Those catch-up music reviews I did the last week of
August really helped clear up some of the old spots on my spreadsheet. There is
just one more line that I have been putting off for longer than a few weeks.
One of the follows that happened early was James
Payne. He was a musician, but his profile was linked not with a band, but with
a project. He and Alessandro Lombardo (Drum Brother) were setting up in a house
(Drum House) and intensively studying drums with a goal of playing
professionally, and then they would go out and try and make it in the world.
That is clearly music-related and James is a
musician. I put bands on the list to review whether it is the band that follows
me or one of the members. However, there was not quite a band at that time to
review.
I just kept it up there for a while. I added a note
later that James was playing with Hour of Penance. Now he is listed with Vital
Remains. Alessandro still doesn't show with a band, but he seems to play a lot
as a theater and session musician.
I kept track, but I also noticed other cool
drum-related things, separate from them. That's when I started to get the idea
that there should be a drum week. I would say that was the idea's genesis, but
then you might think I will be focusing on Phil Collins, and I don't think I
will. (I don't have anything against him.)
This week will be a celebration of the drums, and
today we start with The Drum House.
I am in no way qualified to say if these videos are
helpful. I never got far enough in my own drumming attempts. If I ever get back
to it, I'll at least check it out.
There are still some things that I find impressive,
so I will go over those.
One is that some of the videos have associated PDFs.
I just think that raises it a level.
Video quality is pretty high, frequently using
picture in picture technology so you can see both a wide shot and a close-up of
the key area. There are attempts to make things more fun, some of which work
better than others, and they get some interesting locations from time to time.
Another aspect that I like is the wide variety of
topics. While between them it appears that at least James is more drawn to
metal, there are jazz and gospel techniques covered, and there are
non-technique videos on topics like getting cruise ship gigs and drumming for
musical theater. They didn't just want to play drums well; they wanted to play
professionally. There is artistic and career information.
Part of that broad reach is served by bringing in
many other musicians. It looks like the house itself was located near Berklee
College of Music in Boston, which I imagine provided a deep pool of available talent. (The house
also might have been in Florida. I'm not sure about that.)
Youtube is constantly trying to get you to view
other videos, so they will show links to related ones. This meant that while
watching the Drum Brother videos with JoJo Mayer I would see links to his TEDx
Talk. A video with Steve Gadd linked to another video titled "That's why
Steve Gadd is the number one drummer in the world". That's just the tip of
the ice berg, so it seems that there is a lot to explore here, especially if
you drum.
So the channel is probably helpful, but also I have
to give them credit for making me think I should spend a whole week just
blogging about how drums are cool.
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