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It's becoming increasingly difficult to survive as a pure drummer. A prominent engineer told me a couple years back that if you get into programming, you have a better shot of getting gigs in music, at least on the recording end of things. Purists may not like this, but the truth is that "drumming" is losing value in the industry, whereas "rhythm creation" is as strong as ever.
The ears of the music-buying public are changing, I think for the worse. "Groove" is losing out to perfection. That sort of greasy feel is not what listeners these days are sensitive to. They're tuned into perfection since they've been dancing to drum machines now for the past 20 years or so. Software like SoundReplacer and Beat Detective make machinery frighteningly close to human activity but "corrects" things in ways that just seem like drumming with perfect meter.
As drummers, we often tend to think in terms of our exclusive universe of drumming. But engineers and producers are calling the shots based on what listeners expect/want and what is cost effective. Pure drumming is often not the answer.
It's a shame, but we've also got to recognize it. As someone else said, thank goodness for live drumming. For some reason, people still love to see a live drummer kicking ass on stage...
(pause)
And then just now, I get a call from the singer in my band who went last night to see a new band at a club we play at regularly. This band had everything sequenced and the club was packed. He talked to the club owner who was loving it.
[img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img]
Scary.
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Okay here's another variation on the theme of this post. I worked with a five-piece group that's now working as a trio. The drums have been replaced by the machine and the bass player with sequenced parts.
LATIM,
How cool it is to hear that one of my students has influenced you! Chuck is a great drummer and his demo was amazing! Thanks for posting my web link on your very cool website.
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Hey Tim!
Glad to see you found your way to the site. Andy,I hear may great things about Chuck's playing, but haven't had a chance to see/meet him yet. Looking forward to it though.
Back to the topic. I've been programming drum parts for about 15 years, but just for my home demos. People have ALWAYS said how good the tracks sound, and I believe it's because I program the parts as I would play them. Details like NOT having the hihat or ride going during a fill, unless it's the foot hihat doing 1/4s or something. But at the end of the day, it's just a tool to capture the idea. I can program a drum part and make it groove like crazy, behind the pocket, etc. only because I understand what makes a drum part groove. If I didn't, how could I program it? I think programming drum parts has helped me be a better drummer in terms of knowing EXACTLY what to play. It's also helped my time. But I'll take live playing for sure.
Danny
