I have one small problem with words, and that is that they’re an insidious plot against us, skewing our concept of the things we’re trying to figure out, distracting us from reality, and wasting our time trying to make them make sense. By their existence they pretend a thing is true, which may not be true; they dictate the terms of the conversation, rudely horning in to make themselves something to have to disprove.
In short they are the medium of lies. I’m not a religious man, but they are the Tools of Satan.
Well, at least, they kinda bug me at times. Worst are the ones that sound good, so they stick around, so you want to figure out how to make them real, and it’s impossible, somebody picked the wrong word once, and we’re still plagued by it 60 years later.
Ceci n’est pas une affirmation factuelle
The word is not the thing. Not only is it not the thing, it’s usually not even a very well chosen representation of the thing. With drumming, it’s usually the first thing somebody not too good with words thought up that sounded good, so everyone kept saying it.
To wit:
Independence
The big one. I’ve talked about this at length. The word sets up an entire approach to drumming coordination that is totally false, the idea that we’re doing a lot of different, unrelated things with our four independently-acting limbs.
The reality is, it’s all one thing— one rhythm controlled by one four-limbed person.
Ambidexterity
The Holy Grail of drumming, I am told, the zenith of accomplishment, being able to do everything backwards. This defective idea comes from the general technique goal, that both hands should be equally strong and even, and we should be able to lead with either one. Fine. We should do that.
In terms of playing music, it’s meaningless— people don’t even know what ”ambidexterity” would look like. There is just a vague sense that we would become sticking agnostics, doing anything in any way at any time. But the instrument itself is not set up for ambidextrous playing, doing the same notes in a reversed sticking has a whole different set of implications for what part of the set you can hit, and where you can move it to, and how. Things you play also have to connect to each other, you have to be able to get from one thing to the next thing.
You can only think ambidexterity is a thing if you don’t know how the instrument is actually played. The actual level of the thinking is real simplistic, like they want to be able to play rock beats backwards. All of the misconceptions come from people whose main preoccupation is with learning to play rock beats.
Muscle memory
Maybe it’s a thing, I don’t know. The implication is that if I practice enough, some other intelligence will take this onerous task of playing the drums out of my hands, so I can think about larger pursuits.
The actual usefulness of the idea is pretty marginal— we can talk about practicing something “so you can do it”, there’s no reason to bring “memory” into it.
Or we can talk about the you-memory. You-the-person-playing-the-drums-memory, knowing what you’re playing and doing it on purpose.
Overplaying
Artifact of enthusiast world, usually referring to “people who can do more than I can.” Everyone who plays more than me is an overplaying maniac, everyone who plays less than me is an underplaying loser.
In fact there is no one correct level of drumming activity for any piece of music, and drummers and the musicians with whom they play get to decide that for themselves. If it isn’t to my taste as a listener, that’s my problem. I can explain why I think they made the wrong decision, and use it to guide my own playing, but this was their gig, I’m just some loser that didn’t get called to play.
Overrated
Drifting away from words to do with playing the drums. Overrated the lowest, laziest, least informed form of criticism, “this thing isn’t as good as you fools think it is”, usually with no supporting argument at all. It’s criticism for people who think that them saying it is all the only argument needed. It is said so often that people start believing it’s very important that things be rated correctly, and that that’s the first thing we need to talk about.
It’s totally irrelevent, totally meaningless. Tell me what you think about the thing itself, not what you imagine other people think of it.
Superlatives are the worst
Always used as a substitute for saying anything of substance. The average American, e.g. me, has a vocabulary of two words for anything they like: “cool” and “awesome.” When we decide to get serious and develop some intellectual pretensions, usually that just means doing the same thing with more words— getting a thesaurus and finding other words that mean cool or awesome.
Ever see the end of the movie Akira? This phenomenon has metastisized brutally via the present brain damaged form of “AI” being forced upon us, these praise-machines— for our many genius insights, for all the ways famous people are amazing iconic ground-breaking game-changing geniuses.
Say something else. I try to imagine what somebody would say if they knew something to say other than how good something is.
Crucial adjectives
As ever larger numbers of people dream of becoming “influencers”, their horrible mentality infects the broader population, and it suddenly becomes very important that people listen to what we say, and act accordingly. If they don’t, that would mean I am a failure as an influencer! And influencing is everything. So we desperately plead to be taken seriously, piling on the adjectives like crucial, essential, critical, vital, etc. Every one of those words screams “Hear me! Oh please. I don’t want to be a loser.”
All you can do is say what you want to say, you can’t control how people receive it. Stop begging.
Most importantly
Don’t ever say iconic. Stop. Nyet. Stoy. Halt. Step away from the stupid word.
What are words for
What do I know about it? I try to sketch out my ideas, using good words, not misleading words, while amusing myself, and hopefully others.
I am happy to help you with any of the materials on the site, and with anything else drumming related— contact me for private lessons, online world wide, or in person in Portland, Oregon. All levels of players, and all people, are welcome.
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