Paul on drums - film at 11:00

Paul,

Interesting about you taking time to play drums and then having a different perspective when coming back to keys and gtrs. But a question: how did you know if you had good or bad (or in-between) time when you were playing the drums?

I figure Berlin can have his viewpoint if he wants to; we've all known musicians that are so good that they are exceptions to most, if not all, rules, and if they don't recognize this themselves then it will surely color their recommendations. I don't hesitate to recommend the use of a metronome for anyone else - it can't hurt you if you are already musical, and it may help people with border-line less-than-perfect senses of time. For the truly musically inept, nothing will help, and they should simply be allowed (and happy!) to play music any way they darn well feel.

And some of *that* might get transcendant!

Cheers,
Jon

--- In metatuning@y..., "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Paul,
>
> Interesting about you taking time to play drums and then having a
>different perspective when coming back to keys and gtrs. But a
>question: how did you know if you had good or bad (or in-between)
>time when you were playing the drums?

note -- we're talking mainly djembe and other handrums here -- i
can't wield a stick to save my life. but it was pretty clear to me
when i first started out on djembe that my time was pretty lousy. all
i could do was improve. since there are no melodies or harmonies to
worry about (and those are the things i did tend to focus on the
most), i guess any faults in my timing were immediately apparent to
my ears. and most of this practice has been with other people --
playing with other musicians is something jeff berlin actually does
recommend :) anyway, i tend to feel that (unless i've been away from
any music-making for an extended period) i've learned to access
an "inner groove" that gives me a steady tempo and even (or swinging,
if appropriate) sense of time. it's almost like walking -- it just
feels very natural and i know i can trust it. this is definitely an
area where i'm far improved over my high school and college days,
when i was notorious especially for rushing and/or speeding up.

these days my djembe resides in a defunct drum-circle house miles
away, so my djembe playing is pretty much restricted to tuesday
nights, when i accompany various performers at a local open mic.

(for my own slot, i usually whip out my acoustic guitar, gather some
talented instrumentalists, and go on a cross-cultural improvisational
journey that -- well, this is *supposed* to me what you can witness
for yourself at http://www.bostonbandwidth.com/btacoustic.html when
you pull down my name, but that doesn't seem to work for anyone . . .)

> I figure Berlin can have his viewpoint if he wants to; we've all
>known musicians that are so good that they are exceptions to most,
>if not all, rules, and if they don't recognize this themselves then
>it will surely color their recommendations.

yeah, that's pretty much the conclusion i've come to regarding this
thread. berlin is unbelievably good -- i'm not afraid to suggest that
he and his son may simply be genetically blessed.

>For the truly musically inept, nothing will help, and they should
>simply be allowed (and happy!) to play music any way they darn well
>feel.
>
>And some of *that* might get transcendant!

transcendant music from the musically inept . . . might that not
force us to redefine "inept"?