SKF NOTE: Art Hodes wrote wonderful columns for Down Beat magazine from his vantage point as a jazz musician (pianist) who mixed company with some of the early great jazz pioneers. Plus, I love Art Hodes’s writing. Here’s a quote I kept in one of my notebooks.
“Go back as far as you like — to the very beginnings of jazz. You’ll find that the jazz people were making this music on any instrument they could lay their hands on. Before store-bought instruments were available, they made their own; bass on a jug, fiddle on a cigar box with broom-stick handle plus gut string, washboard drums, kazoo-like toys to express the lead melody.
“People were saying something on anything they could find; the lack of a lacquered horn didn’t keep you from telling your story. That was the big thing — the story.”
SKF NOTE: Discovering music pioneers of horns, keyboards, strings, reeds; songwriters, lyricists, arrangers — this remains one of my favorite parts of studying drum pioneers. A common theme among pioneer musicians is the importance of originality, of learning to express ourselves through our instruments, of learning to communicate through our instruments.
Studying Dixieland jazz led me to two Blue Note albums by clarinetist George Lewis and his New Orleans Stompers — and drummer/singer Joe Watkins. The song, Ice Cream, is from one of the Blue Note albums. After listening to George Lewis’s music, and reading the album liner notes, I bought a George Lewis biography,Call Him George, by Ann Fairbairn. Ms. Fairbarn’s real name is Dorothy Tait. And this exchange between George Lewis and a young clarinet student comes from that biography.
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George Lewis explained the improvisation further in response to a question from a young clarinet student.
“How do you get your tone, Mr. Lewis? And what’s the secret to your technique?”
“You got to know your horn, son,” said George Lewis. “Don’t be in too big a hurry. You can’t learn it quick. You got to know it like a baby knows its mamma’s face. It takes time.
“And you can’t do it just taking lessons. You got to play that horn just for yourself, for hours and hours and years. You got to learn to make it say what you want it to.You got to learn to make it talk, just like you learned to talk. I never been much of a talker, not me. But my horn talks for me. There’s no one can teach you that. You got to learn it for yourself.
“And there’s something else you got to remember. Don’t try to play like George Lewis. Try to play like you.”
Pianist Dick Katz said in an interview with Ira Gitler, “People don’t know that [Kenny Clarke] had one cymbal. It wasn’t very big, and we used to call it the magic cymbal, because when somebody would sit in on drums, and use [Clarke’s] set, it would sound like the top of a garbage can. But when he played it, it was like fine crystal.
‘He kept the cymbal level, like a plate, and he played with a short, side-to-side wrist motion, and here are these guys — some people today — who look like they’re winding up to hit a home run to simulate the same effect.
“To play softly — strong, but at a low-volume level — is exceedingly difficult; particularly on drums. Most drummers can’t play soft because they don’t have the muscular control. Kenny Clarke used to say this: ‘You don’t beat the drums — you play them.'”
SKF NOTE: Among my boxes of drumming memorabilia come a couple of legal size folders full of writing by Charlie Perry. Charlie was a noted drum teacher and author. His best known method book, perhaps, isThe Art of Modern Jazz Drumming, which Charlie co-authored with Jack DeJohnette. Charlie Perry also had an early rock drum method book with Gary Chester.
I studied briefly with Charlie, and he was an earlyModern Drummerfan and Advisory Board member. How did I end up with Charlie’s file folders? Who knows? Charlie seemed always to have writing ideas looping through his imagination. It’s probable Charlie handed me these file folders, asking me to look them over, and do something with the contents. Do what? If I ever knew, I have forgotten.
This Buddy Rich interview is in a manila file folder labeled “Q&A Drumset Question Matter.” Charlie Perry, the interviewer, has Buddy Rich‘s answers to “practice habits and teaching methods [Buddy Rich] considers wrong and in dire need of revision.” Buddy’s answers are fascinating and, in my opinion, too valuable to leave buried in a file folder.
The original interview is on photocopied 8.5 x 11 sheets of white paper. Following Charlie Perry’s introduction, this interview is formatted with subjects in underlined block letters, followed by Buddy’s answers typewritten. Charlie has then edited Buddy’s typewritten answers with a lead pencil, removing some of Buddy’s words, replacing Buddy’s words with his, Charlie’s, own words, and sometimes just changing punctuation.
I’m presenting this interview then with Buddy’s unedited words, and – in bold type – Charlie Perry’s edits of Buddy’s words. Where the interview subject title has only Buddy’s words, Charlie left them unedited.
Finally, I have no details on when or how Charlie’s interview with Buddy took place. Neither do I know if Buddy’s typewritten responses are verbatim, or if this interview was published anywhere.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH BUDDY RICH by Charlie Perry
Buddy Rich continually revises his style, creating and building in the process. While mastering the modern style of drumming, he has also added new and provocative dimensions (rhythmic, tonal, and technical) to his playing. Buddy is as forthright in his opinions as he is in his art. He is a performer with integrity, one who will not compromise his principle. Here he speaks of practice habits and teaching methods which he considers wrong and in dire need of revision.
THE PAD
Buddy Rich: What are you going to use on the job, a pad or a snare drum? A snare drum of course! Then why strive to adjust to the response and sound of a practice pad, when you must then readjust to the characteristics of a snare drum? [SKF NOTE: Charlie Perry deleted Buddy’s word “strive,” and replaced it with the word “bother.”]
A snare drum has “sound” – tone. You can work with pitch and duration. These qualities are missing in a pad.
PRACTICE STICKS
Buddy Rich: The practice stick is considerably heavier, and usually larger, than the playing stick. After having worked with the practice stick, you must adapt anew to the weight, feeling, and grip of the playing stick. Why bother? Practice with your regular playing sticks, no others.
Charlie Perry: The practice stick is usually much heavier, and usually larger, than the playing stick. After having worked with the practice stick, you must re-adapt to the weight, feeling, and grip of the playing stick. Why bother? Practice with your regular playing sticks, no others.
SITTING POSITION
Buddy Rich: The individual must sit in proportion to his size. If you have long legs, don’t sit too close to the bass drum and hi-hat in a cramped position. If your legs are short, move in close so you will not have to stretch and strain to reach the pedals.
Charlie Perry: The drummer should sit in proportion to his size. If you have long legs, don’t sit too close to the bass drum and hi-hat in a cramped position. If your legs are short, move in close so you will not have to stretch and strain to reach the pedals.
CLOSED ROLLS
Buddy Rich: A closed roll should sound like sandpaper being torn. It should not be a cross between an open and closed roll, each which is composed of different characteristics.
Charlie Perry: A closed roll should sound like sandpaper being torn. It should not be partly open and partly closed. The characteristics of the closed roll are different than those of the open roll.
WRIST AND FOREARM
I make most of the strokes with my wrists at a natural level (wrist level: from quarter to full level strokes).
The power and control are in the forearms and wrists. Raising your arms too high, unnecessarily, results in lost motion, loss of speed, and can interfere with your control and timing.
FINGERS
I use my fingers to supplement the motions of my wrists (fingers and wrists together, as one unit), to tighten or loosen my grip. However, there are times when I do motivate the sticks with the fingers alone.
TECHNIQUE
Buddy Rich: The concept of technique, prevalent among drummers, is ill-founded. Many of them spend countless hours practicing technique for the sake of technique itself, without regard to its ultimate purpose: a means of expressing musical thought and sound.
Charlie Perry: The concept of technique that is prevalent among drummers, is wrong-headed. Many of them spend countless hours practicing technique for the sake of technique itself, without regard to its ultimate purpose: a means of expressing musical thought and sound.
PRACTICE
Buddy Rich: I don’t believe in too much practice: your playing can grow stale. Over-practice often results in unnatural (mechanical) drumming.
Don’t dissipate your energy in practice, save it for the job.
What you should do is to play every chance you get. If you are not on a steady job (six nights a week), then rehearse with units as often as possible. But, by all means, play!
Charlie Perry: I don’t believe in too much practice: your playing can grow stale. Over-practice often results in mechanical drumming.
Don’t dissipate your energy in practice, save it for the job.
What you should do is to play every chance you get. If you are not on a steady job, then rehearse with groups as often as possible. But, by all means, play!
DRUM-SET PRACTICE
Buddy Rich: When on the job, you don’t first play with the left hand, then with the right hand, then with the bass drum, and so forth. Since you don’t play this way, why practice this way? It is nonsensical to do so.
When you do practice, use your drum-set, so your coordination between the hands and feet, and your touch (the response of your drums and cymbals to your strokes) will remain sharp, and further improve. And play as you normally do, with feeling and musical intelligence, not in a cold (strictly methodical) manner.
[SKF NOTE: Charlie Perry removed the second paragraph words, strictly methodical.]
READING AND INTERPRETATION
Most of the notation is unmarked series of notes that are unaccompanied by marks of expression). To merely “read” the part results in a dull literal playing of the notes. To convey the musical feelings of the composer, or arranger, you must inject them (the notes) with dynamic variety, phrasing, tonal effects, and such. This “coloring” can be accomplished through the rise and fall of volume, and by dividing the notes among the snare drum, toms, bass drum, and cymbals.
At the moment of performance you throw away the books and the methods: the artistic instinct of the player takes command.
THE DRUM TEACHER
Buddy Rich: Before you can be a drum teacher, you have to be a well-rounded drummer. To me, that’s someone who, in addition to formal training, has learned through doing; who has had years of top professional experience (big bands and small groups, playing dance music, shows, and jazz).
Those who teach only technique (pad technique) or reading, teach the parts of drumming in an isolated form, separated from the whole. They don’t teach drumming as it really is, drumming as it’s professionally practiced (on the job playing), with a performer’s concept, sensitivity, interpretation, and musical purpose.
Charlie Perry: Those who teach only technique or reading (reading exercises), teach the parts of drumming in an isolated form, separated from the whole. They don’t teach drumming as it really is, drumming as it’s professionally performed, with a performer’s concept, sensitivity, interpretation, and musical purpose.
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