A website will tell you who I’ve recorded with and where I’ll play next. Useful enough. This page gives you a few things you can take home and use the same night.
Why I give this away
Plenty of players hoard what they figure out. They’ll find a clever way to mike a snare or tame a loud stage, and keep it to themselves for an entire career. That has always seemed backward to me. Other drummers shared with me my whole career. A teacher, a road manager, an older player passing time in a dressing room before a show. I want to do that for whoever comes next.
A secret helps nobody once you stop playing. Pass it around and people will still use it long after you’re gone. So I give mine out. There’s a selfish side too. When the players around me improve, I have to push myself to stay level with them, and I welcome the pressure.
Where these come from
None of this came out of a book. I picked it up over the years, in the places where the work happens.
Some of it I learned in the studio. An engineer would solve a problem in half a minute that had stumped me for a month. Other pieces came off the bandstand, where I watched the player beside me carry a quiet passage without dropping the energy. A fair amount I figured out in motels and airport gates, where a touring musician has plenty of empty hours. A conga player in Havana once showed me how to damp a head in under a minute. I’d chased that for two years. He waved off my thanks. Someone had shown him the same favor.
I’ll add more whenever a useful one occurs to me.
A few practical ones
These cost almost nothing and will save you a bad night.
Dirty laundry will wreck a long tour faster than most people expect. Every Motel 6 keeps a guest laundry near the lobby. Book those rooms on the long stretches and wash everything every third night. You’ll arrive looking like a professional rather than someone who slept in his clothes.
Shipping a kit trips up new players. Measure the shell across the lugs, since the size printed on the head leaves out the hardware. A 22-inch bass drum needs a box closer to 26 inches once you count the rims and lugs. An appliance store will have a carton large enough.
A cold venue ruins your tuning. A drumhead heats unevenly under stage lights, so a kit you tuned in a chilly room will go sharp within two songs. Hold off and tune late, after the lights have warmed the place. The pitch will hold where you put it for the rest of the night.
Wear ear protection from your first loud gig. A drummer who waits for the ringing has already lost something he won’t get back. Musician’s earplugs with a flat filter cost about fifteen dollars and keep the whole band clear at a safe level. I’ve worn them on every loud stage for thirty years, and my ears still earn me a living.
Hands go rusty fast without a kit in front of you. I travel with a practice pad, plus a folded towel for nights when even a pad carries through the wall. Twenty minutes of rudiments on a towel will hold your chops together across six weeks away from home.
What’s in this section
Each tip lives on its own page.
- Drums. Recording tricks for the kit, including a usable sound from one microphone and a fix for click-track bleed in your headphones.
- The Sideways Kick. A low-volume bass drum setup for coffeehouses, theaters, and any room where a full 22-inch kick would swamp the music.
- Real Drumz. The drums and percussion I play, plus what to check before you buy your own.
- The Nature of Drumming. Notes on my double-disc DVD and CD, and how to get a copy.
Send me what you know
This section only stays alive if it travels both directions. If you’ve figured out something of your own, a tuning fix or a way to rescue a gig when the gear quits, write to me. The good submissions will go up here with your name on them. A drummer two states over will get use out of it, even without ever learning who you are.