brain cell of average drummer
A lot of us have very limited imaginations about how to get better playing the drums— basically, do it faster and that’s it.
There are other things— sound, dynamics, touch, a number of musical considerations. Which sounds rather chickensh*t, a dodge to excuse not being able to play fast. Except: those are the things that actually determine what you can do with a thing, a piece of drumming language. If you don’t account for them, that hard aquired new skill is fairly useless. You’ve just made yourself into a chops idiot.
It’s not a small thing to be able to do a thing in a full range of dynamics, with good internal dynamics, in a range of practical tempos, in different rhythms and meters, and stylistic environments. And orchestrate it on the drumset, and make variations on it, and use it incontinuity with other musical ideas, with a good sound. As well as having it in your musical ear so you even have a legitimate reason to ever play it.
What can you do with it?
See above. That’s a description of our real job for our entire practice life, you have to have an idea of where to go on each of those subjects— or be figuring it out. Most of the job is being aware of the need, and figuring things out.
How fast does it actually sound good?
At a certain rate of speed everything, becomes a long tone. Maybe with a slightly different texture. Or a kind of noisy static if the two hands are played on two or more different parts of the drum set.
There’s also a mininum speed limit. It’s weird to play paradiddles slow. At very slow speeds you’re just playing isolated notes. There needs to be certain continuity to be the thing it is.
How well can you state time with it?
There’s a difference between doing something in time vs. stating time with it. Doing something in time means you won’t screw it up so long as the other musicians decide they want to cover for you while you play your stuff. Stating time means that you’re continuing in your normal role of covering everyone’s bottom for them timewise, while getting to do some stuff yourself.
What about “headroom”?
Everybody’s favorite new idea, and excuse to keep thinking about speed to the exclusion of every other area they could be improving their playing: if I develop a ton of excess speed, all the slower speeds will be more effortless and sound better.
Maybe it’s a thing, maybe it makes your fast playing go a little easier, I don’t think it guarantees you’ll be able to use a skill effectively as a piece of music at lower speeds.
Most people still need to work on speed
Most of us still need to get faster with stuff. Let your real playing life, and the good drummers in your city, and the music you listen to be your guide. If you’ve got reasonable drum corps type chops, time to work on something else, like learning how to play.
I know a lot of great drummers with fantastic skills, but they don’t sound good because they never worked on their touch.
I look at drums like a wind instrument: how fast you move your fingers is one thing, but more important is your touch, because your sound is the first thing that reaches the listener’s ear.
It’s a lot of work and it doesn’t have much to do with how expensive your drum was or how you tuned it.
Touch is so crucial.
And as for headroom, that goes for dynamics too.
How loud and how soft can you really play so that you can comfortably play at the volume that the music and your fellow musicians need you to play at?
As much as I like speed, it has never impressed me unless the other virtues are present as well.