Frost* Dream Theater and Me...

[AndyEdwardsMusic.com]

Hello everyone

Some of you may remember me from when I posted here regularly but for those of you that don't I am a drummer based in the UK. I play mainly prog and jazz fusion in the bands IQ and Frost* and I also do drum clinics too.

Frost* had the pleasure of opening up for Dream Theater last month on their UK tour.

I'm also a teacher at Kidderminster College.

If you are more interested you can look here...

http://andyedwardsmusic.blogspot.com/

There is a nice little video up showing what we do on the course and you can follow the menu to various sites with stuff about what I do.


When I set my drumschool up about 7 years ago this forum became very useful for me to discuss certain approaches to drum teaching.
Now I'm teaching a music course I would like to bounce some ideas around again here.

One such idea is this.

What would you lot define as musical skill?

It may be interesting to find out what you consider skill and what the goverment here in the UK who fund music courses consider to be skill...

Thanks for your time.

Andy Edwards

[Moon Flavor]

I consider musical skill the ability to create original and creative music on the instrument of your choice that fits into the context of a song, whether that means writing with other members of a band in mind or playing solo.

I dunno if that makes sense I drank a lot of coffee just now. Basically what I mean to convey is that musical skill has little to do with actual technicality and more to do with creativity and the ability to think of the "greater good" of a piece of music.

[AndyEdwardsMusic.com]

I think thats about right honeydutchautopsy.

So what things would you teach on a music course to develop that skill?

[Moon Flavor]

Originally Posted by AndyEdwardsMusic.com

I think thats about right honeydutchautopsy.

So what things would you teach on a music course to develop that skill?

Well that's very difficult since creativity is kind of an inborn thing and that's what I see as most important in a musician.

Personally I'd ask my students to renounce all music they hear in the popular media and tell them to explore lesser known genres.... jazz, the growing math-rock scene (my personal favorite), underground hip-hop from the early 90's, kraut-rock, technical death metal, post-punk...whatever! There's many styles of music out there that the average person haven't heard a single band from and instead they settle for the music that corporations create in a laboratory and recycle over and over (such as the current fad of Nickelback/Hinder/Default/Crossfade clone rock bands).

Anyways, that's just my little rant but one of the most important things to an aspiring musician is their influences and I would like to see the trend of recycling music that started in the 80s be broken!

edit: I just realized that has little to do with your original question which is what I would teach in a music course to develop that skill. Oops. Definitely one thing that helped me a lot is playing along to a song but improvising my own parts different from the original song. Trying to create something tasteful and groovey that goes with the song well. That's where it's at

[The Mites]

Having being through the British college system, and quite possibly one very similar to the one Andy teaches on, I can honestly say I've had enough of that crap. The students at that level don't need to be shown the lesser known styles of music.

They need to learn how to make good music, regardless of style. Skills include (for all musicians) significant understanding of rhythm, subdivisions and time signatures, harmony including upper extensions and voice-lead chord progressions, reading, music structure, and of course all the basic scales and modes.

Andy: I think college students in Britain should basically be tought how to create everything written in Tommy Igoe's 'Groove Essentials' books. Think about it for 5 minutes, and I bet you'll agree whole-heartedly.

[AndyEdwardsMusic.com]

Originally Posted by The Mites

Having being through the British college system, and quite possibly one very similar to the one Andy teaches on, I can honestly say I've had enough of that crap. The students at that level don't need to be shown the lesser known styles of music.

They need to learn how to make good music, regardless of style. Skills include (for all musicians) significant understanding of rhythm, subdivisions and time signatures, harmony including upper extensions and voice-lead chord progressions, reading, music structure, and of course all the basic scales and modes.

Andy: I think college students in Britain should basically be tought how to create everything written in Tommy Igoe's 'Groove Essentials' books. Think about it for 5 minutes, and I bet you'll agree whole-heartedly.

Yes, I agree

[Moon Flavor]

Originally Posted by The Mites

Having being through the British college system, and quite possibly one very similar to the one Andy teaches on, I can honestly say I've had enough of that crap. The students at that level don't need to be shown the lesser known styles of music.

They need to learn how to make good music, regardless of style. Skills include (for all musicians) significant understanding of rhythm, subdivisions and time signatures, harmony including upper extensions and voice-lead chord progressions, reading, music structure, and of course all the basic scales and modes.

Andy: I think college students in Britain should basically be tought how to create everything written in Tommy Igoe's 'Groove Essentials' books. Think about it for 5 minutes, and I bet you'll agree whole-heartedly.

yes let's make us some robots

jk

I suppose I didn't fully realize that the threadstarter is a college teacher and not just another teacher that gives lessons. But all I'm sayin is I'll take creativity over technicality or even music theory knowledge any day of the week.

[The Mites]

That's quite an ignorant perspective to have. Of course creativity is paramount; music is after all an art, however students should have the opportunity and motivation to develop the facility to translate their creative ideas in to musical phrases.

[Moon Flavor]

Originally Posted by The Mites

That's quite an ignorant perspective to have. Of course creativity is paramount; music is after all an art, however students should have the opportunity and motivation to develop the facility to translate their creative ideas in to musical phrases.

And technical skill and/or music theory are necessary for this?

In a lot of cases putting too much importance in music theory gets in the way of this.

It's not an ignorant perspective, it's just one different from your own.

[samualbc]

Originally Posted by honeydutchautopsy

And technical skill and/or music theory are necessary for this?
In a lot of cases putting too much importance in music theory gets in the way of this.

It's not an ignorant perspective, it's just one different from your own.

Yes.

[Chippy569]

See Andy's other thread for more understanding of what I think, and this will make a ton of sense.

You cannot isolate the technical aspect of music from the creative aspect. Technique is the tool of the trade; technique is how we musicians create our product, our art. Conversely, we must have the appropriate tool to create what we are attempting to. For example, if you're trying to drill a hole, using a hammer probably isn't the right choice, even if you're really, really proficient at hammering.

As such, in an instructional situation, technique is the best place to start. First you must learn how to hold a hammer, then how to swing it and not chop off your finger. Once you are proficient at a general hammer technique, you can go into more finesse such as the differences between rubber mallet technique and ball peen hammer technique.

The harder element of teaching is convincing the student to try new ways to combine the techniques. Give the students of a metal shop class a sheet of copper, a ball peen, a sledge hammer, and some shears and tell them to make something out of it, and I can guarantee they will all make something related but not the same. I think a similar idea works well for "teaching" musical creativity as well; providing students with a limitation to a small array of "tools" will force them to arrange unique compositions. For example, say "use 2 paradiddles, 1 flam, and 3 ghost notes" and see what they come up with, then mix it up, etc.

Another approach that worked for me (in a painting class) was to use the message of the end product to dictate which techniques to use. For this particular project, my teacher would call out an emotion and everyone in the class would have ~10 minutes to convey that emotion on their sheet of paper. This way, we had free roam of any combination of techniques (line, weight, shape, color, etc) but the end goal was limited. A similar approach might work for teaching your drum students. (ie show me what "Aggressive" sounds like, or "happy." Or even a more concrete idea, like show me what a "house" sounds like.)


One of the interesting things about creativity is that it needs to be bound by something. People can not be spontaneously creative, even though that contradicts the idea of creativity.

[AndyEdwardsMusic.com]

The debate seems to be around creativity vs technique.

I think the funding bodies want to fund creativity. I do too I suppose but I do think that a study of music theory and technique by their very nature are the tools that develop creativity.

I also think that a college does well when it trains students in these things where as creativity is often easier to study outside a college (ie. join a band, write some songs and record them etc)

I'm really interested however to see what you guys think. I'm putting together a new scheme (a scheme is what a college actually teaches) and I'm trying to come up with a regime that balances creativity and technique in a way that will satisfy our students.

I'm writing my scheme based upon this definition I've come up with:


Skill can be seen as the ability to execute methods used to create good music.
The course should develop these skills but also constantly question the meaning of ‘good’ in a musical context. Although the concept of good is somewhat subjective, I argue that it isn’t entirely subjective.

This scheme is designed to develop the following skills:

1) Motor skill on the students chosen instrument
2) Communicate with other musicians through different types of music notation
3) Improvise and Compose (these two being related)
4) An awareness of the music theory
5) An awareness of the history of music and the factors that affected it’s development
6) An ability to articulate what makes a piece of music good.


I can understand those here that just wanna play and find this stuff boring but once you get an idea yourself of what is the best to learn it helps immeasurably.

[Damo]

I do too I suppose but I do think that a study of music theory and technique by their very nature are the tools that develop creativity.

I dont think they really do a scrap for creativity, personally. What those tools ARE good at doing is giving a student the means in which to convey their creativity out on to the kit.

Starting a student with less in some ways forces them to do MORE with less, but this in itself does not necessarily equate to a more creative player, as you have just as much chance of creating a repetitive and minimal player.

I think one way to get students to be more creative is to slow the whole process down, and not try to get too much into their heads in such a short time. Less ideas, concentrated upon and worked over more thoroughly allows the student to really dive into the concept and understand it a whole lot more deeply.

This is usually counter-intuitive (and ultimately not likely to happen) with educational facilities, where people are paying for MORE information. When I was writing my book, I was focused on the concept of understanding how your body learns and what would be necessary in order to bring out your own style and creativity. My conclusion was that creativity cannot be improved without a great deal of self assessment - looking at what youve played vs what you are learning to play. A lot of students get caught up in the idea that more advanced concepts make better music. In order to show the student that the simple stuff is as good (often better) than the harder stuff, all concepts taught should be analysed alongside the music they apply to.

When we talk about musical skill, a fair chunk of that has come back to the choices we make about what we choose to play for a given part, and that assessment is to do with your ears, not with your hands.

[trysthedrummer]

Musical 'skill' I believe is 'reached' (or near to) when you take into account of what Jezen has said, there are a numerous ammounts to learn, of course it's not all about hitting things.

I also think that to develop these skills sometimes it can only be achieved by maturity of your students. You need to be able to listen to tracks and find what suits best as you lay it down on the drums (or any instrument for that matter, but since this is the drum forum...). Even if we all think it fits, but technique is lacking quite considerably, I wouldn't find them 'skilled'. It's the whole package.

Again going over chippys comment; Use of your ears is paramount. Listen to a phrase of music, how does it make you feel? How would you translate that onto the drums? Is it quite an aggressive electronic sounding rhythm? What does that sound connotate in drum terms, a much sharper, louder rimshot? And so forth...


Anyway Andy, saw you in Leeds with Dream Theater, was immense! Really good gig!

Cheers

Trys

[Det_Nosnip]

Originally Posted by honeydutchautopsy

Well that's very difficult since creativity is kind of an inborn thing and that's what I see as most important in a musician.

It's also incredibly subjective. How do you determine an "A" in creativity vs. a "B"?

Personally I'd ask my students to renounce all music they hear in the popular media and tell them to explore lesser known genres....

Please don't ever teach.

jazz, the growing math-rock scene (my personal favorite), underground hip-hop from the early 90's, kraut-rock, technical death metal, post-punk...whatever! There's many styles of music out there that the average person haven't heard a single band from and instead they settle for the music that corporations create in a laboratory and recycle over and over (such as the current fad of Nickelback/Hinder/Default/Crossfade clone rock bands).

Get off of your high horse for a second and try to think about how YOU as a teacher would be able to help THEM as students. Making them listen to your favorite bands is not going to make them better drummers, and it's certainly not going to make them successful drummers.

While you may want to pull from your music collection for examples of creative grooves, fills, etc, your primary goal should be getting them to be able to play whatever it is THEY want to play (even if it involves filling in for Nickelback on their next tour), and to play it WELL. When they go out to audition for a studio job, the techs are not going to ask them "ok, play something off of Calculating Infinity." They're going to say: lay down a groove that the next Britney Spears can sing over.

THIS is what a responsible teacher should teach within the first day, because the bottom line is that if you want to make a career out of music, you have to be willing to play what others want to hear, not shove your pseudo-intellectual art metal garbage down their throat. If you're not willing to do that, find another career and keep music as a hobby. There's nothing wrong with that approach - that's exactly what I did.

Anyways, that's just my little rant but one of the most important things to an aspiring musician is their influences and I would like to see the trend of recycling music that started in the 80s be broken!

If you want to break the trend, be a record exec or a producer, not a musician. Or, stop listening to the radio, leave the mainstream for what it is, and focus on the growing artist-produced music scene that is slowly overtaking Hollywood. You're never going to fix MTV.

[AndyEdwardsMusic.com]

Well, after musch consulatation across various forums I have my definition now...

http://andyedwardsmusic.blogspot.com/

Now imagine a course where you study across these six criteria. I hope that would produce a good musician that will be able to function in the coming decades.

It's interesting how this discussion has developed and ended in an argument which is basically between creating functional musicians (drummers who can hold a groove and play for Britney) and drummers who play music that shows off how clever or cool they are. (the anti MTV brigade)

This is my contentious view on this.

Rock (or pop music, in other words all the music encapsulated in the non classical revolution in music that began with the birth of rock n roll, everything from MTV music to math rock with everything in between) is an era that is about to end.

This music is no longer relevant and surplus to what culture wants. There has been no REALLY relevant music (say like Dylan, Beatles, Nirvana etc) for many years. No music has emerged that has affected culture.

Most music is made now either to make money or impress. Creative music is now made outside of the commercial process. That process has had a BIG knock from the digital revolution and from the current economic climate.

Music will change as it did 50 years ago.

It will become something new. The pioneers of rock were school ofcourse in what went before. This will happen again I propose.

Hopefully the skills I suggest will still be useful to this new era of music making.

[rohbit]

Originally Posted by AndyEdwardsMusic.com

Well, after musch consulatation across various forums I have my definition now...

http://andyedwardsmusic.blogspot.com/

Now imagine a course where you study across these six criteria. I hope that would produce a good musician that will be able to function in the coming decades.

It's interesting how this discussion has developed and ended in an argument which is basically between creating functional musicians (drummers who can hold a groove and play for Britney) and drummers who play music that shows off how clever or cool they are. (the anti MTV brigade)

This is my contentious view on this.

Rock (or pop music, in other words all the music encapsulated in the non classical revolution in music that began with the birth of rock n roll, everything from MTV music to math rock with everything in between) is an era that is about to end.

This music is no longer relevant and surplus to what culture wants. There has been no REALLY relevant music (say like Dylan, Beatles, Nirvana etc) for many years. No music has emerged that has affected culture.

Most music is made now either to make money or impress. Creative music is now made outside of the commercial process. That process has had a BIG knock from the digital revolution and from the current economic climate.

Music will change as it did 50 years ago.

It will become something new. The pioneers of rock were school ofcourse in what went before. This will happen again I propose.

Hopefully the skills I suggest will still be useful to this new era of music making.

Andy, you're absolutely right when you say that there hasn't been any relevant rock music in the past 15 years; however, arguably, the 80's were an example of an era where Rock music was made to make money and impress: See Hair/Glam metal. Marketing of bands was at an all time high and thanks to those years we got the grunge movement of the 90s. As you say again, all the creative music was really being made outside the commercial process (except for say Toto who was able to be creative and progressive while still crafting pop singles).

Maybe we should be expecting some sort of movement in Rock, something that is the result of glorified commercialization, globalization etc. You're right, music will change, but this doesn't mean that Rock music is dead as a genre; it just means that Rock music is bound to change again. Hopefully, for the better.

[TimJim]

Originally Posted by honeydutchautopsy

yes let's make us some robots

jk

well if you think about it drummers are supposed to be robotic when it comes to tempo and pacekeeping

[AndyEdwardsMusic.com]

I agree a lot of the music in the 8os was about showing off but that showing off was relevant which is why that music is still celebrated today.

So many musicians agree withh me on this but still say Rock music won't die, it will just change even though every artistic movement does not go on forever!

The only way to move out of this musical entropy is for Rock music to die and go away...

I think people don't agree noy because it's not logical but because they don't like the idea, the like the comfort zone. How un Rock n Roll is that!

It's dead....

[Det_Nosnip]

Originally Posted by rohbit

Andy, you're absolutely right when you say that there hasn't been any relevant rock music in the past 15 years

I don't, unless you're referring specifically to mainstream radio-rock.