- Hey everyone, it's Jared here,
and I'm trying out something a little bit different,
this is more of a vlog-style video.
You know, we have a lot of great artists
out at Drumeo, and a lot of the coolest things,
and the coolest stuff, are shared off camera.
And I wanted to bring you in to some
of these things, so I hope you like it.
If you do, please give me a thumbs up,
I'd love to hear your feedback.
So, today I was just out for a walk here with Bruce Becker.
If you don't know Bruce, he's like...
I call him the master of drum technique,
he's like Mr. Miyagi, he...
What is the kid's name in that sh...
- Oh yeah-- - To Daniel-san
- Right, Daniel-san.
- Yeah, so he's been getting me to paint
his fence and wax his cars all day. (laughs)
- And now they're clean and they're well painted.
- But we were just going for a walk,
and he was telling me about stories.
'Cause he teaches so many professional drummers,
so, guys at the highest level,
at the top of their game, and he was telling me
that even some of these guys, some of these guys
that are paid to play drums full time and tour,
they make some huge technical fails.
Now, we're not gonna mention any names.
- No.
- No, of course not. (laughs)
But, I wanted you to just quickly share
what some of these things were
so that the people at home watching,
all the Drumeo students, could kind of get
an inside look at, you know, what...
And maybe they won't feel as bad
if they're already making some of these mistakes.
- No, just a lot of guys play with a lot of tension.
You know, we have such an interesting body,
it moves in such a natural way,
that's just the whole Freddie Gruber premise,
was using your hinges and your wrists
and your shoulder in a natural way,
and not resisting that.
And there's a lot a guys who just
pick up the sticks, and they play,
and they just have a very rigid approach.
And after some years it starts to break down
and then they have some issues and problems.
And that doesn't necessarily knock them
off the gig, it just makes them like,
"Oh my god, I gotta fix this, how do I fix this?"
And then some guys come to me and I try
to push them along in their technical development,
and usually we get some good results
and they start to loosen up and feel
a lot better about their playing.
But, you know, it...
Not just because you're a great player does it mean
you're immune to having a technical deficiency.
Technical deficiencies are just built on doing something
repetitively and not really thinking it through.
And some guys just made so much music and had
so many gigs, they didn't think about developing that.
It wasn't a priority, and then they find themselves
at 40, or 50, or 60 going like, "Ouch."
- Yeah, so do you get that a lot?
Like a lotta guys'll come to you,
they've been playing, you know, a road hog,
on the road for years, and they come to you.
That's like a common thing, where they just
basically were gripping the sticks too tight, or--
- Yeah.
- Repetitive motion injuries.
- Yeah, I see a lotta guys who kinda atrophy
over a period of time, and they're struggling,
and they're going like, "Geez, I don't want my expiration
date to come so soon, I wanna be able to go and pursue
playing a little bit longer and not have
to hang up the stick," so to speak.
So, you get into that thing of, "Alright, well,
let's see what we gotta work with."
And, I don't wanna name names, but I've seen
some kooky things as to how they're holding
the stick, and you go, "Geez, how have
you made that work for so long?"
- [Jared] Yeah.
- Yet, their perseverance and their tenacity
pulls them along until such time
where things start to give out.
- You also mentioned something else
about how they're literally just hitting
the drums, tell me about that.
- Well, you know, if you strike into the surface,
you take a lot of shock back in.
- Right.
- So if you can house the stick in such a way
where you can allow the stick to pop off the drum
and pull out the sound acoustically,
and get it to sort of sit in your hand
in a comfortable fashion, you're gonna get
a bigger sound out of it, and you're not
gonna be throwing it into the drum.
When you throw it into the drum,
that downward excess thrust is going
to be debilitating over a period of time.
And it doesn't require, I mean, the shell
has a maximum point, where it's
gonna resonate with a nice clarity.
Once you go beyond that, which you can,
you get a little bit more of a distorted tone.
It'll be loud, but it'll be more
of a distorted tone, it's not gonna be a pretty tone.
If you look at any acoustic instrument,
you're basically striking off that surface.
So if you're hitting a timpani, you're striking off.
If you're hitting a concert bass drum,
you're striking off the surface.
So the drum set should be no different.
I mean, it's an acoustic instrument,
and you're looking at producing acoustic values,
so you wanna come off the drum and allow
the rebound to occur to some degree, naturally.
- Okay, you also spoke about something
which I thought was an interesting term,
called a one-dimensional approach.
Tell me about that.
- Well, a one-dimensional approach, I would just say,
is that you have maybe a limiting approach
that offers you perhaps to get out
one dialect of rock and roll, per say.
- [Jared] Right.
- You know, so that if you can expand your range
and how you move, you can ascertain a better dialect
from other styles of rock and roll.
Rock and roll is not just one style.
- [Jared] Yeah.
- It's got so many different little nuances,
and so if you consider yourself a bonafide
rock guy, then you wanna be able to get into
a little bit more of the nuance
of the contributions that each guy would have given.
So, if you're saying John Bonham was a specific
contribution, that would be some kind of a dialect.
Then you look forward and you go, Neil Peart.
That's a completely different contribution,
but that's a specific dialect too.
And so you wanna be able to expand your range
so you have more nuance to your approach,
instead of being a one-dimensional guy.
And that's really what I'm speaking about.
- Awesome. Thanks, man.
So, I hope all you like this.
Tell me if you like the kind of more vlog style.
Going for a walk, we have a concrete plant
behind us, so we have a airport over there,
and a helicopter training center over there,
and Drumeo's just kind of over there that way.
But, BC is beautiful.
If you're ever come to BC, Canada, it's beautiful,
and if you ever come here you gotta come visit us at Drumeo.
But, we just finished filming this course
with Bruce, it's called, "Drum Technique Made Easy,"
it is incredible, okay?
He takes you step-by-step, a very methodical
approach to improving your technique.
And, in addition to just video lessons,
which are everywhere these days,
he actually will work with you,
and every student who wants his help,
where you can ask questions, you can send a video,
you can interact with the community.
You can actually use him, almost like
a personal drum coach, and it's incredible.
So, you gotta check it out, the link is probably below,
or above me, and I'd just love for you
to check it out and see if it's for you.
So, let me know if you like this new vlog style, otherwise--
(plane engine roars)
We'll see you later.