First things first - download your free groove transcription.
This week's video started as a kernel of an idea over two months ago.
It just so happened that one day I was surfing instagram thinking "all modern drummers do certain things." They're the things I teach: kind-of quantization, stick height differentiation, "clean" sounds, etc. Then I happened to be listening to War Pigs by Black Sabbath and something occurred to me: "why don't people play like this anymore?"
Of course that's an oversimplification. You can find great modern drummers from Nate Smith to Matt Garstka manifesting "wabisabi", and intentionally "dirtier" sounds.
But sometime between Bill Ward and Naveen Kopperweis, between Ringo and JD Beck, something changed. And I'm not sure we can go back. I'm not sure we'd want to.
So where and when did the "modern" style develop? I had hunches. Like drum machines, the demands of record producers, commodification of singles, portable music players, etc. But wanted to know with more certainty. So I started asking around. And people told me about a bunch of things I hadn't heard about:
Like the fact that Steely Dan commissioned the first drum machine. Or the fact that the Beatles were among the first bands to get deeply into the potential of multitrack recording. Or something later called the "Josh Freese Effect".
This video was a few months in the oven (complicated by my travel schedule), but now that it's finished I consider it at least a *stab* at a comprehensive look at how the ubiquitous modern drum style evolved. Or, if you prefer your titles in clickbait, why ALL Modern Drummers Sound The Same. (But not really.)
But it was nonetheless rewarding to see the whole sordid tapestry laid out in one overly-lengthy manifesto. And if you're reading this, I hope you too enjoy the journey.
I've also got something else. Meinl just published the drum solo I shot at their studios in November. It's probably the "pro" performance I'm most proud of, to date. If you're interested in checking that out, it's linked below.