question

Has anyone here ever played Van Halen's Hot for Teacher ?

Your thoughts on the difficulty.

With that ubiquitous shuffle between two kicks, and those jazzed 16th note cymbal licks in "CUT TIME," I'd leave this song for you younger guys.

Actually (and musically speaking from a drummers perspective), it's about "togetherness" when hands and feet come together. The song is not difficult at all - just up tempo requiring a bunch of stamina. The groove is already there; albeit much different from idioms other than "rock" or fusions thereof. It's reminiscent of Boomer's spectrum that is much slower.

I'd still rather see you guys play it though! It's not my thing, but I appreciate the music and energy.

Thematically, and taken as a whole, this song caused me to smile; while all the while thinking what its like for young folks these days going to school. It's a frenzied environment where there are more gadgets than education. I remember when I was in high school and college, a calculator was not allowed when even interpolating mathematical solutions. The teacher/professor wanted to see how the word problem was being worked out, instead of merely arriving at a simple answer. It's totally different these days, unless both the teacher requires seeing the thought process toward "proof," and the student demonstrates it by steps taken to arrive at it.

My personal friend [Kenneth Augustus Morris; a chemist, poet, lyricist, producer on more musical stuff that can be named], reduces this challenges by his own words. He was thinking about the same thing I was when considering that accessibility these days does not mean "accomplishing" anything. It's our integrity and investment in the process toward the ends we pursue.

Death of the Arts
It started innocently enough.
The schools ceased to instruct students in how to write in script.
Then, the need for capitalization, grammar and sentence structure became easy victims.
Next, expression in prose and poetry was deemed to be a frivolous pursuit.
In quick sequence, acquiring skills in adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying became unnecessary with the use of calculators.

The next field of battle was music.
Melodic, harmonious and orchestral draperies were declared overstatements.
Original creative themes ceased to exist.
Computerized sampling became established as the base and foundation of music composition.
Vocal expression, pictorial depiction and many other forms of artistry also fell victim before the jaded senses of audiences.
The circle continued with similar twists and turns until man’s brain was left with nothing to do but wither and die from the lack of stimulation that activity used to provide!

Yet I'm sure you already know this Dave. I just wanted to remind myself of that we all should do with ourselves.

Keep sticking my friend! It's good to hook up with 'ya again, and I hope my opinion matters.

Thanks Suss! Of course it does!!

As a double bass player and one who
has played a style very similar to this
at about this tempo, I agree with Suss.
The tune isn't a particularly difficult one
play technically speaking. But your
endrance and stamina had better be up
to par. If I'm hearing correctly, he's not
using the ghost notes on the snare drum
like in Q4 or space boogie which also in the
time signature of 7 for the most part.