The Neuroscience of Drumming
openculture.com
openculture.com
For the people that are trying to learn, it became very noticeable, some people can naturally drum, and some people simply...just can't. The divide is quite large in fact. A natural drummer could pick something up in 5 mins, while someone who 'can't' would take weeks to pick the same thing up. Then of course any iteration of that new thing, the natural would almost immediately get it, and again....the other would take the same amount of time. It's really like how the brain is wired. (I'm not a neuroscientists)
Among people outside of the drumming world, you can notice people tapping all the time. At a concert of just to music playing. Some people I can tell right away, they would make a good drummer if they actually did it. They can stay in time to what they are listening too and it comes naturally. Others...well...rhythm just isn't going to happen for them.
Put 10 people in a room with music playing to a steady beat, say 128 bpm. Now ask them all to clap to that beat. 99% of the time it will rush. Try it out. If there is someone who is "natural" at it, that person, or several of them, will separate from the group, and you get the flam, or out of sync, clapping sound.
As for "smarter"... I don't know about that. I would say that many drummers I have known would easily be consider the best musicians in the band. Whether it be a rock band, jazz, or marching band.
I've had lessons from 8-16, and played in a band until 21. I was able to pick up all the exercises, usually a bit easier than my classmates (perhaps I practiced more, although the 10 mins a day average was already a tough battle), but they were always better and more natural at picking up the rhythm of, and playing along with a music tape (CD later on ;).
Now, a bit older, I can pick up the beat of most songs, even without drums, but I always fail to get that pa-pa-pa-pam in the Friends theme. I think if would write that one down, to see the rhythm on paper, I easily could, but au natural, non.
I always thought I was untalented but 'learned' my way through it for as long as it could take me (helped by the fact that I am, in many areas, a fast learner). But that doesn't seem to match either of the sides of the divide you describe.
Sidenote: I can by no means sing (even talk) and drum (or play guitar) at the same time, Not. At. All. I think that has something to do with wiring as well.
I think there are four elements to making a drummer:
1) Being able to keep time 2) Limb independence 3) Speed 4) Taste
For me, #2 was clearly the hardest. I found that it took lots of practice in order to achieve relatively decent independence. And even after all that practice, I find many other drummers are much better than me in that regard. I can't say it's ever held me back in terms of confidence because I play the types of music I want to play and can still say I'm better than many other drummers. I started out on snare drum and later moved on to the set and even though I had a strong foundation in rhythm, stick control, etc. it was still a lot of practice.
I'd be very curious to know what you think some people can pick up in five minutes. I've always been curious about how long it takes others to develop that muscle independence.
You can also hide some technical proficiency by playing tastefully. This works well in many genres of music, but certain genres require substantial amounts of technical ability.
Talking about picking up in 5 minutes, I meant more for rudimentary drumming. i.e. playing rudiments, or a certain combination of notes, different tempos, going from eight-notes, to triplets, to sixteenth-notes back to a triplet on beat 4, all in a measure. Stuff like that.
It applies to the set and limb independence as well. I never really thing about limb independence anymore. At a certain point, if you can "think it", you can play it. Thinking it means something different to a lot of people, but literally count out the notes, however you do it (1 e and a), and make sure you say the number of the downbeat on the downbeat. You'll get to the point where you see a rhythm, and without having practice what your arms and legs are doing, you can just play it on set. Now it takes a bit of practice to get to that level, as it involves an understanding of music, reading, comprehension, etc. Of course there are uncommon time signatures and stuff you may run into that are weird, but you would be playing some very uncommon music haha. I played with Steve Smith (of Journey) and he was thrown off by an ensemble we were doing, took him a few hours to get it, even with his experience. It was just something he had not see before.
Now stuff like that crazy blast metal or whatever it's called now is different...getting your feet to play sixteenth notes on the double bass at 200 bpm is (stupid) just muscle building...
I never really struggled with some of the other stuff you mention though. Rudiments, keeping time, understanding tempos, and how notes break down, etc. That stuff came relatively naturally. Once I understood notes break down into whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc., understanding things like triplets came very naturally.
Interesting story about Steve Smith. I remember seeing a video of Carter Beauford struggling through odd time signature changes as well. I'm sure unless you're immersed in things like progressive music on a regular basis, things outside of standard time signatures probably are a little foreign, especially to pop drummers like Smith and Beauford.
And speed shouldn't be said, don't you feel drumming is an incarnation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festina_lente ? Speed is relaxation.
The taste point is very interesting, sometimes simple subtle touches will create tension, syncopation, acceleration or half time feel. It's amazing how tiny little details can mean everything.
That reminds me of another razor, wherein many people can't clap blues/swing... was it that most people clap on 1 & 3 while for blues/swing it's 2 & 4?
But we all get your point ;)
On the anecdotal side, I've played music with a lot of people over the years, and have long suspected there is some sort of inborn talent spectrum for both rhythm and pitch discernment (somewhat separately from each other, too). Practicing a ton will make a difference, but it definitely appears that certain skills come much more easily for some people than others. Good drummers are actually pretty hard to find in my experience, and they tend to be in high demand.
When taking lessons in a music school I also had to follow separate classes of music theory which I hated, so I wanted to quit. But my teacher desperately wanted me to continue and allowed me to follow his classes "unofficially". Then I started playing in bands and the other members were always really impressed. Again I didn't understand why.
I'm at best mediocre at everything else I do: other musical instruments, being a developer, these kind of logical reasoning intelligence & maths tests.
Don't really excel at anything at all but I always felt that playing drums was some kind of built in talent I had, so I believe there's a kind of person that's born with a real talent for rhythm.
When I learned how to play in the first place, particularly with jazzy bands and all that, it honestly felt like the mental rigors of studying, since I was trying to incorporate rhythms, as well as breaking them, all while giving a steady heartbeat to the band playing with me. Learning different techniques, handling, sticking, getting to the point where hitting the drum head at the precise location for the precise sound needed was a lot of multitasking to keep in mind, while holding steady notes on a snare or a hi-hat.
And the point was to practice all of this until it became second nature, and you didn't have to keep any of it in mind as you played.
So it'd be more fair to say that drumming kinda rewrites the way you think and redirects certain aspects of your mental faculties.
It's not just children's music. Most songs you find today, if you listen closely enough, the words follow the beat. I.e. every once in a while, a word starts on the "one" beat.
And we take it for granted. You'll very quickly realize something is "off" if that's not the case. That's usually what you find in "artsy", "look at us we're weird and different" type of music. Annoying most times, and incredibly difficult to get right.
As it happens I took classical piano as a teenager, but always had trouble with the rhythm.
When getting a medical exam for scuba there was a suggestion that I had an arhythmic heartbeat and I've always wondered if that could relate - perhaps my brain just can't do rhythm in any way at all ...
"Lars Ulrich"
"..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3FAbGepa14
(kicks in sequencer at 4:10)
That said, I think it would be pretty similar, the study should have said "anyone who thinks...in time".
As far as the rest of the rhythm section -- it's the same for any member of the band. You either have it, or you don't. I played with several bass players who didn't have it, and I felt like as the drummer I was working twice as hard as playing with a bass player that did "have it". I knew a bass player who practiced for hours with a metronome, and he could never play an upbeat in the right place. That's something that comes at an intuitive level.
Isn't that true for any field, musical or non-musical?
Unless you've ever seen Neil Peart.