Monday, November 15, 2021

Do I Have Drumming Deficiencies?

That Time I Learned I Sucked at The Drums

I commented on his post:


Posted here: https://www.the8020drummer.com/blog/suck

I know what you mean - I sat in with the house band @ Buddy Guy's Legends on Beale Street in 2012 and while I think I played decently, after repeated viewings, I'm not entirely sure I'm as "in" the pocket as I previously thought I was. I know I flubbed up at the end, because I got caught up in the moment of wanting to make the ending of the tune memorable, but even before that, I can hear what you describe as "When you record yourself with a band, it's easier to "hide". Other musicians will compensate for you, and if the overall product isn't stellar, it's pretty easy to blame on the ensemble/room acoustics/etc. This explains how somebody can gig for a decade, and listen to gig tapes, and not know there's anything wrong."

I think one more aspect of all this is that our brains compensate for our weaknesses by finding some logical path from "what we intended to play" to "what we actually played." I was playing in a trio prior to C-19, and we were trying out having the guitarist play bass and the bassist play guitar. We started going through "Cortez" and stretched it into what I call the "Trippy 17 minute version" of the tune. It was such a perfect snapshot of what that trio were starting to be able to do together. Until that tune, we had not been improvising a lot - just mainly going through tunes that the guitarist and bassist knew - so in context, it was a huge breakthrough. Sadly, we last rehearsed on 2-27-2020 and are not going to reconvene again - bassist quit in May 2021 and the guitarist has other priorities - but at least I can use our "Trippy 17 minute version" of Cortez to respond to your post!

References:

Beale Street in 3-2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16qmKd4kr1E

Cortez - Trippy 17 minute version with Mark on Guitar and Randy on Bass: https://youtu.be/f6bZhneHxDY

Blog: https://prhmusic.blogspot.com/p/videos-of-me-playing-drums.html


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