Here’s a fun fact: I have a YouTube channel, with one whole video: my “Good Times Bad Times” sheet music playthrough. Having amassed a whopping 500 views, it’s probably the most popular thing I’ve ever done.
When I went through the ordeal of getting that video together, I mused that I would probably make more from my collection of transcriptions. Well, I haven’t made any more videos, and I’m not sure I will. The one I made was pretty time-consuming, and while I could find more efficient ways to get those kinds of videos out, I’m not sure what the payoff is. Sheet music playthroughs are kind of redundant anyway, since I write articles about all the songs I transcribe, but they could be helpful for some people and would help my exposure as well.
I enjoy writing very much, but I will concede that certain topics work better in video form, like demonstrations or stuff requiring rapid-fire audio examples. I’ve mused about making a drum tuning video, or a video demonstrating how I use rudiments on the drums, but I can’t say if they will ever see the light of day. Since I don’t have much experience producing my own videos, maybe I should be a bit less ambitious and become the one-millionth drummer to explain the double-stroke roll. Of course, my concern with “drumming 101” videos is that I’m never sure how much I need to break things down. Will I also need to explain what 16th notes are? What about holding a drumstick?
Moreover, I don’t have any nice video equipment, so if I really wanted to take videos seriously, I would need to scrounge up a nice camera, some lights, and maybe a teleprompter if I don’t want to memorize all my scripts (or just freestyle it). There’s also the whole business of delivering a competent performance (which could require prior rehearsing, if not many takes) and then putting it all together. Writing an article isn’t trivial, but it can be a lot easier by comparison.
Still, some topics are ultimately too unwieldy to write about, whatever they are… so maybe I’ll do something more with the Tubes. But one reason I have more motivation to write is that I typically enjoy reading about the drums much more than watching videos about them. I subscribe to a handful of music YouTubers, but not a lot of them are drummers. There comes a time when you’ll start to learn more about life and music from non-drummers, and the majority of drummers on YouTube really just turn me off of the whole scene. A lot of drumming videos are just… kind of silly. And then some feel downright gimmicky.
Some of the most popular drumming content on the site includes things like drum covers and goofy reaction videos (e.g., “PRO drummer reacts to DRUMS!”). A lot of people enjoy these videos, and that’s fine. I guess my issue here is that very few drummers have ever done or said anything interesting in a cover video or reaction video.
Another classic is the “How To Sound Like Your Favorite Drummer” video. Obviously, I value breaking down another drummer’s playing, but I approach my transcriptions as something meant to be studied, not simply rehearsed and parroted.
Even broader drum lessons tend to miss the mark, usually taking a look at one or two measures of music in isolation, without much analysis or direction regarding what to do with these licks. But since longer videos tend to get better visibility, these lessons find a way to balloon in length with overwrought and redundant verbal meandering. Once more, it seems quite difficult to prepare a lesson for literally any and all kinds of drummers.
There’s also a glut of drumming contrivances that I just can’t deal with. Too many videos have an accusatory tone, e.g., “You’re Doing Something Wrong!!11!!11!!” Now I’ll admit, I’ve indulged in many opinionated pontifications, but some of these video topics are so vague that it would be tough for anyone to come to a reasonable conclusion if they were to consider them. And usually, the answers within are either painfully obvious or frustratingly nebulous.
That’s a flowery way of saying a lot of this stuff feels like clickbait. Think of videos that say “Don’t practice kick drum speed… unless you’ve set your pedals up correctly!” Or perhaps “What makes a drummer a pro? Good technique!” I’m really not straw-manning here!
In fact, I’m a bit perturbed by how enthusiastic people are about this material. On the one hand, if all of it keeps people motivated to practice, I guess that’s a good thing. But I do have to wonder if there’s some toxic positivity going on in the drumming world, keeping people from making the case that there might be better things to talk about.
Moving past this style of video gets us into territory that’s downright harebrained. I recently found a video that was something like “Can I Teach My Friend DRUM CHOPS?” I mean… what? What does that even mean? Do I care to find out? Unfortunately… no.
Also, what’s the deal with all the “pro drummer hears extremely famous song for the first time” content? If you’ve been playing for several decades, why would you ever admit you’ve never bothered to listen to a famous recording? Could that even be possible? Well, I have my skepticism — these videos are probably having some leeway with the truth if they’re not outright lying.
But here’s the $64 question: is there really something inherent to the combination of “drums + YouTube” that’s put us in this situation? Well, I have no doubt that many fields are filled with hacks and quacks, and a lot of this comes down to YouTube itself, which is a deeply dysfunctional website.
On sites like YouTube, your popularity is very salient. Even channels I respect can’t seem to resist the goofy trend of highlighting something completely nonspecific in the thumbnail, with some annotation that’s equal parts pulpish, vague, and equivocal, seemingly serving no other purpose than to get you to click on the video. If you spend hours putting together a lesson that gets no traction on YouTube and then you come across some genius who gets hundreds of upvotes on Reddit just by posting a photo of Stick Control, you might think to yourself, I’ve been doing this all wrong!
At the end of the day, we come back to an enduring issue: it’s tough to talk about the specifics of drumming with any real insight. Compared to other instruments, we are inherently boxed in with what we do, and a lot of times, it feels like we’re grasping at straws when we try to come up with stuff to talk about. It can be exhausting, and many drummers might just decide to take it easy and talk about “Fool In The Rain” for the umpteenth time. Or maybe just go for clickbait and laugh all the way to the bank.
It’s funny to think about drumming videos from the pre-internet days. There are a few that are still popular in the 21st century by guys like Jim Chapin, Jeff Porcaro, and Bernard Purdie. These old videos are invariably scatterbrained, but I can see why many would find them valuable. Such a video was once the only opportunity to see a real drummer talk frankly and as comprehensively as possible about how they approach the instrument. There’s something endearing and earnest about that.
One big thing I feel like the YouTube drumosphere is missing is perspective. A lot of people come off as being terminally online with internet drum culture, treating (occasionally hokey and faulty) ideas like chops, rudiments, microtiming, and blast beats like catch-alls for the instrument when they’ve become punchlines more than anything else. I often want to tell these people to just get out more. Read some books. Spend more time with musicians who aren’t drummers.
So, no, I don’t have any plans to make more videos anytime soon. Most of the stuff I talk about is better in the written form, and I just dislike much of the stuff on YouTube to begin with, which is driven by the inherent difficulties of the instrument and the omnipresent desire to rack up views. That being said… you never know.
