Drumming as expression of personality

Technical wankery
Love it!

...last track on Lifetime's Emergency record, Tony W. virtually pulls off an extended solo featuring (probably!) every permutation of every established rudiment imaginable... but I never, ever heard the rudiments, or patterns, I just always simply heard this intense, captivating, compounding, driving pure invention. The rudiments are being simply "used". I'm not aware of them. I'm aware of what he's saying!!! And since he was the artist he was it was thoroughly captivating and beautiful.-GHusband

Well said...very well said. This is it...the difference...and the personality which allows the drummer to use the vocabulary he chooses which communicates his inner working...marvelous.

I felt your deep passion in this last post Gary. You are an artist and you can't change them spots. I have come to the conclusion (stated well in many writings and some movies) that the artist's soul is both celebrated and persecuted. Sometimes it seems a curse when you have to think about the business side of money, selling product, etc.

Ditto, Klemme, amazing thread, amazing posts by everyone and that was just a really throught provoking response Gary.

Gary Novak is a player who right now is killing me, with the sound clips that Elpat posted from the joe locke recording! MAN! those hit me deep.

Personally, Now i love it when a soloists' playing creates a vibe and only allows me to focus on this vibe or feeling/emotion which is created and not on what is actually/technically being played, but more on the effect that what is being played creates....For example, when player x (technical master only) plays a solo i think holy shit he has fast clean chops but after a minute im bored and can't be bothered to listen anymore.....when say a player like vinnie takes a solo, i get excited, i feel the passion and i feel something extra....something that makes it seem as if vinnie through his soloing/playing is trying to tell us something unconsciously....its trying to create a mood..maybe unconsciously within him...but its trying....i dunno its weird but i could cry in some solos whilst others just get me really excited and happy...you know...i dont get excited and happy when i see a chops fest....then if i want to CONSCIOUSLY analyse vinnies playing technically....the chops and the speed and the cleaness is still there just like the technical drummers...but its the ideas...its why he plays that at that time and what feeling that creates that gets me hooked!

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Originally posted by PocketPlayer:
[QB][b The rudiments are being simply "used". I'm not aware of them. I'm aware of what he's saying!!! And since he was the artist he was it was thoroughly captivating and beautiful.[/b]-GHusband

Well said...very well said. This is it...the difference...and the personality which allows the drummer to use the vocabulary he chooses which communicates his inner working...marvelous.

[QB]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, its an old cliched idea but it bares repeating: Technique is like vocab, it allows you to express what you want to say. Great players have great technique because they've worked hard to be able to say everything that is inside of them. But a lot of today's players (God I sound old!) seem to have approached everything the wrong way around - they get the technique (or language) first and then look around for something to say (hence all these awful, and I do mean awful, albums in the style of Planet X, which are the equivalent of constructing a sentance purely to showcase the new words you learnt today in class).

Gary I saw you, Dennis Chambers and a shy Mark Mondesir at the Jazz Cafe a while ago, and there was, obviously, some incredible drum wizardery on display that night, more technique than a 1000 avaerage drummers combined. But I was struck by the fact that it was all a form of communication, letting out stuff the three of you had inside, technique as a means to an end not an end in itself. I;ve since seen Donati and Lang etc., and, like you I feel bad dissing them (I'm sure their very nice and what they do is undoubtedly amazing) but I didn't get the same sense of an artist trying to express himself as best he could. More like empty expression, literally playing from the limbs rather than from the heart. Lang in particular was almost TOO good, like watching a modern machine make a stone ornament rather than a craftsman working with a hammer and chisel. Faster, more efficient, more precise, better really, but rather sad and with an end product somehow of less value emotionally.

Gary, the world is a wierd place!

I grew up listening to Tony, Billy and Narada etc. Two big influences in terms of live drummers were you and Narada who I saw a thousand times in back when I was a teenager.

My technique came out of playing music I felt. Doing clinics however I have felt a growing pressure to 'turn on the theatrics'

This dilemma was shown into focus when I saw you at Drumfest (and I actually said hello and would have loved to talk to you about this.) You really played from the heart! I am now putting the music first and this is why I have posted so much on this subject.

This year I played drumfest and I tried to keep this principle in the front of my mind while playing.

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Originally posted by Andy Edwards:
Gary, the world is a wierd place!

I grew up listening to Tony, Billy and Narada etc. Two big influences in terms of live drummers were you and Narada who I saw a thousand times in back when I was a teenager.

My technique came out of playing music I felt. Doing clinics however I have felt a growing pressure to 'turn on the theatrics'

This dilemma was shown into focus when I saw you at Drumfest (and I actually said hello and would have loved to talk to you about this.) You really played from the heart! I am now putting the music first and this is why I have posted so much on this subject.

This year I played drumfest and I tried to keep this principle in the front of my mind while playing.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey Andy,

I'll look forward the next time we meet to having a drink and a chat about all of this stuff.

In the meantime, can you recommend some recorded work of yours which I can check out? Heard a lot about your playing but I'm embarrassed to say still have not heard you. I'd love to hear you.

Thanks for the feedback,


Gary

We play a musical instrument; if we're not making music, then what's the point?

That's the message we have to get to the young or unformed ones -- chops are fine, but the point of all this vocabulary is to articulate something you feel deeply to be true, and make musical statements. If we aren?t making a statement of our own, then we?re just talking heads, like newsreaders with an impressive vocabulary, great hair, teeth, and nice clothes, whose message is not their own.

I would suggest sharing with your audience that facility is great ? it?s neat to be able to do technically amazing things, and to improve one?s grasp of the craft. But craft without vision is just craft.

Furthermore, inappropriate use of one?s mind-bending skills will condemn one to a world tour of one?s practice room.

Gary,

I'm really honoured you are interested in my playing.
Most of the stuff I've recorded has been song based stuff of which I'm probably most proud of is this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...936104-7682067

On my site there is some more jazz/fusion based stuff. Here is a track where I open up a bit...

http://www.andyedwardsmusic.com/imag...us%20Grasp.mp3

But back to the point, I feel like this really is an important issue for us drummers. It not just related to this hyper technique thing but also the concept of groove which has become stifled and marginalised (perhaps because of computers?)

If we want to survive we must have some integrity and put forward the BEST of what drummers do (ie. not the most perfect), and that I think is the an expression of our humanity, which not only takes in complexity/ control but also all of our passion and ideosyncracies

We need to demand they use that first take where the heart is and not the tenth take where we happened to nail everything perhaps?

Andy, your link is broken. The one on your site doesn't work either. It 404s.

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Originally posted by PocketPlayer:
When I hear audio of Jeff P laugh, I hear his groove in this. His voice matches his style of playing?deep pocket.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Great observation. [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

moose...thanks for that.

it's fixed now I think.