Dos and Don'ts for a Drummer at Someone Else's Gig

So we've officially graduated! I can change the subtitle of this blog to "A Physician/Musician's Thoughts on Blah Blah Blah" - finally! It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm the way spring was meant to be (I love Buffalo but this extended winter stuff is for the birds). The ceremony was a huge thrill, and the speakers were excellent (shout out to my great friend and bandmate Mike Wach for making everyone cry). And to top it all off, I got to play a gig in front of a large portion of my classmates and friends (which, for all intents and purposes, will be the last time...but we'll see). The Lodge was packed, and everyone was dancing and singing along, which is my favorite part of playing in a live setting. It was a perfect day and night.

Okay, maybe not perfect (as you can guess from the title of this post), but I can gloss over any minor things that happened that day. But one thing - really just one person - stuck in my craw that night, and embodied the inspiration for a blog post that I have thought about writing before, but never actually did. So here it goes. The following list was inspired by that guy. Don't be that guy.

DO (can be applied more broadly):

1. Sing/dance/cheer. I love the energy I get from audience members, it definitely makes the whole experience better. Every performer has been at empty-house gigs where you still had to try and put on a show and it just felt like work.

2. Approach me between sets. I love talking to people at shows (I realize this is not the case with every musician, so be wary of that). Whether it's talking shop about drums, requests for songs, stories about how you saw some great band live and how amazing (or awful) they were, I'm usually pretty happy to hear it. The exceptions to this are if the musician really needs to pee, or (broader generalization here) if they are single (not me) and have their eye on a specific person in the crowd - that's no offense to anyone else approaching them, it's just the call of biology.

3. Buy me drinks. I mean, not too many, because I can't play drunk, but if you want to do a shot or get my next gin & tonic for me because you like the way I play, that's awesome. Again, musician-dependent.

4. Admire from far away. Hey, thanks! I mean, you can tell me between sets or from the crowd if you'd like (see #1 and #2).

5. Critique from far away. Hey, I can't stop you. Although maybe tell me to my face less often, and in a friendly manner so we can converse about it.

DON'T (a little more specific to that guy/drummers):

1. Approach me between songs. Little snippets of conversation are fine, or if you're buying me a drink or requesting a song, but please don't try to engage me on the merits of my cymbal placement or tell me about your drumming abilities while I'm waiting to hear what the next song is.

2. Walk around to stand behind me and stare critically. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and it's distracting because I know you're there but I can't see you. I looked back to acknowledge and got nothing. It's just weird.

3. Ask to play my drumset apropos of nothing. Every drummer is guilty of this desire at some point or another. We'll be at some show and the drummer will have a set that looks beautiful. Or it could be ugly but we still suddenly get the urge to play. But most drummers are also aware that if the tables were turned, we would not want someone else playing our drums. Every drummer is protective of their stuff, though we don't want to be pricks. But if we have never talked, never established any rapport, you're just some stranger from the crowd...and if you come up (between songs - see #2), clearly tipsy and starting to slur your words? I don't really want you playing my drumset (especially when I am still playing the gig)! Even if you do offer me $10.

4. Touch my drums unannounced while I'm playing. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES is this okay. I've been trying to be objective in this post, but this was seriously unacceptable. If I am playing a song and we have not previously agreed that you are going to come up and join me, then I question what is prompting you to pick up the stick that I broke earlier and add your own percussion accompaniment. When I am hitting the chorus of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" and providing an optimal level of ride cymbal wash underneath the guitar riff, I don't need you adding your drunkenly off-beat hi-hat splashes.

--

It should be known that after the show was over, the guy begged me enough that I took pity and let him play my drums (again, didn't want to be a prick). The way he talked, I was expecting to have my mind blown. As it turned out, he was drunk, clumsy, not nearly as groovy as he wanted to be (though the drunk girls dancing were okay with it), and he couldn't hold a stick to save his life. I gotta be more assertive with this kind of situation. Not to mention he spilled water all over my equipment bag. The nerve of some people. Haha. #thankgoditwasnotalcohol

Musical Drumming vs. Accompaniment, or Why The Guitar Center Drum-Off Disappointed Me This Year

I've never really been considered "trendy." I eventually catch on to things, and I even embrace them, but I'm always a little late to the game. Which I'm okay with. I recently finally bought a black woolen peacoat, which has been a staple of men's fashion for years now. As you may have read a couple of posts ago, I recently learned what expressions like "put on blast" and "turn up" means (though I haven't started using them).
(Shameless self-plug: If you'd like to read my thoughts on some not-so-trendy but still recent music, click here.)
Trends are found in clothing, language, and virtually every aspect of modern life. Today I want to talk about a trend in music. Specifically, my aspect of music. Drumming. This line of thought was inspired by a recent Facebook post by a good friend and fellow drummer. Steve is a talented guy and I love watching him play. His performances with the UB Jazz Ensemble when we played there in undergrad were always a highlight of every concert, especially his solos. So when he posted about the Guitar Center Drum-Off competition, I took notice.
I am no great soloist. I perform drum solos with my band Mayday (as I did last weekend), but it's with the song Wipeout, usually near the end of the second set or beginning of the third. People are drunk and dancing and they want to keep doing that. So I play a dance-y solo, simplistic in nature, and featuring my favorite gimmick, leaving my drumset and drumming the whole way around whatever room I'm in. I should practice more and work my solo into a better drumming showcase, one that remains dance-y but shows off the intricacies of my playing and the capabilities of the instrument - because that could certainly be done. But I'm unable to make that time. Which I've grown to accept.

From my first years in high school jazz band, I've known that drum solos are often looked down upon by other musicians. I don't blame them. Most of the non-drummer musicians at my high school (including my band director) were used to high school level drummers who just wanted to play as fast and as loud as they could (which I still sometimes fight the urge to do). God knows Mr. L certainly dealt far more often with loud-and-fast drummers than with drummers who tried to be musical, even while showing off. So I never blamed them for thinking that way - I just used their aversion to spur my efforts to be better and convince them otherwise (an quest which has stalled in recent years due to things like medical school).

But there are people who work hard to make this an art. Steve has great musical playing. All of my favorite drummers take the time to make their drum solos (if they do those) sound musical as well as fun. And this is supposed to come to a head at the annual Guitar Center Drum-Off Competition. The trends of solo drumming present themselves boldly as the focus of the competition. The winner is crowned the best undiscovered drummer in the world. Here's this year's winner (the video's only 5 minutes):

Did you watch the whole thing? No? That's okay. It's a fun solo, but it's not my favorite. If you didn't watch it, it's pretty heavy on the Octapad. For non-drummers, that's the electronic console on the drummer's left, where he's concentrating 90% of his efforts. When I said heavy on the Octapad, I mean the amount of his solo that doesn't rely on electronics and a synthesized melody of some kind is about...30 seconds.

This is NOT a judgment on Shariq Tucker. Actually if you watch his solo from the 2013 competition, it's actually pretty awesome. It displays a lot of chops, even as it threads the fills together with musical drumming; it works in the Octapad purely as icing on the drumming cake. But that year, the winner was the talented D-Mile, who played way more Octapad than his competitors. It was still a decent drum solo, but relied much more heavily on the Octapad to constantly underlie the drumming. So this year, when Tucker came back to the competition, he knew what he had to do to win. Which is why the winning solo in the 2014 Drum-Off is almost completely carried by the Octapad - Tucker faces the Octapad almost more than he does the drumset.

Now, this isn't bad performance. In fact, it's impressive as far as the music and technique. It's a terrific display of balancing drumming and Octapad usage, complete with homage to Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison" as well as classic jazz. It's fun, and he displays a great deal of talent - it still takes major coordination to work in that melody as well as the drum beat. But if you take away the Octapad, the part on the actual drumkit is rather on the shallow side, seeming more like accompaniment than a solo. It's a far cry from the subtle but well-layered electronic additions he made the previous year (and, incidentally, if you watch last year's video...he's smiling a lot more back then).

YouTube comments should be no one's source of inspiration, but I misread one comment yesterday that gave me the notes on which to start this post. I won't tell you what it actually said, because it was just a sarcastic YouTube comment, but my misreading was, "Is drumming so boring that he needed [an Octapad] to keep people entertained?"

To which the answer is no. Or at least, it doesn't have to be. Drumming can absolutely be musical, even melodic. There are so many things a drummer can do to make a solo come alive, to get people dancing, or thinking, or rocking out. There have been Drum-Off competitions where that's been the case, but in my opinion, this solo is not representative of that.

Now I get that this is a big corporate-sponsored competition (subject to the same pressures as American Idol or any other musical competition), and so part of this is corporate politics. Roland (the company who makes Octapads) is a huge sponsor in this event and it's because of that that every Drum-Off set has an Octapad hook-up, and that it's become nearly a requirement to work it in (that's been happening since at least 2011, when JP Bouvet took the crown with a beautiful solo). But trigger pads have been an evolving trend since the 1980s when they first came out. From giant drum-shaped pads to little ones that fit in snugly in the spaces of a drumset, and every shape and form in between, trigger pads are awesome for working in those unconventional or cumbersome instrument (or non-instrument) sounds. But that has evolved naturally through the decades...it doesn't need to be shoehorned in by a corporate sponsor at a competition that is supposed to be about the art of drumming. About how this instrument can be just as musical as any horn or piano or strings.

And yet Roland's sponsorship (and the subsequent requirement of the Octapad in solos) kill that push to challenge the boundaries of the instrument itself, and instead relegate the actual drums almost to the role of accompaniment next to the electronics. There's nothing wrong with making music that way, and I would enjoy hearing some of that in a different performance or album context. But in a drum solo competition, it makes me feel like my instrument is not good enough on its own. Which I know is not true.

Maybe I'm just a dinosaur. But I feel that this competition should fuel a kind of creative excellence, not channel it and forcibly shape it. I know drum solos are capable of a great deal of musicality, without overusing electronics. This musicality can make drum solos accessible and enjoyable to drummers and non-drummers alike. Because in the end, that's what drumming is about - the enjoyment of the music.