Jazz RUINED MY LIFE and other red-blooded tales

this is what jazz does to you

Apparently there is a blog called JAZZ RUINED MY LIFE that is not written by the Napoleon Dynamite guy. It's about [cue mournful saxophone]:

The long drives; the dive bars[...]; playing for the door and getting handed 14 dollars at the end of the night; the drunk dancers[...] crashing into you when you are trying to play; the creepy club owners[...]; and the fact that, for the most part, we are making the same money now that we made 20 years ago–and sometimes less[...] this is the stuff that wears you down after a while.   

He invites people to share their experiences as musicians sorry they ever got involved with the jazz music. That's the site. The following person shared his own story on the Drummerworld forum, which is how I found out about it.

...now, I don't want to pick on the guy, but there are some lessons to be learned here about how not to go about having a career in music, and how not to play music:

Jazz did not ruin my entire life, just the musical part of it. I am a drummer and everyone knows me as one. I used to be in all sorts of classic rock cover bands, indie rock bands, and filled-in for various projects over the years. Then I discovered jazz. 

My playing started to change. I was throwing in ghost notes everywhere, doing more short fills and only keeping time on the ride cymbal. That’s great for be-bop, but not so much for any other genre. I would be preparing for a fill-in gig for a country act by trying to emulate Elvin Jones as best as possible.  

and this 

I became addicted to the style. I got rid of all my drums and bought a small kit. A 16" Bass drum doesn’t work for hard rock music. Dark cymbals don’t cut through harder music. Showing off my hundreds of hours spent learning to play with brushes did not score points with the punk band I was sitting in with 

I looked around for jazz gigs, and there was simply no scene. Put out ads, recorded/filmed demos, went to open mics…never once scored a paying gig or found any reliable musicians with the same interests. 

All my expensive gear and years of practicing amounted to frustration, loneliness and isolation in the local music scene. Nobody wanted to play with “the Jazz guy.” My name is no longer a “name you can trust” for backing up your band. It’s a name that gets mocked and thrown out as a contender for any serious gig. 

Laying on the ground, unable to take it anymore, looking up at my gear, I wanted to throw it away. It brought me nothing I ever desired or worked for. Hitting rock bottom in my jazz room, there was no path from here. 

I had to give it all up. Box up those hours of listening to standards, all those ads seeking like-minded musicians, for it brought nothing positive to my life.

Sooo yeah. Can you spot where he went wrong? Here's what I caught:

1. My playing started to change. I was throwing in ghost notes everywhere 
The unseen hand of jazz made him to do these things. Oddly impersonal phrasing, as if he's describing a situation over which he had no control.


2.  I would be preparing for a fill-in gig for a country act by trying to emulate Elvin Jones
This statement should trigger intense alarm. Like, I went into my job as a line cook and I just started throwing chocolate sauce everywhere. Why would anyone do this? How is this on the radar as an appropriate way to approach a professional situation where something very obvious, very specific, is called for?


3. I became addicted to the style.
Style-of-drumming addiction is not an actual thing. We can have a philosophical discussion about the nature of free will, “how truly free is man” and all that, but you do actually have a choice in how you play a country gig.


4.  I got rid of all my drums and bought... a 16" bass drum.
He says he was doing various rock projects before jazz entered his life. Why would someone sell the gear he needs for the work for which he's actually getting called and buy something that's useless for it? Who knows?


5. [My name] gets mocked and thrown out as a contender for any serious gig etc etc
Engages in a lot of professionally self-destructive behavior, then wallows in self-pity. I think “the jazz” might not be the problem here.


6. I had to give it all up.
I don't understand this mentality: going about something in a completely crazy way, then dramatically renouncing the whole endeavor when the approach inevitably fails. What did he expect to happen? I have no idea.


I hope the lessons here are obvious, like: do your actual job like a professional in all situations, and take responsibility for your creative decisions, and don't totally abandon the thing you're ok at to do something you're bad at. Don't expect instant returns when you decide to get into something new and hard.

Regarding the larger point of the blog, (maybe “jazz kinda ruined my life in general because I could use some more gigs”?): I hope nobody is taking up jazz for the money, fame, and/or adulation. The reliable paycheck and retirement benefits. The massive gig-load. The actual reason you do get into it is maybe a subject for another day, but economically it's a very challenging field even for the best players in the world.

Various internet drumming misconceptions complained about

What I want to do to the internet sometimes.

I wrote this as I was finishing the 2017 Book of the Blog. Getting a book ready for publication means having a lot of frustration to vent, which I've done here by complaining about things I see on the internet about practicing the drums.

Throughout this post I refer to “people” who think or do things I don't like. Usually that's a sign that the writer just likes believing everyone else in the world is an idiot, and is responding to some stereotyped other he made up himself. Not me, of course— I have seen actual instances of everything I mention here. But it's also fun to pretend there's some nameless rabble of idiots out there who we're smarter than, and for the sake of entertainment, I'm not afraid to indulge that a little bit. Don't get too serious about complaining about some nameless, clueless them.


Random
I keep seeing this word. Usually repeated by novices for whom everything musical seems random, because they don't know anything— or by someone who made an app. Generating a random number is a built-in function of all programming languages, and it's easier to make an app do something random than it is to actually learn something about music, have a lesson plan, and write something realistic. Music is not random— it's made by humans making creative decisions, usually reflecting a musical tradition or set of conventions.


Bury the click
Cleaving desperately to the metronome is another internet thing. A common piece of lore says that when you play with a metronome, you should be so consistently accurate that you are not able to hear the click. Bury the click, is the droning advice. I see people dedicating a lot of energy to doing this, and worrying about their inability to do it. And I've seen the videos by mediocre players who have obviously worked on this way more than other, more important things, and they don't sound good.

Having excellent time and accuracy is important, but it's doesn't require that your execution be characterless, and it doesn't require infinite refinement. Which is basically what this belief demands. Also watch out for the word “micro-timing.”


Harder
Ever heard the expression work smarter, not harder? That's what this entire game is about. That could be the motto of this blog. I'm trying to limit my use of the word, but there's a persistent belief that harder = better. It's a problem when people try to make things harder in ways that make no sense in terms of where musical skill actually comes from.

Example: one drummer figured out that the way to play slow tempos accurately is to subdivide, so what if I make it harder and don't subdivide? Zero in on the exact thing that makes it realistically possible to do the hard thing, and don't do that. It's like trying to be a better carpenter by eyeballing all your measurements. Professionals know that being a good carpenter means knowing how to use a tape measure; this mentality wants you to try to be an innate human measuring machine that doesn't need a tape measure.



Dominant/weak hand
Sometimes I think people are just attracted to certain language— it will have nothing to do with actual reality, but the words sound good, and they like to pretend this is a permanent feature of the terrain. Right now, in American culture, the idea of dominance is very popular, and people like imposing it as widely and brainlessly as possible.

Most people have a preferred hand for doing various untrained activities, which is fine, but in drumming in the modern, North American mode there is no “dominant” hand, and no “weak” hand. Even in my way of playing, which is largely oriented around leading and riding with the right hand. You're supposed to practice enough for your natural hand preference not to matter. Follow that link to read more about this— both sides of this issue.

If someone complains about his “weak” hand or “weaker” side, he's admitting he doesn't practice. What do you do to remedy a weak hand? Practice your technical materials for snare drum twice as much starting with your left hand as your right, and practice in front of  a mirror to match stroke heights and technique between the hands. That's it. In a very short period of focused practiced you can develop solid, balanced technique. You don't have to play “open-handed” or learn to play all your stuff backwards.


Fear of a bad habit
Whatever you do, don't just play the drums because you may develop a bad habit which will displease the Father God and ruin you forever. It's a great excuse for never doing anything. In reality, the only bad habit you should worry about is not practicing daily, and listening enough, and playing enough. Everything else can be easily fixed with more of same.