Can You Hear Me Now?

It was probably the scariest story I have ever heard as a drummer.  It came from an elder statesman in our craft, and it changed his life forever.

It took just one rim shot and the ringing in his ears started almost instantly and never went away.  Eventually the tinnitus took over his life.  He had trouble sleeping at night with that constant humming in his ear.  He went to countless doctors and eventually had surgery to remove the bone that protects his eardrum, the root of his problem.  Now he has to wear hearing aids constantly.  He almost lost his ability to hear and with that his ability to play drums, all because he didn’t wear earplugs.

Immediately after learning his tale I have taken ear protection on the gig, in the practice room, and behind the kit much more seriously.  I think we all should because hearing isn’t like other things in our life were you loose it for a little bit, retrain yourself and get it back.  Once you loose your hearing, any part of your hearing, it is gone forever.  Have you ever been at a loud rock concert and left with that ringing in your ear?  That is a sign of permanent hearing loss.  And if you don’t think playing drums is just as loud as a rock concert, have I got a wake-up call for you.  That China cymbal you bang away on alone is louder than a passenger jet taking off, and like my buddy it only takes on hit to change your life forever.

There are many types of hearing protection on the market.  You can use the disposable gummies you roll up with your finger and insert into the ear canal that cost a couple bucks.  There are the orange hard rubber ones that you twist in that you can buy at Wal*Mart for under ten bucks.  Finally for you serious folk there are the custom molded plugs that come with a choice of noise reduction, they call it attenuation, and I use a 15 reduction in my left (hi-hat ear) and 10 in my right.  This is what I use every time I sit behind the kit, or at a loud show.  

(Picture from http://hearnet.com/) 

Getting this protection was easy and pretty cheap.  I think I paid under $150 and they have lasted me for four years now of constant road use.   I visited a local audiologist who specialized in hearing aids; got a mold made and sent it into Westone http://www.westone.com/ and they did the rest.  At the same time I also purchased a set of their dual driver In-Ear Monitors, but that is a whole other post.

 

To learn more about hearing loss visit this great website on the subject.  http://hearnet.com/ , Westone has a wealth of information at http://www.westone.com/hearing/hearing-and-your-ears. I encourage all you serious drummers out there to start protecting your greatest asset today.  Before it’s too late. 

A Steve Gadd Story Story from my Boss.

I was recently stressing out about a drum chart that gave me some trouble on the gig. I approached the bandleader to apologize for not getting it right the first time. "Don't worry about it. It isn't that important" he replied. But being the perfectionist I am I kept on stressing. Then he told me a story about Steve Gadd.

It turns out that my boss had the great pleasure to play with the legendary drummer. Not only did Gadd back him up, but he also played my bandleader's arrangements and even remarked on their top quality and readability. Anyway, back to my story.

My boss told me about his time sharing the stage with Gadd. He told me "you know when we rehearsed Gadd made mistakes, he wasn't perfect. The thing that separated him was that when he came back for the gig that night it was perfect."

As drummers we tend to look up to our heroes and place them on this pedestal, thinking that they have superhuman powers. Many do, and I am not belittling anyone, but we must all remember that with a little hard work, practice, and perseverance you can acquire great things with your craft. Just as Gadd did. Remember it was, and still is, his hard work that sets him apart.

Accent your drumming!

Getting bored with my normal practice routine I decided to invest in a few books to work on something new.  Luckily for me Amazon’s Kindle collection allowed me to download Joe Morello’s books Master Studies and Master Studies II.  I purchased Master Studies first and worked through Morello’s exercises daily for about four weeks.  Feeling comfortable with the lessons in manual one I decided to download and move onto Master Studies II.

Now Joe created his exercises based on the drumming bible Stick Control by George Lawrence Stone, and when you compare the two works you can see a number of similarities in the lessons, however Joe added something unique to his stickings, namely accents.

At first I chose not to include the accents in my practice routine as Joe’s stickings were hard enough, but over time I slowly added them into the routine.  For a while I didn’t think I was gaining any ground using Morello’s lessons, in fact I felt that the book did nothing more than help warm me up for the nights four hour gigs with my jazz quartet. 

Then, as all lessons go when you continually put the time and continued effort into them, I started to realize that my playing had developed into something new thanks to those accents.

Let me explain something to you about swing.  Fundamentally it is the same for all styles of jazz.  You have your basic swinging ride with the hat on two and four, your left hand dancing on the snare, and the occasional bombs dropped on your bass drum.  But when you start adding accents to your swing you develop a whole new sound.  In fact when you look at past jazz masters you can actually see how the simple addition of accents can make a world of difference.  Take these two swing patterns that I found in the pages of John Riley’s Jazz drumming book The Jazz Drummer's Workshop.

By simply changing the accents on his ride cymbal Elvin created a whole new sound spectrum.

For me I started to notice that thanks to my work with Morello’s manuals I was able to add accents to my ride swing patterns in various locations.  These simple accents allowed me to mimic my bass players walking rhythms and pianists comping.  The introduction of these accents allowed me to add more depth to my swing and to become a better jazz drummer.

For you rock, fusion, country and pop guys adding accents to your playing can help you give the music your own unique sound while not getting in the way of the song.  I suggest that you try out Morello’s exercises and see how you can learn from one of drumming’s greatest masters.

Thank You Steve Jobs!

This week the world mourned the loss of the modern age’s Thomas Edison.  For the past thirty years computer genius and entrepreneur Steve Jobs helped propel the concept of personal computing to new heights by merging the ideas of technology and entertainment and then promoting that concept on a plethora of devices such as the Macintosh Computer, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  There is no question as to Job’s contribution to the advancement of our society, but many musicians forget about how all his little devices have helped elevate our playing to new levels.

iPod:

I purchased my first iPod when the device was released to the public over a decade ago.  From the very beginning I realized how this little music player could help my practice routine.  Before I acquired the iPod I had to rely on a multiple disc player that was cumbersome and limited my available practice locations.  Each day I had to load five CD’s into the carousel and if I wanted to work with a different disc I had to spend hours searching my physical library for the right album to jam with.  This greatly reduced the efficiency of my practice routine.  Then came the iPod.  After the initial time spent ripping all of my music to the player I was able to practice virtually anywhere and had the ability to find that certain disc to work with in seconds.  I could create playlists, store them, and then jam with them without taking the time to find the next CD or even waiting for that cumbersome disc player’s carousel to switch discs.  My practice time became more efficient and I became a better and more rounded player because of it.

The MAC:

There are many arguments as to which computer is better, the PC or the MAC, and all I can tell you is my experience with the power of the MAC.  My first original band “Masceo” multi-tracked an entire album onto my MacBook Pro laptop, and I think the system crashed maybe twice during the whole experience. Today the concept of the home studio has elevated to the point that musicians can easily express their ideas from a single room in their house with a quality that rivals many professional studios.  For many their MAC is central point to this experience and another testament to Job’s quality ingenuity. 

iTunes:

Before the iPod and iTunes I needed to buy a whole disc for $16 to get the tracks I needed to practice with for my next gig.  Now with iTunes I can acquire single tracks for 99¢, drop them in a playlist and practice until I get those licks right.  And as Apple’s database of music grows I can find even the most obscure tracks and experience new drummers with the click of a mouse (which Job’s helped bring to the world by the way).

GarageBand:

It’s simple to use and provides a great tool for musicians.  I often record my live performances and rehearsals and then dump them into GarageBand to cut em’ up and listen to my day’s work.  I’ve even made a few live albums through this method, and I am not the only one.  On a plane trip to Nashville I was sitting next to a producer and new artist who were listening to her demo tracks in GarageBand and making notes for the future recording session that most probably would be recorded into a MAC.

iPad:

I didn’t think I needed one of these.  Boy was I wrong.  On this last cruise contract I wasn’t able to bring my practice manuals with me, but I needed something to work with.  With the iPad I was able to download a number of practice books including drumming bibles “Stick Control”, “Ted Reeds Syncopation”, and Joe Morello’s “Master Studies” quickly from Amazon.  And for those on-the-fly jazz gigs my iPad has all the Real Books in PDF format for quick reference.  The thing even has a metronome and drumming bible app and houses reading material, and the game Angry Birds, for the breaks between sets.

The truth is Job’s technology has touched virtually every member of the world.  As a former printing company owner and past photojournalist I have seen the MAC evolve from a small toaster oven computer into the central point for the print and news industries.  When I made music my life I quickly learned that the MAC was central point in the studio and on the road thanks to it’s reliability and rock solid design.  This week the world lost a genius and us musicians lost a man who inadvertently made us all better at what we do.  R.I.P.  Mr. Job’s.

Fundamentals of jazz versus rock.

I recently was hired for a six-month contract with a jazz quartet.  Now I’ve played jazz before with trios, quartets and even big bands so I had some knowledge going into the gig, but I had been playing rock and country for the past three years so it felt like I was heading back to my hometown after being away for years.  I mean I still knew the streets, but a lot had changed.

Luckily for me the leader of this band was heavily experienced in the concept of, let’s say, classic jazz.  A former pianist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, child prodigy, and killer big band arranger this guy new what he wanted to make the gig work.  In our first conversation I caught him telling me a story about past experiences with Miller Orchestra drummers.  As the rhythm leader he wanted one thing “give the horn section air conditioning with that hi-hat on 2&4.”

Now Ron’s story reminded me of my lessons with famed drummer Kenwood Dennard.  I had arrived in Dennard’s lab seeking to better my swing and chart reading.  Our first lesson was on the fundamentals of jazz, meaning what went where.  Kenwood passed on a lesson he had learned from Dizzy Gillespie and informed me of one important fact of jazz.  “In jazz you have to make sure the band can hear your hi-hat.”  And so my studying of jazz fundamentals began.

In rock you keep the time with your kick drum and your snare.  With your heavier beat falling on one and three and the backbeat on two and four.  In jazz this concept is almost reversed.  The hi-hat and ride take over, with your hi-hat keeping time on two and four, and the ride providing the swing.  The snare is played a lot lighter and acts as an accent to mimic melody parts, and your bass drum drops the bombs to liven the story up. 

Take a listen to past masters.  A good place to start is Max Roach and Roy Haynes. Kenwood hipped me to “A Study in Brown” by the Clifford Brown and the Max Roach Quintet to open me up to the basics of jazz.  I encourage any new jazz drummer to take a listen to this great album, as Max was one of the most prominent pioneers of our craft.  These cats kept that hi-hat pumping on two and four and swang’ the band with that ride like it was nobodies business.  As jazz drumming history evolved new players like Elvin Jones came along and changed things up.  Elvin pretty much kept his hat around the two and four, but kept time with the entire kit flip flopping the beat with his infectious tom fills and snare drum comping rhythms.  Art Blakey used the snare to reinforce his time so well that I think Swiss watchmakers use him as the source of time for their products.  And then arrived Tony Williams and the concept of jazz evolved to a whole new level for the drummer.  But Tony is a whole other story that I am not ready, or schooled enough, to tell.