House of Drumming.com

Instead of hijacking the Gary Chaffee thread, I'm just going to start a new one based off a comment in there:

GoAndPractice wrote:

Dave Capuzelo wrote:He seemed to think that the new slew of Internet-based teachers were really dumbing down the younger and/or less experienced drummers.

Interesting thought. Did he elaborate more on that? Sometimes I wish I had YouTube when I was getting started instead of just my VHS collection, but I suppose if you get caught up in the "lesson guys" instead of live clips from the greats you could miss the point.

I would have said video games/internet overload have changed things... If Tony Williams had a PS3 in the house do you think we'd be listening to him now? I once heard Dennis say after a show that we won't be seeing as many super drummers because they're all picking up controllers instead of instruments.

I know I'd practice a lot more if playing drums were literally the only thing to do for fun in my house besides board games and basic cable...

All this type stuff makes me think of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

What are people's thoughts on this matter?

I think many of us on HOD got seriously into drums/music before household internet use became the norm. Personally I'm very nostalgic for the days when my source of inspiration was MD once a month and all I had was a handful if videos - Zildjian Day New York etc which I watched hundreds of times. I think that when I only had limited information I really examined it thoroughly whereas now it is like information overload.

I remember during my college holidays practising 8 hours a day fairly regularly. I seriously doubt I would have done that if I was that age now with all these distractions... but who knows?

I am making a conscious decision to try and cut down on accidental/habit-based time wasting. Most of us wouldn't sit down and decide "Today I will spend four hours checking facebook and watching youtube." ...but its easily done. I find that planning my day in advance helps (allowing allocated time for reading HOD etc!)

I don't think youtube is dumbing kids down. If anything it's exposing them to people and ideas they wouldn't have access to locally. This week I started teaching Steve's 32nd note lesson to my students. They were blown away when they watched Steve's video. 20 years ago they would have no access to Steve and a million other guys.

If kids want to practice they will, if they want to play Angry Birds or COD then that's their choice.

The bigger issue is that everyone is sounding more and more alike, with fewer and fewer individual, unique voices on ANY instrument.

I think that's always been a problem and will never change. Sometimes it's a tribute meant as respect but usually it's a lame version of the original voice.

bstocky wrote:I think that's always been a problem and will never change.

It wasn't a problem 40 years ago. No one sounded like anyone but themselves. Ringo didn't sound like Charlie, Elvin didn't sound like Max, Bonham didn't sound like Ginger, Collins didn't sound like Bruford, Garibaldi didn't sound like Seraphine. Not only that, but for the most part, they all played VERY different setups. Today it's a combination of everyone having the same influences, instant access to hours upon hours of examples, and digital editing that "corrects" performances to the point of sterility.

In a way though, this presents a unique opportunity for people to really shine if they're willing to carve their own path and take a chance.

You're only remembering the cream of the crop, which makes sense. There were plenty of wannabes back then but no one cares to remember them. As time moves on it's gets harder and harder to be original because everything is a copy of a copy. I still believe kids can be awesome and say something original. There are still new things to say and hear.

My generation had video games growing up, so we've already had a test run of that to an extent.

A craving for one cannot be met by the other.

There's deter-ants to drumming that are not found with the ease of picking up a controller and sitting on the couch, so I can see how games can become a time sink or a convenient distraction. Overall it's pretty simple really. One's priorities speak for themselves when it comes to how much time they spend on stuff. I'm pretty lazy generally speaking but that gets overridden my musical obsession, otherwise I would not have practiced as much as I had most likely. All the while playing video games on every console for the most part. Just playing along with Rush cassettes as well.

I seen my share of young teenage students so tired, robably because of gaming and surfing facebook until 4.00 am, consuming huge amounts of Red Bull, and practically faling a sleep on top of the snare drum while tryiing to give them a lesson. I'd say this s a new issue.

Now generally speaking, though. Kids are not that different from what they used to be,. There is however a problem with the general lack of competence among teachers and the attitudes of the parents in my generation.