5 Reasons Your Chops Don't Sound "Pro"

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

This week’s video speaks to a frustration that’s well-represented in the Youtube canon, but with what I hope is a more-novel-than-usual solution.

You practice stuff to improvise better on the drums.

Then you watch the drummers you admire, and what you’re playing doesn’t sound anything like that.

It’s not just that it’s a very-proto facsimile, that requires a ton of time to develop.

It’s that it’s not even in the same universe. You’re practicing French, then you see great drummers play, and it’s Russian.

And most lessons I’ve seen on the subject jump off of that premise by giving you some licks to play. And we’ll be doing that as well, but I also attempted to put the entire thing in context. Today’s video will be a journey through the “layers” of why you might not sound “pro”, beginning with the layers most likely to affect beginners, and progressing to those more likely to affect advanced players.

It’s like IT diagnosing your computer issue, starting with “is it plugged in”.

And for drummers, the “is it plugged in” is simple: are you even studying vocabulary that bares any resemblance to what you eventually want to play. If not, why?

Then, we assume you’ve gotten some basic “real” vocabulary, and can mix-and-match it, but you “still” don’t sound pro.

Great. Now let’s talk about timing, touch, and dynamics.

Still don’t sound “pro”?

Great. Now let’s talk about changing subdivisions instead of always playing 16ths.

Still not?

Cool, now we’ll talk about odd-length phrasees.

Still still not?

How come you’re always “orbiting” the snare? Why aren’t you using polyphony more creatively? etc.

And I link from some of the early chapters to more detailed videos on the methods. But think of this week’s video as a framework to guide your direction with improvisation. And once you get past the first 3 stages, it becomes way more about taste and the direction you want to go.

Plenty of great drummers, for example, play in a more “jazz” style, with most of the ghost notes still on the snare, and other surfaces used for accents.

Or, you can go full-Cleon-Edwards, inventing your own polyphony, and “breaking” every “rule”.

Finally, if you’re interested in a tour-guide for this journey, I’ve got 1-2 coaching slots open before the program shortens from 24 lessons to 20. We’re currently conducting interviews. For more info and the link to apply, click here.

The Drum Technique Divide Hidden in Plain Sight

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Those of us who follow nutrition stuff may remember the paleo/keto thing from a few years back, and the fact that you’d often hear experts espousing the “calorie balance” approach on podcasts with those from the “good calories/bad calories” camp on podcasts, but rarely-if-ever did anyone ask the question “what does the world look like if both are true”? (Until years later, and he ended up in the Epstein files. If you know you know.)

But have you noticed a similar divide in drum technique?

Look at Zack Grooves’ hands. Or Keith Carlock’s. Or Mike Mangini’s. Compared to Larnell Lewis, Matt Gatstka, Thomas Pridgen, Dennis Chambers, Vinnie, and plenty of other modern players, they seem “choked up” on the stick.

And it’s not hard to find instruction pointing to why. The “balance point”. Just search it and you’ll get hundreds of results. And we’ve all likely heard the rationale: there’s a theoretically-optimal point just behind the stick’s center of mass, where you get the most bounces “for free”. Farther forward, and the tip is “weightless” and doesn’t bounce at all. Farther back, and the stick becomes “top heavy”, and the bounce decays too quickly. This, of course, varies by the stick’s weight-distribution.

What these instructionals don’t explain is why anyone - indeed the majority of modern drummers (from my admittedly-anecdotal survey) - does it differently.

I wanted to find just one video that tried to situate both approaches in the same universe, explaining the tradeoffs.

Finding none, I decided to make that video.

The search for the truth sent me down a historical drum instruction rabbit hole - as you do…

And just when I thought I understood everything, an offhanded comment a student made on a coaching call blew the whole thing wide-open again, and also resolved the contradiction I couldn’t figure out: why some modern players who play with a lot of power still choose the “balance point” technique.

That’s all in the video. And we also had fun creating a “find your hold point” PDF to accompany it, which links out to…basically one video, but different time indices in that video.

Hope you enjoy!

[Podcast] Gavin Harrison - I'm an Ideas Guy

When I first started the podcast, back in 2023, I had a shortlist of drummers I wanted to interview. Richard Spaven Thomas Pridgen, Nate Wood, a few others, and today’s guest.

I was a late-convert to Gavin, but I understood immediately what my students saw.

And ironically, if he’d followed the lowest-risk path by continuing to do studio work, he may never have made the career-change that’s the primary reason most of us have heard of him: joining Porcupine Tree.

I didn’t even have to ask Gavin about that, because he volunteered it during one of our exchanges: studio work, for Gavin, was a steady paycheck. It was good, predictable conditions. It was mostly setting his own schedule. Band life, at the scale Porcupine Tree was at in those days, meant van life. Schlepping from one club to another. Late nights. Less money. No guarantee anything would work out.

And yet…it was never even a question the first time Gavin heard them and jammed with them. And of course the rest is history. Between Porcupine Tree and his more recent music with Pinapple Thief, Gavin not only cemented his own reputation, but participated directly in the creation and performance of records worth of music people are going to remember for generations to come.

Ever the practice nerd, I also wanted to hear how Gavin approaches creative work on the drums, in those weeks between tours and learning/writing music for bands. That question sparked an interesting (to me) exchange about utilizing our subconscious to retrieve ideas, then (as he does, and you should 100% listen to him) recording/writing them down, as an alternative to “top down” planned practice routines.

This, in turn, sparked a meta-convo about the journey within oneself to find creative direction, and a wry observation that if Gavin’s “cave” period (when he used to do mammoth overnight practice sessions) had occurred after the invention of smart-phones, he possibly wouldn’t have become the player he is today.

And of course we speak about his observation about my video on his lick, which also sparks a fun side-journey.

I hope you enjoy this exchange with the great Gavin as much as I did.

Gavin Harrison Said I Was Wrong About His Famous Fill

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

After 3 years of running the podcast, I finally got the opportunity to talk to one of my drum heroes, Gavin Harrison.

That complete podcast will publish soon, but after dropping knowledge bombs for the better part of 55 minutes, Gavin surprised me with something I did not expect. (I guess that’s kind of the definition of “surprise”.)

He said he had a question for me.

Turns out, he’d seen the video I did 3 years ago on his fill on the live version of Bonnie The Cat. Ok - very flattering.

And he thought I’d missed a trick. Doh.

Naturally, I asked him to tell me more. And his answer uncovered something fascinating - to me at least - about what he’s consciously focussed on when playing, and what’s buried at the subconscious layer.

It’s not that he never thinks while he’s filling, but that he thinks of the overview - the big picture. So in this video we’ll get into what that big picture is, because it’s an organizing principle behind a lot of how he thinks of drum improvisation.

Just just as fascinating is what’s happening underneath.

Because I could think “big gesture culminating with a snare note” and just let my hands and feet go, and it would not sound like Gavin Harrison. In that respect, it’s not that the underlying mechanics - the stuff you practice to be able to think gesturally and have it sound clean and “good” - aren’t important. It’s more that in my original lesson I was too focussed on the mechanical layer, to the exclusion of the inspiration and musical context.

Phew!

Because you’re on the list, you’re also getting the “director’s cut” of this video, with a full extra 5-minutes explaining how I’d apply my “clave flow” system to creating the underlying muscle memory to “let go” and still hit figures clearly and cleanly - not necessarily like Gavin, but like yourself.

Hope you enjoy!