Warning, Experts Approaching (part 1)

Sometimes my blogs are about drums, sometimes the wider music industry. On other occasions drums and music are convenient metaphors for a whole range of wider issues. This is one such post.

Fake news and alternate facts are nothing new, they've been around forever. They have merely been rebranded and were formally known as opinions, or lies in some cases. Whether is international political policy decisions that effect millions of people or something altogether more prosaic somebody's always trying to further a personal agenda for one potentially devious reason or another, if only to bolster a fragile ego.

Look around you, it's everywhere.


Expertise is a quality conferred upon us by others; if it's self proclaimed there's a real possibility of it counting  for nothing.
I wonder sometimes if the definition of an expert is anyone who knows a fraction more about any given subject than we know ourselves.
'According to experts' say the newspapers about virtually everything from the occurrence of haemorrhoids to the severity of hurricanes or worse predicted outcomes in the economy, and yet so often these feted, highly remunerated types turn out to be close to one hundred percent wrong. It is of course not possible to be one hundred percent wrong about anything, anymore than it is possible to be completely right. No absolutes. Between 1 and 99 percent.

Not that long ago a certain politician spoke for many when he said that we had "had enough of experts" and setting the context of his point to one side for a moment if a broader view is taken I find myself largely in agreement. At the time of writing we are in a particularly unsettled period in the UK given the political climate together with recent events that have shocked the nation. Facebook is awash with secondhand opinions and statistics that are swallowed whole with a gullibility bordering on the ovine. Aspects of the music industry also function in very much the same way.

Musicians just like politicians can be the cause of great divisions of opinion. The are a number of highly acclaimed and undoubtedly skilled players of our instrument who simply don't move me. It isn't that I don't get it, because rest assured I do, it's just that the end result leaves me a little cold, but that's fine and in no way does it diminish the quality of the players in question. This being Buddy Rich's centenary year I have been asked to write a number of pieces about him and one of the themes that comes up repeatedly is for all his demonstrable uber virtuosity even he was not to everyone's taste. I was an avid follower of his work especially in the early 1980s and the vast majority of my fellow drummers of a similar age all thought they were too cool, and that Buddy was old fashioned and unhip. History has of course proved them wrong. Personal taste or preference is another matter altogether. The legendary bandleader Benny Goodman apparently wasn’t interested in auditioning Buddy in 1938 when his superstar drummer left the firm to branch out as a leader in his own right, and for his entire life held firm to the opinion that Gene Krupa was head and shoulders above everybody.

Subjective appraisal is not fact. Take that on board before reading further.

Not so many years ago a musician friend of a similar age told me that the 'best drummer he had ever heard' was someone who had been in the year above him at college. Two things struck me as interesting; firstly that my friend was absolutely one hundred perecnt sure of the quality of judgement of his eighteen year old self (we were both in our early 40s when the conversatiion took place). Secondly, my friend not being a drummer seemed to have no awareness that his lack of expert, inside, specific knowledge of the necessary techniques and mechanics required to play the drums in any way diluted the potency of his opinion. I have my opinions about players of other instruments naturally, we all do, but I'll always defer to my expert friends who have taken the time to master those instruments themselves. They know more than I do. Fact.

Another contentious issue amongst musicians can be time. Rhythm section players, bass players and drummers especially carry much of the responsibility for maintaining time. If we're smart it is the single thing we spend most of our practice hours working on, because more than anything it's what people want from us. I have seen many drummers with superhuman facility who never quite figured out when to put their chops in their back pocket and wondered why they didn't work as much as they might have wished. The out of context and unnecessary drum fill is like a form of musical tourettes.

Once or twice in the studio I have seen great players totally wrong footed by this. I can think of two specific occasions where the music in question was to be recorded to a click or a backing track. Both times for one reason or another it was mooted that the rhythm section lay out in order for the rest of the band to record certain parts in isolation. The result on both occasions was utter carnage and about as accurate as an indoor sundial.

Another memorable occasion was also on a session where a young arranger had brought in some charts. They were without exception fantastic, superbly conceived and scored. However, one particular chart caused the arranger considerable consternation and he became increasingly agitated, saying that the chart was "racing away". There was no click involved, and the percussionist got out a metronome to check the tempo at the beginning of the next take. It was 82 bpm. Four and a half minutes later at the end of the take he checked it again. 83 bpm. That equates to racing away by 0.2% of a beat per minute, approximately, but the arranger was convinced that he was hearing a marked increase in tempo that we knew simply was not there. Trust your rhythm section. We're here to help.

You can fool some of the people some of the time.........

There are a number of my fellow drummers who proclaim to be experts in 'vintage playing'. There is somewhat more to it than playing a 65 year old drumset and wearing some retro spectacles but a surprising number of people fall for this. Putting calfskin heads on your drums will in no way compensate for a lack of 'touch'. It's the man behind the gun who counts, and no amount of aged marine pearl will compensate for knowledge gaps, but again people are often fooled. Once on a big band rehearsal leader Jay Craig called an old Gene Krupa chart entitled 'Stop, the Red Light's On'. There was an eight bar break midway through the chart and I summoned up some key elements of Krupa's sound and style. Jay loved it so much that he asked me if I would write the fill into the chart which I declined to do, as mere rhythmic notation alone would not convey the sound and inflection necessary for authenticity. Twenty per cent technique, eighty per cent ear, as a general rule. As a compromise I wrote my phone number on the chart in case help was  needed.

A particular favourite vintage drum anecdote comes from a benefit gig some years ago. There were three or four of us drummers on the bill, and I was to play first. I offered my at the time brand new DW drum set to the other players for their use. The drummer following immediately after insisted on using his vintage drums, in this case as he put it a "67 Ludwig jazzette". Not in any way offended I put my drums away and cleared some space. He opened his cases and out came some rewrapped Ludwig drums circa 1984. The white marine pearl was clearly not Ludwig (lacking that distinctive 'horizontal' pattern to say nothing of the fact that the original Jazzette sets were not available in this finish). The lugs on the 12" tom were the same size as all the others, completely wrong for the period, and the keystone badge was the large, reissue version that appeared circa 1984. I could go on. Whether my friend had convinced himself that he had bought vintage or if he had been conned by an unscrupulous vendor is almost impossible to say, but he had repeated the misinformation to himself to the point where he actually believed it.

Just Because I'm Famous Means I Know More Than You.........Wrong.

I spent much of the late 70s and early 80s in the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra. It was a very happy time and I learned a lot. The opportunity to play really demanding charts was so valuable as was the chance to accompany the many guest artists who would appear with the band.
I've always had a strong capacity for recall and have whole swathes of big band charts committed to memory. The confidence this brings came in really handy on one particular occasion. We had a big name guest and were playing a chart called Chief's Blues composed by Rich Shanklin. The guest star had a solo on this piece which ended abruptly and was followed immediately by a four bar drum solo. The guest star couldn't get his head around this and kept running over. The whole band knew the chart inside out and knew the guest star was wrong,  but even in light of this he asserted that his mistake was somehow my fault. If this had happened in a different situation his perceived greater standing in the industry could have made his spurious argument winnable, so if you are ever in a room with important players and one of them tries to point the finger at you don't be afraid to stand your ground if you are sure you are right. Keeping quiet and saying nothing could potentially hinder your career advancement, so speak up.

Sometimes it's personal and there's not a lot you can do about it other than walk away. In the mid 90s a band I depped for from time to time had a fallout with their drummer. I subsequently learned that although the leader was very keen to hire me one of the band members lobbied very hard for someone else, undoubtedly a most capable player but no longer in the industry. Someone else's opinion and willingness to express it repeatedly cost me a lot of work and a lot of money, nevertheless  the important thing was that I am still here and I didn't allow it to knock my confidence and determination to advance myself.

Self belief is important as is the ability to constructively doubt yourself. There is something very liberating about knowing that part of what you are doing could be improved upon, together with the knowledge of what you have to do in order to attain that goal. Finding and maintaining this all important balance will take you a long way.

I remember a conversation with a very learned rabbi a couple of decades ago who also happened to be a musician. He said that one of his favourite answers to especially perplexing theological questions was "I don’t have the knowledge" as it gave him the impetus to study further.

When you know what you don't know, that's one giant step closer to expertise.
What this all boils down to is belief versus doubt. Once you are confident enough to be comfortable with the element of doubt you've got the game won.

Is it better to be absolutely convinced of your point of view or is a shred of reasonable doubt to be recommended?

I'm not sure, you tell me.

Incidentally, I know at least three drummers who believe themselves to be the 'world's best', each one of them is wrong to a greater or lesser extent.

The more I write about this the more I find there is to write, so stick around for part 2.