Quintuplet jazz?

I wrote the following when I was still loopy from shooting and editing cymbal videos all day, I take no responsibility for anything I do.

There was another forum question, about using quintuplets in jazz comping. I basically think it's a bad idea, a recipe for sounding disconnected from reality. But I'm in favor of playing around with things, and seeing what happens, so here: 

Play it if you must, just don't over practice it. You've got bigger fish to fry. Use judiciously in real life if at all. 

However if you're getting your 5/8 stuff together, you might run it along with those pages I wrote back in June. 

Get the pdf

BONUS: Here's me playing down this page: 

Annals of wrong things: UNUSED POTENTIAL

Here's a little sub-rant of my other recent teaching rant. I wrote this in January, and wasn't going to post it— it's kind of silly. But people seem to enjoy these, and it's not totally devoid of educational value, so here it is.

Some things are so wrong you have to talk about them at great length just to understand how wrong they are, so here's that graphic from that other post:

I grabbed it off the web and shoehorned it into that post because I couldn't find anything better to illustrate the subject: drum instruction that is totally divorced from reality.


What are we seeing here?
The graphic is taken from from Dom Famularo's book It's Your Move, and posted online at a site called The Black Page, where it is used to illustrate an article called “Pedal control.” I don't know the site, but it appears to be about the development of extreme drumming chops in the Jim Chapin / Dom Famularo mode.

It's a kind of diagram of the universe of developing drumming abilities. There are axes of SLOW/FAST and SOFT/LOUD, each expanding outward into infinity. Within that field there's a sort of Venn diagram of the overlapping slow/fast/loud/soft requirements for three ways of playing the drums: JAZZ, FUNK, and METAL. The three ways.

In the ether of that dual-binary cosmos, beyond the scope of all abilities you could conceivably need  for THE THREE ways of playing, floats the infinite gulf of your UNUSED POTENTIAL. We could alternatively call that “technical skill unneeded for any known music.” It hovers out there forever like Original Sin, since it is infinite, and every human being will always have unused potential.


What? No.
In plain old musical reality, there is no infinite frontier of speed and volume. There's no such thing as SLOW, for example. It's an illusion. In drum technique terms, there is nothing slower than a single isolated note, regardless of the actual space between notes, or the tempo of the musical context. To play slow tempos we subdivide; converting the slow tempo the audience hears to a more easily performable faster tempo. So slowness is not a thing.

Fastness has the problem of the long tone barrier. We've talked about this before; above a certain rate, the human ear perceives single notes as a long tone. The rate at which that happens varies with the instrument, but it is well within the reach of any committed student. Rates faster than that are purely statistical, because they have little musical effect, beyond a slight change in texture.

The pursuit of infinite quietness is checked by the meathook reality of the signal to noise ratio. There's a certain level of volume beneath which room noise, the sounds of player's fingers on their instruments, blood pressure on the human participants' ear drums, tinnitus, the waitress serving drinks, begin to disrupt the perception of the music— for the listeners, and just as importantly, for the other performers. All music intended to be heard needs to be loud enough relative to environmental sounds to be perceived continuously. Try it sometime. Learn to play really quiet, and then play that way on a job. You may not get any complaints, but it will be a weird experience for everyone.

I'm getting bored, so let's just say this of infinite loudness: is anyone really asking you for that? If so, get a PA.


There are other things
What did these qualities slowness/fastness/loudness/quietness ever do to earn this claim on your time and energy? Try listening to records, learning about African music, playing piano, composing, arranging, learning about recording, learning to paint, writing poetry, raising your kids, finding a spouse, maintaining your relationship with your spouse. Learn to cook.


Dude
It's just a graphic from a drum book. I know this. But you can't introduce the concept of infinity and UNUSED POTENTIAL and then limit your scope to these tawdry and ultimately wrong metrics of ability. Come on.

Anything at all, with energy

Why do they always look surprised.

Today there is two big pieces in The Atlantic about social media advancing some very dark ideas, and about trolling and fascism, so maybe it's a good day to post a long-form rant about a somewhat related, relatively minor irritant, which has been kicking around my drafts folder for a couple of weeks.

We've been seeing a new ilk of drumming video lately, that is a kind of hyperactive bastard offspring of the famously terrible old “Expert Village” videos, mated with that crummy, lazy clickbait you see on Fxcebook:

“9 out of 10 can't name the capitals of three states.” 

“PERSONALITY TEST: What kind of omelette are you?” 

Answer: DENVER

That kind of blather. These new videos follow a similar formula, that is extremely simple:

1. Think of a dippy, urgent-sounding title.
2. Babble about nothing on video for 5-12 minutes.
3. Cut in footage of you acting funny. Edit out every microsecond of dead air. Plaster the video with text. Make a title card showing you looking non-specifically surprised.
4. Make a couple of hundred of those.
5. Beg for follows and likes.
6. PROFIT$$$

Titles and concepts can be anything you can think of in one second:

IS YOUR RIDE CYMBAL MAKING PEOPLE MAD

DON'T HURT YOURSELF WITH STICKS

WATCH OUT FOR BEATER KNOCK

HIHATS CAN PINCH YOU  

BEATS THAT DRIVE PEOPLE CRAZY

You have to really activate your 5-year-old brain. The idea is to monetize people's intolerance for uncertainty, their fear of doing something wrong, and their unwillingness to trust themselves to figure anything out; so play up the consequences of screwing up:

BAD HABITS THAT RUIN YOUR DRUMMING 

DON'T BUY THE WRONG THING 

YOU ARE SCREWING UP WITHOUT KNOWING IT

There is frequently a subtext is preteen insecurity. Play on these kinds of emotions:

PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU 

PEOPLE KNOW EVERYTHING YOU DO 

PEOPLE THINK YOU LOOK FUNNY

But what is most important is that you do not try. The “answers” you provide don't have to be good. You have only to offer a dim hope that you will address the thing you have triggered the target to care about, which he feels powerless to solve without the aid of a *kof* smart phone.

I'm serious: any crap idea at all that sounds like a drumming problem— take it and GO! Now! Run! Make the video. There is no such thing as being too inane. Don't try to improve it or make it good or valuable in any way. Every second you waste thinking about that nonsense, you are being denied the money and attention that are rightfully yours.

You can't worry that you are in any way unqualified to be making instructional videos, or that you lack any kind of talent as a media personality. This is about seizing attention, not about giving anything of value. Just be willing to say anything at all, with energy.

It doesn't hurt if you have a face that looks like an undisturbed plate of milk.

I hate to link to these people, but look at this once. You lose nothing by jumping ahead frequently.





Now, if you watched that and thought “Did I just give up nine minutes of my life for him to tell me to move my hand over here a little bit? Is that what just happened” you are not the target audience of that video. Your attitude is all wrong. You need to just be mesmerized by the screen for a few hours, letting the wash of drum-sounding nonsense cascade over you. Let the algorithm take you, and stop being so me focused— what can I learn, blah blah blah. Sit there and be monetized.

It's pointless to criticize the substance of the videos, because that is absolutely not the point. The only point is attention. If you are interacting with them in any way— even to hate them, as we are doing here— you are serving their purpose. If you know or care anything about the subject, the videos are actually a form of monetized trolling.

This guy has made half a dozen versions of this same video:





Watching that, anyone who knows anything will observe:

1. What the hell was the point of that? What's the “lesson”? 

2. What he's doing doesn't even work. Playing an AC-DC beat badly along with a recording of Take 5... what???

The fundamental dynamic of this kind of trolling is that knowledgeable people will attempt to make an ordered statement out of nonsense, and correct it on its merits, while the troll just wants to prolong the argument and get more views. So much the better. It gives their followers someone to fight with, something to defend.

Normally when I criticize drumming videos I feel a little bit bad about it. I care about the quality of the information, so I'm going to make my criticism, but often the videos are made by well-intentioned people just overstepping what they know. I usually hope they don't see my responses.

Not so with these exploiters. I want them to know. I want them to know that I want them to know. This puts me in the category of being a “hater”, another type of essential character in this grift.

You never hear ethical people calling others haters. It's always people doing something indefensible. Scammers can't be fielding criticisms on their merits, so they have turn it into these people are jealous of my youth, good looks, and success. There's also a primitive amoral egoism at work, that says I am me so I am good so what I do is right, and people against me are bad.

Happily, you can only run a business on vapor for so long. YouTube is managed by very clever people who are rabidly jealous of every cent they have to pay out to people making the actual videos. They frequently burn video makers by changing the rules on monetizing, collapsing their businesses overnight. I don't begrudge anyone a living, but if you're going to pretend to teach people about the drums, make an effort not to suck, and don't be a scumbag.

Drum technique magical nihilist death cult

Submitted without comment, excerpts from an internet forum conversation on drumming speed training “protocols.” 


“When are you considered to have truly 'mastered' a given tempo? For example, I could continually play 16th notes at 250bpm for 1 minute. I had a teacher who said 'well, can you play 250bpm for 2 hours without making a single mistake'?

'Can you do it for 8 hours'?

'Can you do it for 24 hours'?

'No? Well, then you can't play at 250bpm'.

His argument was that technique at ANY bpm should literally take zero effort and zero tension, so if you're truly able to play at, say 300bpm, there should be nothing stopping you from playing a single stroke roll at that speed for literally DAYS on end without making any mistakes or dragging at all since it should be as easy as breathing.

So, technically, if you have truly mastered playing at 250bpm (and not just muscling it), you should be able to play a single stroke roll at 250bpm until you start actually dying of thirst/starvation

Good technique should be effortless. So, can anyone actually play 250bpm with good technique? Because if they could, they'd be able to sustain a 250bpm floor tom roll for 24 hours straight - and I've not seen anyone do that.

If you feel the burn at ANY point, doesn't that mean your technique is inefficient? A guy who can play at 260bpm should be able to hold an unbroken 260bpm single stroke roll for literally DAYS without ever feeling a burn. If he feels a burn at any point, doesn't that mean that he's muscling it instead of having efficient technique? Since efficient technique should be literally effortless?

I've often heard that good technique should use as little energy as breathing. Breathing does take a degree of energy, but you can easily do it for as long as you live without taking a break. So, technically, if you have truly mastered playing at 250bpm (and not just muscling it), you should be able to play a single stroke roll at 250bpm until you start actually dying of thirst/starvation - so for several days at least.”


End of quote. 

Idiots, you're doing it wrong. Fools!

This is you trying to play a normal drum set.

Ergonomics! The science of putting things where scientists tell you to and shutting up. Our sad devotion to this clearly absurd contraption, the drum set,  has given us nothing but crippling injuries and a lifetime of frustration, but we are psychologically and intellectually unequipped to evolve it into a rational musical instrument. We don't know what the hell we're doing and we need help.

Well, our torment is finally at an end. Some scientists from the Philippines (home of the hard boiled fetal duck egg) have recognized our cognitive disability and taken pity on us, and have conducted a study to help us set up our drums and be not as stupid.

Now, before you start in with a lot of “what are you talking about I know how to set up my drums wtf is this” nonsense, let me show you some actual scientific equations used in this study:

There.

Now let me back it up for those of you reading this and saying durm what is durm, and sadly pawing the computer screen, in some atavistic hope of making the words less incomprehensible to your inadequate drummer's brain. The scientists inform us:

A drum is simply any percussion instrument beaten by the hands or with some tool, as a stick or wire brush. However, the use of only a single drum may not be able to utilize the full capacity of a skilled drummer. This then leads to the development of the drum set.

Indeed it does.

The drum set or drum kit is a collection of percussion instruments to be struck by a single player seated at a drum throne/seat. It is, as often said, the backbone of every band, keeping the pace and driving the rhythm section of every performance. A standard set of drums consists of a snare drum, a bass drum, a hi-hat, two tom-tom drums and one or more cymbals. The hi-hat could be operated by the left foot; the bass drum is operated by the right foot, while the other drum components are struck with drum sticks. Drumsticks are normally held at their fulcrum points. 

Do not be deceived by the purposely vague language and general yada yada attitude towards this seemingly foundational part of the study. You only think that an actual understanding of the underlying issues is important because you don't think scientific. They are clearly attempting to lull us into a false sense of security— making it look like they haven't bothered to think about what actually happens in a drumming performance so they can trap us later on. That's what science is all about, man.

Though the drum kit arrangement is arbitrary, there is a common set-up widely used by drummers. The image shows the common arrangement of a drum kit (Fig. 2).

Totally arbitrary! Finally someone with a total lack of knowledge of how the drums are played has the balls to point this out.

Here is how the study team thinks you are setting up your drums. I had to invert the image from the study because they have disorientingly presented it the other way around, which makes no sense at all. This does not mean they don't know what they're doing so stop thinking that.

Fig. 2

I also want you to stop thinking what the f__ is this, who puts their floor tom off to the side of the bass drum, and the tom toms are apparently placed on snare drum stands in front of the bass drum, what the f__ is up with that, the hihats are also in a weird spot, and the crash cymbal a mile away on the far side of the small tom WHAT IS THIS— and so on. That's just what the scientists want you to think. The gross inaccuracy of the diagram will make the impact of the equations, which are truly rigorous, all the more seismic. Plus there's only so much rigor to go around. Here:

more science

Get off my back. The study looked at male drummers from the Philippines (home of revolting culinary traditions too numerous to mention) aged 14-30. I don't know why exclusively male— God knows what they thought was involved in including women in the study. They basically settled on a methodology of a) trying to figure out what drummers hit most, and b) putting those things closest. All the while ceding as little as possible to three-dimensional reality.


Part 3: GET READY TO FEEL STUPID

If you think I'm going to try to explain/understand the actual mathematical gibberish that went into this you're sadly mistaken. This is what they came up with:

Overwhelmed by your crippling hidebound conformism, you may find this confusing at first. For example:

— If we assume the player is facing north, the snare drum is positioned directly where the left knee would be on an intact human body, with the large tom tom positioned flush on its left. Assuming the player is allowed to keep that portion of his leg, the snare drum will have to be severely elevated and mounted on some kind of boom or bracket mount with enough leg clearance to allow heel-up playing on whatever pedal that foot operates. Playing the snare drum normally with both hands would require a weird asymmetrical posture by the drummer,

— The hihat is on the right, meaning either it will now be played with the right foot, or we all have to buy remote systems, the cost of which could feed an average Filipino family of five for six months. Most hihat stands also have a thin metal stick protruding 8-10" above the cymbals, which is also problematic for positioning tom 2.

— The ride cymbal is way off to the right, a bit of a reach if you jazz players ever want to ding on that thing here and there, but no big woop; going cshhh-chick-a-cshhhh on the hihat sounds way more “jazzy.” You'll get used to it. Just play different stuff.

— The placement of the second tom tom would seem to be problematic, but that may just be my relentless pig-ignorance talking. Since it overlaps the hihat, and tom toms are actual three dimensional objects in the real world, and not two dimensional circles you drag around the screen with your mouse, the drum will have to be positioned at considerable height over the hihat to be playable— just look at your drumset and imagine how a 13" tom tom would have to be positioned to match the diagram.

— The smallest tom tom is not too horrible, but if you play the toms as an ensemble, they are arranged high - middle - then low way off to the left with a crash cymbal directly in between. And if you read the description of this dream set up, the crash cymbal and smaller toms are to be positioned at the same “level 3” height. So any hand motion between the low and higher tom toms is hereby consigned to the dustbin of drumming history.

— Just put that big-ass 22" bass drum any old place. Ergonomics!


Part 4: SCIENCE HURTS

Now, I know what you're saying: “that won't work”, and “there's no f__in' way I'm f__in' doing this you f__, what's wrong with you. The f__ is wrong with you.” A torrent of f-bombs, basically.

After we've all calmed down, the general awkwardness sets in. I don't know what else to tell you. Visit the Philippines. Try the hard boiled fetal duck egg.

Annals of wrong things: ride cymbal technique

I try to run a positively-focused, ah, ship around here, and I hope not to make a regular feature out of this, but occasionally things are put before you that you just have to respond to, and crankily so. In this case, it's a video by someone who wants to help us with our jazz ride cymbal technique:




I was with him 100% until he started moving. After about 0:08, I have some complaints:

• The grip in “position 2” is unlike anything I've seen in drumming, and I don't want to be told that it's “important” to play this way. What he's doing appears to be an exaggerated form of the “whip” stroke some drummers do, in which the arm leads the motion, and the thing that actually contacts the instrument— the bead of the stick— is the last thing to move. I'm not really a fan of it, even when it's done correctly, which I'll go into another time. 
• I'm in favor of a solid quarter note pulse when playing a swing feel, but this thing he's doing with ff quarter notes and a pp 'skip' note, is not musically viable— utterly useless on a real ride cymbal, playing real music. I don't know where the idea that the skip note should be “felt, not heard” came from— it wasn't from listening to music or from speaking to a professional jazz musician. 
• The elbow motion he introduces after 1:55 appears to be totally gratuitous choreography, and not a natural part of the the stroke.  
• The end result does not swing, which is supposed to be the point of all of this. Playing your time feel this way would draw some strange looks from the other musicians in a real playing situation. 

Conclusion: There was a time when you could invent improved ways of doing things and have them utterly fail in anonymity, but now, thanks to YouTube, you get to do it on a world stage, while confusing many more people than was previously possible. The technique described in this video was invented in the practice room, and is only part way through its evolution; the remainder of it— which will occur on its first usage in an actual jazz playing situation— will play out approximately like the aftermath to this photograph: