Originally Posted by
Byrne
Hi Folks!,
Happy to be posting on this forum - I'm a newbie to this site. I've been playing drums semi-professionally for 25 years, mostly jazz, but plenty of rock, funk and blues as well. I've studied with Mike Clark, Sam Ulano, Kim Plainfield, Les DeMerle, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Kenny Washington and others.
Regarding rudiiments - my humble opinion is to not obsess over them at the expense of musical drumming - while I think they are important, focusing on them too intently for too long a period of time can make you sound unmusical. Roy Haynes is but one master who never studied the rudiments, and he is one of the badest players that the world has ever seen. This is just but one example. Keep in mind that they were written in 1812 by Ashworth (based on European drum patterns) for military drummers. When playing with a band, regardless of style, do we want to sound like marching band drummers?
I personally have studied them extensively and would practice them as they came up in my routine, I found them useful to get some chops together but they never enter my mind when playing with a band. ehhhh - that's my two cents.
Cheers,
Byrne