Ten Tips For Hand Drummers
Really, as the years roll by, as moments of difficulty and breakthrough accumulate, I realize the best tip of them all, and maybe the only one that matters can be found in the word "respect." And I don't mean this as some sort of abstraction. It is a word, like many others, that should be recovered, dusted off, rescued from the dregs of overuse. It gets tossed around as an abstraction, as some sort of given that we all inherently have or something. But what I'm talking about, and what I've learned and am learning and will continue to learn until I can't, is the actual practice of respect, a daily reinforcing of it through self observation, learning the places where I fail, and learning when I don't, and practicing the tricky art of telling the difference.
It ain't easy, sister! But it's the moat surrounding the truth of music, which might be humanities' closest simulation of the voice of the divine--in whatever way anyone cares to think about it/her/him (divine is another word that can always use some dusting off, hence the lower case).
So what I have started is a non-hierarchical list of things I think are part of my own practice of respect in regards to the drumming life. These will--and should--be revised as that life continues and evolves. I actually wrote the list first, before thinking about the word respect. And then when I looked back at it, I realized that is what all the strange points I was making were pushing towards. Everything in this list is informed by specific stories and moments in my past (some of which are peppered throughout this blog). Sometimes these stories are good ones, but sometimes they are not. The bad often teaches more than the good.
That sounds like a platitude, but through observing, reacting to, and viscerally feeling varying moments of respect and disrespect, I have learned what each is, and I have accepted that many of the things that irk me, even though some may find them over-the-top, too serious, too sensitive, are actually fine and have a degree of precision, and that there are those who do indeed understand what I am talking about. My work with many fabulous teachers and musicians directly from West Africa, Brazil, and Cuba confirm it over and over again in different ways that always say the same thing: Respect...and figure out how to live it, understanding that I, or you, will probably not have it perfected.
The most recent of these individuals for myself was Jorge Martin, who stayed in my house a couple of days a month or so ago. I got a call that this master drummer from the Grammy Award winning band Cascabulho was going to be stranded in my city for a couple days and perhaps I might be so kind as to give him a place to stay? Uh...duh...Absolutely!!! Respect! But that's another story. Maybe I'll tell it.
So here is my list of Ten (plus) Tips for Hand Drummers.
1) First, don't call it hand percussion. It's vague and reinforces certain stereotypes about what it means to be an ignorant American who doesn't know what the population, or location of Timbuktu actually is. (Yes, I have been calling 'it' hand percussion, and probably will continue to do so...but...)
2)Don't fool yourself into thinking that anything other than playing the ACTUAL instrument you want to master works, or that playing it 'on the fly' will get you anywhere.
3) It's not WHAT you play, but HOW you play that matters a great deal more. Understand this and a universe of tedium and wonder will begin to unfold.
4) Develop a rounded, disciplined, consistent practice. There is 'maintenance' and there is 'practice' and there is 'rehearsal.' Do not fool yourself into thinking one can stand in for another.
5) Rhythm pack rats are tiring.
6) Don't assume it is arbitrary if someone wrote 14 bars or 28 bars in a chart and therefore you should 'fix' it, and by 'fixing' I mean standardizing it to your comfort zone, which if you are American, is likely multiples of four.
7) Find people of accurate understanding and learn to calm yourself when with them.
8) If you don't grasp that what you are playing, and the instruments you're striking, are built on the backs of centuries of suffering, oppression, and revolution, you will not pay them their just due and reverence which will be plainly clear to those who do.
9) American audiences respond well to percussion, but are by and large ignorant about it (although that is changing little by little as more great musicians continue to sweep through and as more and more American students really begin to shine!)
10) Sadly, so are many of the people who call themselves 'drummers' but do not understand what I am saying.
11) Fortunately, there are many who do understand what I am saying.
12) Only call bongos, bongos.
13) Watching Youtube videos and other means of accessing information is a good idea and is fun. At a certain point, it is best to understand this is not how you learn this craft.
14) Practice non-trash-talking...It's harder than you might think. At least it is for me.
15) Practice all of it.
There are many, many stories and moments underneath these; they did not sprout up in a vacuum. I can hear and remember them all, a symphony of learning, sometimes incredibly painful, other times astonishing, amazing and beautiful. Things destroyed. Things confirmed. Things put back together again. An endless cycle of reinvention. That's the drummer's path.
It ain't easy, sister! But it's the moat surrounding the truth of music, which might be humanities' closest simulation of the voice of the divine--in whatever way anyone cares to think about it/her/him (divine is another word that can always use some dusting off, hence the lower case).
So what I have started is a non-hierarchical list of things I think are part of my own practice of respect in regards to the drumming life. These will--and should--be revised as that life continues and evolves. I actually wrote the list first, before thinking about the word respect. And then when I looked back at it, I realized that is what all the strange points I was making were pushing towards. Everything in this list is informed by specific stories and moments in my past (some of which are peppered throughout this blog). Sometimes these stories are good ones, but sometimes they are not. The bad often teaches more than the good.
That sounds like a platitude, but through observing, reacting to, and viscerally feeling varying moments of respect and disrespect, I have learned what each is, and I have accepted that many of the things that irk me, even though some may find them over-the-top, too serious, too sensitive, are actually fine and have a degree of precision, and that there are those who do indeed understand what I am talking about. My work with many fabulous teachers and musicians directly from West Africa, Brazil, and Cuba confirm it over and over again in different ways that always say the same thing: Respect...and figure out how to live it, understanding that I, or you, will probably not have it perfected.
The most recent of these individuals for myself was Jorge Martin, who stayed in my house a couple of days a month or so ago. I got a call that this master drummer from the Grammy Award winning band Cascabulho was going to be stranded in my city for a couple days and perhaps I might be so kind as to give him a place to stay? Uh...duh...Absolutely!!! Respect! But that's another story. Maybe I'll tell it.
So here is my list of Ten (plus) Tips for Hand Drummers.
1) First, don't call it hand percussion. It's vague and reinforces certain stereotypes about what it means to be an ignorant American who doesn't know what the population, or location of Timbuktu actually is. (Yes, I have been calling 'it' hand percussion, and probably will continue to do so...but...)
2)Don't fool yourself into thinking that anything other than playing the ACTUAL instrument you want to master works, or that playing it 'on the fly' will get you anywhere.
3) It's not WHAT you play, but HOW you play that matters a great deal more. Understand this and a universe of tedium and wonder will begin to unfold.
4) Develop a rounded, disciplined, consistent practice. There is 'maintenance' and there is 'practice' and there is 'rehearsal.' Do not fool yourself into thinking one can stand in for another.
5) Rhythm pack rats are tiring.
6) Don't assume it is arbitrary if someone wrote 14 bars or 28 bars in a chart and therefore you should 'fix' it, and by 'fixing' I mean standardizing it to your comfort zone, which if you are American, is likely multiples of four.
7) Find people of accurate understanding and learn to calm yourself when with them.
8) If you don't grasp that what you are playing, and the instruments you're striking, are built on the backs of centuries of suffering, oppression, and revolution, you will not pay them their just due and reverence which will be plainly clear to those who do.
9) American audiences respond well to percussion, but are by and large ignorant about it (although that is changing little by little as more great musicians continue to sweep through and as more and more American students really begin to shine!)
10) Sadly, so are many of the people who call themselves 'drummers' but do not understand what I am saying.
11) Fortunately, there are many who do understand what I am saying.
12) Only call bongos, bongos.
13) Watching Youtube videos and other means of accessing information is a good idea and is fun. At a certain point, it is best to understand this is not how you learn this craft.
14) Practice non-trash-talking...It's harder than you might think. At least it is for me.
15) Practice all of it.
There are many, many stories and moments underneath these; they did not sprout up in a vacuum. I can hear and remember them all, a symphony of learning, sometimes incredibly painful, other times astonishing, amazing and beautiful. Things destroyed. Things confirmed. Things put back together again. An endless cycle of reinvention. That's the drummer's path.
posted by The Dumb Drum Guy at 1:53 PM
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