have 63 videos up there. Each one took at least a day to film and
edit. It's nice to look back and see all of this stuff I've produced.
Whenever I begin a new project it can seem really daunting. I didn't
set out to make 63 videos. If that had been my initial goal I
probably wouldn't even have bothered starting. It's all too easy to
think about the end result and be put off by the sheer amount of work
ahead.
When I first started transcribing things I bought a ring binder to
keep them in. The first addition to that ring binder looked very
lonely. A single piece of A4 paper just flapping about on its own.
Over time I added a second, and a third. By the time I had five
sheets in there it began to feel like a collection. Once I got to
that stage it seemed much less stressful to do 'just one more' and add
it to my file. Now the binder is full and I can look back over all
the stuff I've worked on over the years. Whenever I feel like I'm not
getting anywhere I can look back through this folder and see for
myself all the work I've put in and the progress I've made.
Everything in that folder was once something that I wanted to be able
to do, but didn't understand. The process of working it out allowed
me to comprehend it and eventually absorb it into my own playing.
Seeing the evidence of this inspires me to continue.
Think about how many words you know in your native tongue. You
started out, before you can remember, with just one word. Gradually
you added more, and more. At school they were drilled into you. All
of those words required an explanation and regular use in your
sentences in order for them to become familiar. Even with a large
vocabulary, learning a new word is not easy. You have to work with it
for it to become as effortless as those you've carried with you for
many years. If you wanted to learn English, you wouldn't pick up a
dictionary and start at "aardvark". A dictionary is completely
self-referential. Every word in it is explained with other words in
it. The only way you can actually learn the language is to absorb a
few words from the people and world around you, then begin to work
your way out.
When you learn a new word from a dictionary you learn it in terms of
other words. Let's take the word 'indigo' as an example. In
reference to the colour, a dictionary definition is:
3. The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between blue
and violet, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with
wavelengths of approximately 420 to 450 nanometers; a dark blue to
grayish purple blue.
If you'd never heard the word before this definition lets you know
that it's a colour somewhere between dark blue and greyish purple
blue. That's how you'll think of it until somebody points to a shop
window and tells you they love that 'indigo' Tshirt. You might
previously have thought of it as purple, but now you have a new word
to apply to this specific shade of purple. Suddenly your appreciation
of the colour spectrum has broadened slightly. Now, if you see a
definition of another colour that's somewhere between indigo and
violet, then you might have an appreciation of what they're talking
about. Indigo means something in the world, and not just in theory.
It's the same with drum fills, grooves, and techniques. You want to
learn some authentic latin drumming? It requires the same effort to
work these new ideas into your playing. They need to become second
nature. If you buy a book full of authentic rhythms you might wonder
how on earth you're ever going to remember them all. You should
appreciate that remembering them all isn't the point. Just as there's
little point remembering all the words in the dictionary without
understanding them, there's little point in remembering all these
rhythms without knowing how to apply them. You need to accumulate
them over time and understand how they fit with the musical styles
they're derived from.
Instead of being put off, just take the first example in the book and
work with it. Apply it in all the different ways you can think of.
Pull it to pieces and put it back together. Internalize it. Make it
your own. Listen to music in the style of you're learning and try to
identify when you hear your rhythm. Eventually you'll just 'know' it
like you know what indigo is. The name will conjure up the rhythm and
you won't have to think of it as groups of 8th notes and 16th notes.
When you get to that stage you can move onto the next one. Just
remember that the next one will require a similar amount of work to
absorb. Of course, the more you listen to a style of music and the
more you learn about it, the more you see how these rhythms relate to
each other and where they come from, so it gets a little easier. Keep
working in this way, and a few months down the line turn around and
see how far you've come.
The most recent example of accumulation for me is this blog. Having a
website with a menu item named 'blog' is like having a nagging english
teacher asking you to write essays. The only way I've managed to fill
it with content is by forcing myself to sit down every day and write
750 words. That only worked because I turned it into a game and
started a collection. The first few were hard to do, but once I had 3
or 4 articles written it seemed to get easier. I chose the rules to
make the game easy to win. All I had to do was write 750 words. They
didn't necessarily have to be good. I didn't have to edit them if I
didn't want. I just had to get the words out of my head and onto my
screen. Once the raw material is out, it's then a different game to
shape it into something for the blog.
The "Lick A Day" thing that I posted last night was an attempt to
start another collection. I spend a lot of time analysing other
people's drumming and breaking down things that exist already. But I
don't spend much time creating new ideas. I think that's something I
ought to be doing, but again, the thought of coming up with a whole
bunch of new ideas is overwhelming. My approach? Try and do one a
day. That seems achievable. Even if I just do it for a week, at the
end of that time I'll be able to look at 7 new ideas that I came up
with. That's the beauty of accumulation. You inch forward and if you
wait long enough before looking behind you it's a nice surprise to see
what you've achieved.
If you enjoy this content please spread the word. You can help by clicking 'like' on my Facebook page, subscribing to my YouTube channel, leaving comments, etc.
Thanks for your support,
Joe
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