There's a lot of drum advice out there, and a lot of it is good advice.
"Don't bury your head in the music. Listen and pay attention to the band."
"Watch the dynamics."
"Play for the song."
Etc. All solid advice.
Then, there's some advice that's *not* so copacetic. Like the kind of advice that seems to surface in my comment threads.
"It's all about books and exercises."
"You shouldn't count, bro, you should just FEEL IT."
And more.
I've done videos before about the "small amount of knowledge is dangerous" thing. It's called the Dunning Kruger Effect, and it means that in many cases, the *less* knowledge you have about a subject matter, the *higher* you rate your skills.
But in this video I decided to take a swing not at the tree, but at the apples. And there are five commonly recurring misconceptions for which I'm ready to draw a line in the sand.
Increasingly, I see my role on the Drum-ternet as being the guy who proves there are "layers", or "levels to this game", which might be opaque to a newcomer.
It's tough, because we can't "roll with a black belt" in drums (though we can shed with one) (but a lot of the commenters probably don't)...
...so there are fewer "reality checks".
But anybody who's been playing for more than a handful of years has had at least a handful of those reality checks.
- The first time we learned we didn't sound as good on stage as we did in our heads
- The first time we thought we were nailing it, then we heard a recording
- The first time we thought we killed, then we heard a real master play live, right after us
Myths, misconceptions, and Dunning Kruger effects don't survive first contact with these reality checks well, but not everybody gets to experience one.
So let this be a "video reality check". Check it out here.
Hope you enjoy.