Drummers Humility: A form of discipline lost?

Would you agree that music today is lacking in the area of constructive disciplines?

At times I think that too much emphasis is place on being great drummers / musicians rather than bringing awarness to simply just play 'with' the band rather than against it. Humility is a word that is hardly within the grammer of today's musicians, more less life it'self, cause it portrays weakness rather than a window that invites true musicianship in all aspects of music and life.

Can you decide for yourselves what would be the better. More "over-discipline" in woodshedding your techniques or stepping back and having "humility" that invites an ever-learning attitude that makes for a better drummer? I believe that humility would be the foundation to a better you, thus evolving into a better drummer/musican.......or human being. I have further learned (in a hard way) that technique is that misplaced wagon before the horse.

Would you have any thoughts on that?

Some people think that this the
most challenging time in history
for music and musicians. I agree.

In a way, we are stepping into the
future and into the past, all at once.
Live performance is coming back and
it looks at though it will be the chief
source of income for most players.

There will be pressure to emphasize
the visual element and I think we
are already seeing that. Musicians
will really have to choose between
that and the music, and like never
before, perhaps.

While it seems like a negative,
another thing that might happen is
that composers and directors are
going to help filter this element
from the market at the highest
levels, showing that the very best
and most musical gigs are gotten
by the most musical drummers.

I hope that we will see musicality
rise above it, all and these players
acknowledged for their choices.

I would rather be musical than
technical, in other words. I do
try and be as technically profic-
ient as I can, though, at being
as musical as possible, if that
makes sense.


Regards,

I think it needs a little of both at the right time, Glenn.
When to lay back and when to show your stuff both has its place within the context of a given tune.
Either way, you must be disciplined to know when to "hold them" and when to "show them".
Each member of a band needs to know when to play and when to let the other members have their turn to shine.

Woody wrote:I think it needs a little of both at the right time, Glenn.
When to lay back and when to show your stuff both has its place within the context of a given tune.
Either way, you must be disciplined to know when to "hold them" and when to "show them".
Each member of a band needs to know when to play and when to let the other members have their turn to shine.

Very well said, Woody. It's amazing to me just how many players that are actually good technical players fail at this.

When you think in terms of the music and not yourself it's really a very simple concept to grasp.... It is astounding to me how much the music comes alive when we simply allow it to be what it is. This I believe is what makes Steve Gadd so great. He has this way of playing where your ear isn't pulled away from the WHOLE idea of the music and drawn to one particular piece of the instrumentation. Funny thing, I was driving through San Francisco the other day and as I looked across the freeway at the skyline, I noticed all the new skyscrapers popping up... One here, one there, and I took note of how unbalanced and unsemetrical the skyline is begining to look.

Music is the same way. If you're not playing cohesively and uniformly, then people are going to hear that. I've heard a lot of music that I did not necessarily like but was still able to appreciate the uniform manner in which it was presented.

Humility:

This usually comes with an understanding of a given thing. We here are all O.G's. We did it the old fashioned way by sitting down with our instruments and working it all out through trial and error. We did not have the musical learning resources available to us they now have today. Today you have all these kids coming out of the wood work with these monster chops, yet have no idea how to make a band feel good. It's kinda like what Poogie Bell said: "We no longer have the days where o.g's. who's wing we were under would say, man if you play that again, Im gonna smack your hands." The school of hard knocks learning is pretty much gone. Today, just pop in that dvd and start processing.

In the 60's and 70's I used to walk the streets of San Francisco and San Jose and hear several different bands rehearsing on any given day. When I was a kid, we used to live a block from the neighborhood park and I remember like it was yesterday how from our home we would sit at the window and listen to a group of conga players at the park lay down some vicious smooth ryhthms, how well they all played together, WITH one another.

Today's generation has for the most part lost all of that, and the respect that goes with doing it. And without respect, how can there be humility?

My take, Rac.

D.