Let's Talk Music

There's this little anecdote I've told so many times that a) my close friends must be SO tired of hearing it and 2) I've actually come to believe that I made it up. I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't, but now...I'm pretty sure I did. It goes something like this:

Pianists start out by learning the piano. But they also learn music theory, and ear training. And then they pick up an old bass guitar and start plucking around on it. And maybe they learn a few chords on guitar. And eventually, they buy an amp and a guitar, and then they start writing songs, and they want to record them, so they start messing around on computers. Then they get a drum set and learn how to play that.

Guitarists start out by learning the guitar. Then they buy a better guitar. Then they buy a blue guitar. And a sparkly guitar...and guitar effects...and a guitar amp...and a semi-hollow-body guitar...and a 12-string guitar...and a vintage guitar...etc.

You probably only think that's funny if you already know how true it is, because it's one of those "it's funny 'cause it's true" things. There is just something about the piano that creates an intense outward focus, and something about the guitar that creates an inward focus. Nothing wrong with that. Just different.

In that way, I'm a pianist through and through. I have this insatiable appetite for new musical perspectives, understandings, languages. When I was in high school, I became intolerably frustrated with my own inability to understand the drum set. Drummers are easily the least understood of all mainstream musicians. As a pianist, I couldn't comprehend a world comprised solely of rhythm, lacking all melodic and harmonic content. It would be like someone from our three-dimensional world trying to exist in a one-dimensional reality ("Wait, I don't get it...I still have height, but where should I put my length and width?" (<---wow, dorky!)) So I (or probably my mom) bought a drum set and practiced my brains out for a summer. In a closet in a church where they kept the air-conditioner. Very glamourous. 

I've practiced along the way, enough for my nascent skillz to survive and sometimes even thrive. And here's really what I have to say: I am really glad I put in the time, because this drumming thing is about to get really bad-ass. For all of us.

See, although drums are the most ancient of all instruments, drum set is brand spankin' new. The modern drum set wasn't even around until the 1930s. Compared with piano and guitar, that's just a wee baby. People messed with pianos for a long time, adding this, changing that, but after a few centuries of evolution, consensus is reached, standards are set, and today, a piano is a piano is a piano. They've all got 88 keys and the same 3 pedals. Any pianist can sit down at any piano and feel at home.

The same can't be said for drum set. It's so young that people are still messing with it, experimenting and deconstructing, fidgeting and redefining. Engineers can't agree on how best to mic a kit. Drummers can't agree on how many toms to have. Or how high to sit. Or what the measurements of depth and circumference should be. Consensus has not been reached. The evolution continues.

I think this is the Age of the Drum Set. The 60s and 70s had the electric guitar, the 80s had the synth, the 90s had modern recording techniques. From all different corners of the music world, from different genres and styles, I feel like drumming is honing itself, refining itself, maturing, really standing on its own two legs, once shaky and now strong. It's beginning to display a newfound confidence and creativity I've never heard before.

The way I see it, for decades now there's been something of a template for modern rock/pop/soul/funk/blues drumming. It was basically all the same beat. What's that? You want me to play drums for this brand new song of yours? No problem. How 'bout we start with me playing the kick on 1 and 3 and the snare on 2 and 4, and when it's just kind of cruisin' along, I'll hit these smaller cymbals, and when it gets all big and loud I'll hit these other bigger cymbals. Add appropriate modifications to accentuate melody, rinse, repeat. Cool? Cool.

And it was cool! It is cool! Duh, that shit will make you shake your money maker, wonder where that $60 that was in your wallet went and why "balls" is written on your forehead. 

But what I'm seeing and hearing in today's bold new generation of drummers is the willingness to leave behind Mother Template and start anew. What is this song about? What is it trying to say? How can my part complement what the music is trying to express? Death Cab For Cutie. Cake. Imogen Heap. Switchfoot. And increasingly so, If I have any say in the matter, Dave Madden.