Savoring the persecution “Drummers are known to be a race on their own.”– Joe Morello “General Browning, I am a Pole, considered by some to be smart.”– First line spoken by Gene Hackman playing the […]
Category: professionalism
Something strange
This person is making a lot of videos composing accompaniment for drum solo videos by some well known players, “adding music”, as he says. The first few minutes explain this was done, then there’s an […]
Very occasional quote of the day: getting fired
“There’s been times when I was fired from gigs because, lets say I had the ability to get my foot in the door, but wasn’t living up to the expectations that people had. In that […]
Pro vs. semi-pro
Another item from the archives— this is from Jack Wheaton (1932-2015), my jazz styles and analysis professor when I was at USC in 1988-89. In some context or other he gave us this list of […]
Time is money
Another funny item I dug out of my archives. I believe it’s from the jazz festival at UC Berkeley in 1989— I was there playing with USC’s guitar ensemble. A bassist and drummer gave a […]
What’s with resting the sticks on the drum?
Item just in from the pet peeve department: there’s an extremely slovenly practice, apparently done by half the drummers in the world: resting the sticks on the drum head before playing. I have students who […]
Q & A: guitarist hunting
all guitarists until proven otherwise I received this question in the mail today: What are you looking for in a guitar player? What strengths/capabilities do you feel are the most important? Any thoughts on common […]
When they say they have drums
All right dude I told ya we had a sweet drum set for you, here you go They don’t have drums. You’re going to get burned. Always. Pardon me— I just had a couple of […]
What it is: being a professional
Obligatory Venn diagram One area where I see a lot of misconceptions is around the idea of being a professional musician. Usually, people seem to think it means that you make all your money from […]
A waste of time
Here’s a good video in case you ever wonder “Am I wasting my time geeking out on this drumming nonsense? Does anyone really care if I get such-and-such particular little drum thing together?” The answer […]