The Top 5 Stewart Copeland Beats of All Time

First things first, you can get the transcription for this lesson here

Stewart Beats

Stewart Copeland probably looms larger in the development of modern drums than even diehard fans acknowledge.

At 4-years-old, I played along with Regatta De Blanc on overturned cardboard boxes.

(My parents soon decided the sound of a real drum kit had to be better than that of cardboard boxes. Then immediately regretted their decision.)

At the time, I was like "yea, this is killing, but what's the big deal?"

"Also, how do I walk?"

(Ok, I guess 4's a little old for walking :P)

More-years-than-I-care-to-admit hence, and I'm only now realizing just how difficult it is to do what Stewart did.

And everybody he's influenced.

There are the obvious ones, for sure.

But how about Brian Blade?

How about Eric Harland?

It's not just the "cleanness", but also the *context* Stewart gave to beats and fills - it's hard to describe, but it involves dynamic extremes, and whether everything occurs within a given tesitura (which just means "range") - beats, embellishments, etc - or whether there are tiered dynamic ranges.

Sheesh - lesson on this coming soon. Which will probably get, like, 45 views.

But seriously - this is the Blade/Harland stuff. (And you could argue Marcus is to that style what Stylebender is to Anderson Silva.)

Anyway, picking just 5 beats from The Bard is a tall order. (Even when I cheat, and allow myself 7.)

But choose I had-to, so choose-I-did.

I present you the FIVE (plus two) Most Influential Stewart Beats...of ALLLL TIIIIIME;)

Enjoy, and catch you next week,

N

Reacting to the reactor - Nate on Josh Crawford

Josh Crawford is know as the "reactionary-in-chief" on Youtube...

...but that pretty substantially undersells his drum ability.

So, I react to one of his drum covers, break down some licks, bish-bash-bosh, right?

Well, of course there's a little more to it.

In truth, this lesson was the perfect story of "cool stuff to transcribe/share" with "ultimate irony."

I'll admit it: I was mixed about the reaction videos at first. I misunderstood it. "This other guy's doing all the work, and you're just filming yourself, watching him, then getting tons of views from it."

Like many-a-YouTuber hoping for more video views, and getting outmaneuvered by this upstart, I was salty.

I now understand that I misinterpreted two things:

First, if you actually watch one of those reaction videos, Josh comes across as humble, funny, and disarming, and his commentary does add to the enjoyment of the original video.

What's more, many of his reaction/tribute videos have more views than the original (yes, with a few exceptions), which means he's bringing additional exposure to the artists.

Second, Josh's not an armchair ninja weighing in on other playing. He's a high-level player himself.

Who could feature himself more often, but frequently chooses to relinquish the spotlight to the drummers he's featuring.

But Josh's recent videos, by-and-large, have featured his own playing, and good goddamn thing, because he's killing.

Anyway, sensing the overlap of genuine admiration and funny irony, I messaged Josh to see if he likewise saw the potential in the idea, and, luckily, he did.

As such I bring you - The Josh Crawford Lesson.

Great drummers all do this - do you?

As comments filter in for this week's lesson, one thing is becoming clear:

I didn't underestimate how underrated this topic is.

Let's back up.

In my usual tradition of choosing super clickbaity titles, then actually trying to deliver on the promise, I called this week's...well, you can see the subject of the email.

So, what do great drummers do?

First answer, obviously, "maaaad chopz broooooo".

Obviously, you know that's wrong. Just like Vizzini in The Princess Bride, you probably anticipated that my opening salvo would be a misdirection.

Fair enough.

But, judging by the comments on the lesson, people were stumped after that.

Dynamics?

Intensity?

Groove? (yup, that's another one - just not the one that's the subject of this lesson)

Reminds me of the fish in David Foster Wallace's now famous anecdote: "what's water".

Well, this lesson will show you that water. It will show you that wall's a mirror, and the restaurant is half the size you thought.

It's so interesting, because so many drummers get this wrong, so it stands to reason many don't even know "it's a thing". I didn't.

It's "playing clean"

To illustrate, I like to compare the Blue Devils to a high school drumline.

They're tighter, right?

They play together as a cohesive unit.

Well, great drummers sound like that. And novice drummers don't. They play...uncoordinated. They're not...together with themselves.

Once you see it, you can't "unsee it".

But here I'll teach you how to practice it.

What to do when you hate your playing

Early comments for today's lesson include "too real".

There's a unique kind of bad taste in your mouth when you produce something brazenly-spotlight-seeking, like last week's Katy Perry lesson...and it tanks.

Then there's the kind of lesson that you don't particularly care if anybody watches, because it's just honest - the lesson you would have made even if nobody was watching. And today's falls into that category.

There's a very specific kind of "rut" we drummers can find ourselves in.

That of being "over" our playing.

It's not the type rut caused by real deficiencies, though we all have those.

And it's something different from stage fright, as well, since this can strike in the privacy of the practice room, even when nobody's listening.

Nope - this is more like a song that was the hotness when you first added it to your Spotify playlist...

...but you're getting sick of it.

Except it's your playing.

Now, many of us have strong instincts about what to do when we end up in a rut like the one I'm describing.

Those are usually completely wrong.

The steps we need to take instead are counter-intuitive, and incrementalist. And, over 20 years of suffering through ruts, I've gradually gotten them down to a science.

In a drum rut right now?

The first thing to fix is your psychology.

But I've got you.