frozen octopus

I was walking down a crowded sidewalk, running over the new song we were going to rehearse later on. I had to take a right to the studio, which disrupted the stride of someone behind me.

They sighed a huge sigh, and that made me slightly forget the song for rehearsal. That pissed me off, which made me completely forget the song.

So I let the sigh of some random person who could’ve been having the worst day ever, unrelated to me, make me forget going to play drums.

Not worth it.

Rehearsal today, and I am coming in with a triplet beat to share [1]. I discover a lot of new beats to bring to rehearsal by learning from the past. Not copying the past. Learning from the past.

If I study some old technique, beat, idea, or pattern on drums, the same pattern occurs at practice when I am alone. I try to learn some old beat or fill as is, getting to about 50-75% close to it. Then my style gets antsy and wants some attention. I combine what I am trying to figure out with what I usually do, and it becomes a new thing I can do in my playing.

It happened that way with linear drumming. It happened that way when I tried to learn jazz drumming. It happens that way when I try to learn some legendary old beat.

Not being able to learn a beat completely isn't a fail. Coming out of a rehearsal understanding the idea or concept behind a beat is a huge win.

I can't play the half-time shuffle in the song "Fool in the Rain" note for note. My ghost notes noticeably leveled up from the fifteen minutes I sunk into figuring out the pattern. That's a huge win.

[1]: RLR LRL (RLR is floor tom. LRL is on snare)