At times, when I flatter myself, I think I’m a heterodox thinker.
In reality, I’m a small-time YouTuber with no gigs.
But let’s just pretend anything I say is important. Many of my favorite heterodox thinkers have a “signature issue”. For Nassim Taleb, it’s probably “trust risk models less and skin-in-the-game more.” For Daniel Schmachtenberger it’s positive-sum dynamics and “Game B.” For Elon Musk it’s “actually we can go to Mars and have electric cars.” For Rob Wolff, it was “hang on - what if the food pyramid is actually making us unhealthier.”
And for me, to the degree I have a tiny platform where people care about anything I say, it’s “hierarchies in ability are real, and beginners aren’t able to perceive all the ways in which good drummers are better than they are.”
It’s in that spirit that I “continue to make the same video,” to a degree.
Last August I made a video called Five Subtle Ways Pros Can Tell if a Drummer’s “Legit”.
In it, I argued for…well…five…lessons I’d learned over the years about what really separates good drummers from mediocre ones.
Sure - there are obvious things. Anybody can tell Vinnie Colauita is better than I am.
But everybody already knows that stuff. I was trying to advance the conversation.
The five things I argued for were kit control - the ability to adapt to any kit instead of rushing or dragging because the kick pedal feels different, learning tunes quickly, “lock-up” - the ability to play together with a band, the ability to catch figures without losing the groove, and the ability to “keep the 1”, even in complex music.
I guess I wasn’t fully prepared for the scope of the “push back”.
“Who are you to say who’s good and who isn’t?”
Even “there’s no good or bad”.
So I feel like I keep making a tighter loop with this argument.
The next time out of the gate, I had beginner drum covers: novice bands covering famous recordings of great drummers. By setting the two side-by-side and controlling for “chops”, could you tease out some of the differences?
I thought so.
But there were still naysayers.
“It’s the recording quality. If the novices had access to the same mics and mix, they’d sound as good as the ‘pros’.”
Next weapon: bootlegs of pros. By watching great drummers with their bands from things like iPhone recordings, I reasoned, we could control for recording quality.
Think that stopped them?
“Of course the ‘novice’ drummer doesn’t sound as good. He’s playing with beginners. If he were in a better band, he’d sound better.”
That’s why: great-drummers-sitting-in.
Will that end the argument, or will I have to continue making iterated versions of this video?
I’m not naive. But, as I say in the video, there are worse things to be than the “secret ways to get good” guy.
Anyway, hope you enjoy.