no You Tube and no real platform to access these performers except in person perhaps?

It was always the humble recordings for such legends.

What though turned them into drummers and what or who were their inspirations? 

My early fascination was with Nicko Mcbrain and his predecessor Clive Burr of Iron Maiden. I felt a certain amount of affinity with both as they were both English, like me, but it was because I caught, ironically, the video for Can I Play with Madness? when I was 11. I didn’t know it when I was younger but I was aware of Iron Maiden because of the artwork and had an older brother who, at the time of 1984 had all four first albums on display to give me nightmares!

Nicko Mcbrain - In flight!

I was transfixed with them, once I moved on from the horror of Eddie I quickly gained and listened through all their back catalogues; studying  particularly songs like the Ides of March, Killers, Run to the Hills, The Prisoner, Where Eagles Dare, Powerslave, Wasted Years and Caught Somewhere in Time.

I spent thousands of hours pouring myself over vinyl and cassette tape listening over and over how to play them, what made the sounds and how they might have played them. I couldn’t easily access the actual performance unless I bought a VHS video or bought a ticket and saw them in concert. I was only 11!

As I grew older I found out that Mr Mcbrain was inspired by the great Joe Morello and was taking a lead from Jazz like a lot of the afore mentioned.

Contemporary music has a much shorter memory but I can see how a lot of the older generation grew from swing and Jazz, Big Bands - where the drumming usually wasn’t the centre piece but more a control of the beat and was merely a part of the rhythm ensemble. Of course that has evolved, any music from the 1940’s to today would not be very comparable.

The Jazz man. Joe Morello

 The more there is this nature to identify with a brand or style, particularly within today’s social media and fast celebrity status, the more I begin to fear for the credibility of originality. Being schooled slowly was painful, bringing together only the basic of equipment armed only with a record player or tape player was my only resource. Though it’s questionable as to whether we would have as many successful artist’s and great drummers today without a bigger media influence, the temptation is too often to emulate faster and gain rapid fame without the need to perfect the art.

Drumming today is a modern and vibrant art from, it has a lot of household names, many colourful and successful brands competing with popular/contemporary music in general generating to a massive leisure industry.

My views are more from personal backgrounds of course but a relationship between the identity of a style rather than the desire to express more openly and develop over time; hopefully rewarded with longevity, has worryingly disappeared.

Hopefully I am proved wrong. My cynical nature is debated to the contrary. I hope too that new drummers will endeavour to research and take the time to listen to their own “voice” and become a drummer that is an individual, playing what feels natural no matter what the genre.

I love most music that has drums involved. My first love however, is rock and metal and as the genre stretches with the desire to saturate this already water shed scene I am all too often disappointed with what I hear. I don’t need You Tube to tell me how to play like Joey Jordison no matter how good or how much a slipknot fan you or I may be. I would much prefer it to not exist and have people taking more time to listening and playing in a band or with real people.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. - Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)

Love your 2013

So I embark on something new, something perhaps I should have done a long time ago? Well I'm doing it now and I am aware I’m talking to myself to reassure my conscience that I am indeed typing and not procrastinating again.

I am new but don’t be put off, I believe that in a small amount of time I can move to resource information, views, insights and general interest from the world of Rhythm and in particular; Drums!

I am not a fanatical representation but rather an enthusiast. I have built a portfolio of experiences and wider obligations, some amusing, some a little darker but a different angle to the otherwise poorly misdirected clichés of the “drummer is the idiot of the band” myth.

As a student of the drum and its associated expensive brothers and sisters, I have found my way slowly and gradually into a space where time has proved a legacy of where I wanted to go and where I’ve ended up. I frequently wear a Gas Mask while playing, not to cover my beautiful if not slightly older 36 year old face but to escape the mundane and sometimes regional pigeon holes I try and stand against.

Apparently I’m a Punk, Metal Drummer. I don’t really believe in trying to tag a style or habit but I think it is a fair criticism of my playing! I like to think that I go much further than that – indeed it’s a flat assessment of my ability but perhaps persona takes over the style? Is ability more important than a fashion? Whatever the case, I have found that I can and will exceed my own expectations. I know inside that there is much more to learn and experience.

My intentions are to assess modern rituals, make strides toward conventional and non-conventional methods. I like to look into styles and cross over artists, their influences and what they actually play. I will offer my thoughts on products and brands, fashion and talent. Where there is a story for the drum community I shall offer a path into the Emerald City!

Dead beats is a melancholic, probably lavishly over indulgent vehicle but offers an alternative look into what people perceive. Challenge by very definition is to respond to identify oneself or an object.

There is no bad or good, there’s just opinion!