ligthen yourself up with some puppetji

[alchemikey]

[Note from moderator: there is one f* word right at the beginning of this, however, it is very funny otherwise]

enlightening videos with a sense of humor

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=puppetji69

peace,
mikey

[David Wilcock]

This is pretty clever... though I then watched the drum solo video and wish I could have sat down with that guy and explained to him how to create a musical solo.

He's got 70-75% of the technique he needs to say whatever he wants to say, but doesn't understand the basis of creating a musical statement with percussion instruments. If you practice too much like this it also makes it very difficult to do your job, and do it well, in a musical ensemble.

Drummers out there should always have a repeating theme -- a rhythmic phrase -- in your solo. Also, you want to race ahead and pull back, race ahead and pull back, building to a final crescendo -- and then exit. Anything longer than 2 minutes is pushing it, because most people actually don't like to hear drum solos for very long, if at all.

Leave space. Make sure you can sing all the notes you play. Your solo should "breathe" the same as if it were a horn. That's why my jazz drumming instructor in college, Jeff Siegel, recommended that I listen to and translate jazz horn solos into musical statements on the drums.

- David

[Conga]

So.. David, which one did you watch? Being a drummer ( notice me handle) I wanted to see the guy who didn't know how to play the spaces, but what I saw was a pretty smart puppet. And no drumming....

:cool:

[alchemikey]

the drumming video is just someone that subscribes to puppetji's youtube channel

[charran]

Now we know one of David's pet peeves :) No bad drummers allowed. Eeek! Thank God I took piano!

Charran

[Alisima]

This is pretty clever... though I then watched the drum solo video and wish I could have sat down with that guy and explained to him how to create a musical solo.

He's got 70-75% of the technique he needs to say whatever he wants to say, but doesn't understand the basis of creating a musical statement with percussion instruments. If you practice too much like this it also makes it very difficult to do your job, and do it well, in a musical ensemble.

Drummers out there should always have a repeating theme -- a rhythmic phrase -- in your solo. Also, you want to race ahead and pull back, race ahead and pull back, building to a final crescendo -- and then exit. Anything longer than 2 minutes is pushing it, because most people actually don't like to hear drum solos for very long, if at all.

Leave space. Make sure you can sing all the notes you play. Your solo should "breathe" the same as if it were a horn. That's why my jazz drumming instructor in college, Jeff Siegel, recommended that I listen to and translate jazz horn solos into musical statements on the drums.

- David
Although I don't feel the need to discuss the art of drum soloing, since it cannot be conveyed in words anyhow, I do feel the need to mention that the guidelines you give for soloing are ofcourse only guidelines.

The big question immediately pops in my mind: to what extent should a drum solo conform to the guidelines of soloing, that is, the soloing that we all are familiar with, and to what extend should it be guided by new, unheard of elements? In other words, do you play what they want to hear, or do you push the boundaries?

Ofcourse, the answer is quite straightforward, you lure you listeners with things they know, and once they have 'opened up', you introduce new elements. One cannot start with the unknown right from the first note, but one has to wait until 'the fish get used to the water', before releasing them.

But this all assumes that one plays a solo merely for entertaining someone else, and in that case one should always take in account the 'level' of listening of that someone else in creating the solo. But unlike solos for bragging about oneself, for making others happy or merely so that you get paid, aren't there other solos too? Solos in which one tries to express the inexpressible? Solos in which one forgets who is listening or who is playing and only hears the solo marching forth? I bet those solos can last for ages.

In any case, the complexity of a solo, and the elements therein, depends on the listener. There are no rules for a solo, only in the heads of those who listen.