Is a drummer a musician?

The rhythm is an essential part of most music. The drummer is the key to providing and maintaining that rhythm. That makes him a musician, since he's contributing to the music.
 
I know a drummer who has a Doctorate in Music. We call him Dr Drum. He plays a drum kit normally, but he's perfectly capable of playing tuned percussion and can play 'normal' pitched instruments too.

On the other side of the coin, my grandson's school music lessons were pathetic. It was a done deal that any kid who had no sense of melody would be fiune playing the drums. Clearly, they also had issues with rhythm too, and it was awful to see the music kids playing with these musical illiterates with no musical sense at all.

SO - are drummers musicians? Yes
Do they play stuff pleasant to listen to? Jury is split, same as with bass players, who tend to only get famous when they do twiddly things that aren't bass. The bass players and drummers who hold bands together, usually don't even get a look in if they do their job. Only when they do other things are they even mentioned.
 
rob aylestone said:
I know a drummer who has a Doctorate in Music. We call him Dr Drum. He plays a drum kit normally, but he's perfectly capable of playing tuned percussion and can play 'normal' pitched instruments too.

On the other side of the coin, my grandson's school music lessons were pathetic. It was a done deal that any kid who had no sense of melody would be fiune playing the drums. Clearly, they also had issues with rhythm too, and it was awful to see the music kids playing with these musical illiterates with no musical sense at all.

SO - are drummers musicians? Yes
Do they play stuff pleasant to listen to? Jury is split, same as with bass players, who tend to only get famous when they do twiddly things that aren't bass. The bass players and drummers who hold bands together, usually don't even get a look in if they do their job. Only when they do other things are they even mentioned.
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This all may be true from the perspective of the general public, but any "musician" knows the truth.
 
rob aylestone said:
I know a drummer who has a Doctorate in Music. We call him Dr Drum. He plays a drum kit normally, but he's perfectly capable of playing tuned percussion and can play 'normal' pitched instruments too.

On the other side of the coin, my grandson's school music lessons were pathetic. It was a done deal that any kid who had no sense of melody would be fiune playing the drums. Clearly, they also had issues with rhythm too, and it was awful to see the music kids playing with these musical illiterates with no musical sense at all.

SO - are drummers musicians? Yes
Do they play stuff pleasant to listen to? Jury is split, same as with bass players, who tend to only get famous when they do twiddly things that aren't bass. The bass players and drummers who hold bands together, usually don't even get a look in if they do their job. Only when they do other things are they even mentioned.
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I assume that, by "getting famous," you mean famous to the general public and not just to musicians?
 
Famous? The general public dont understand bass players anyway - nobody even complained when Queen's bass player gave up? Nobody got famous in or out for playing solid four on the floor bass. The ones we know and love did something else. Whack the thing to pieces - like Entwhistle, bash it hard with your thumb, like mark king, or play crazy high upd twiddles and chords - lots of 'em. A few got well known because they sing, or front the band - but the rest, just plod along.
 
rob aylestone said:
On the other side of the coin, my grandson's school music lessons were pathetic. It was a done deal that any kid who had no sense of melody would be fiune playing the drums. Clearly, they also had issues with rhythm too, and it was awful to see the music kids playing with these musical illiterates with no musical sense at all.
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That's hilarious and a bummer all at the same time.
 
This conversation makes me realize how unfortunate it is that only the singer and lead players get attention and everyone else is part of the background. Watch any band on TV or video and see how the camera spends 99% of the time on the singer and will pan to the lead player then back on the singer. I like to see the entire band and not just a head shot of the singer because to me it's all important. The drum set is generally the farthest back and the poor drummer is hardly seen behind them.
 
rob aylestone said:
Famous? The general public dont understand bass players anyway - nobody even complained when Queen's bass player gave up? Nobody got famous in or out for playing solid four on the floor bass. The ones we know and love did something else. Whack the thing to pieces - like Entwhistle, bash it hard with your thumb, like mark king, or play crazy high upd twiddles and chords - lots of 'em. A few got well known because they sing, or front the band - but the rest, just plod along.
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Who decides what "a bass player is supposed to do?" Why is "four on the floor" bass the gauge?

James Jamerson
Bob Babbitt
Carol Kaye
Louis Johnson
Tina Weymouth
Chris Squire
Donald Dunn
John Paul Jones
Ron Carter

None of these players were frontmen, but they're all famous within the music world. And there are lots more as well.

Yes, there are many more famous singers and guitarists for sure.
 
When I was about 16-17, me and my boys(another guitar player and a bassist) we could never seem to keep a drummer, even the shitty ones. I guess we had placed an ad, I can't remember for sure, We were in contact with a drummer who was older the us young punks. When you're 16-17 someone who is 28ish seems old, but we decided to give it a shot anyway because although we could do a pretty good acoustic set we wanted to rock! So this guy rather than come to our practice location asked that we come there to his place. So we get there, cool guy, a long hair but more a fro type thing. This guy starts warming up and our jaws dropped. He starts calling off all of these odd time signatures and then demonstrating it. We had toyed with Led Zeppelin's The Crunge, he was not familiar with the song but pretty much nailed it. We all thought we were pretty hot shit both individually and collectively, but this guy was like the doctor, and for the malady we suffered the drug was too strong. We gave him a call pretty quickly to relieve him of letting us down by declining the gig. It just wouldn't have worked out, he'd get bored and we'd be out of a drummer again with a setlist of possibly things the average drummer even outside of our age group couldn't touch.

So yeah, we considered ourselves musicians, but this drummer, we had some work to do to entertain the attention of that level of musicianship.
 
I've heard of three of them, and know a fair bit about one (Carole Kaye) Chris Squire I know who he is, but While I know of John Paul Jones - I didn't know he was a bass player.

I have played bass instruments all my life, and for quite a few years played only other people's music - as in Bach, Beethoven and classics till I moved to electric bass, and oddly I discovered the rules for the classics in terms of what notes were playing were virtually the same as the pop stuff. Roots, Fifths and octaves, plus leading notes into the next note in a chord - so if the piece went from C to F, then the bass might get an E going to the F - then of course all those songs that do the Whiter Shade of Pale chord progression where the bass does the descending pattern. Add walking bass to the musical mix and disco in the 70s and you've pretty well covered what bass does. The music theory behind all that can be interesting, but the rules all seem to work. The twiddly bits than annoy me so much perhaps come from the Cello's habit of suddenly abandoning it's bass purpose, and playing tunes - usually higher and more intricate ones. Cello often has the double bass staying behind adding what the cello was doing, but an octave lower. That's the bass sorted again. In the 90s I had my first experience of playing with bass players who would play high and play chords - often very sort of overtly. I hated it s much. They dribbled over Jaco and spent all their time up the top, whle somebody else in the band - like the keys playerbashed out the bass.

Many of these players are really, really good. If you are playing in a rhyth section, that kind of playing is not helpful. The old engine room term works for me the drummer and bass player as a team. Carole Kaye had the job of playing bass in almost every style and was very good at it. A good drummer just works for the band. There are a few drummer's drummers. Those that can play anything. My friend Dr Drum is a perfectionist. He drums sometimes in an Abba tribute and has listened to all the songs and written out the drum parts, so they are totally accurate and totally repeatable every gig. He considers it really bad to improvise when you can with effort play the parts the originals wrote. For some drummers, close in enough - for Dr Drum, one wrong note is really bad. If he creates a drum part for a band he's ppaying with and they do another gig - he will repeat exactly what he played. Random drummers are a nightmare. Close ones are OK, perfect ones can be the best if they glue things together that randomness would destroy - BUT - they get bored.
 
markmann said:
Watch any band on TV or video and see how the camera spends 99% of the time on the singer and will pan to the lead player then back on the singer.
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In the UK we had a crappy TV show 'Top Of The Pops', where bands mimed to their records, without leads plugged into their guitars.
Whenever there was a cool lead guitar solo, the camera would routinely zoom in on the bass player.
 
rob aylestone said:
I've heard of three of them, and know a fair bit about one (Carole Kaye) Chris Squire I know who he is, but While I know of John Paul Jones - I didn't know he was a bass player.

I have played bass instruments all my life, and for quite a few years played only other people's music - as in Bach, Beethoven and classics till I moved to electric bass, and oddly I discovered the rules for the classics in terms of what notes were playing were virtually the same as the pop stuff. Roots, Fifths and octaves, plus leading notes into the next note in a chord - so if the piece went from C to F, then the bass might get an E going to the F - then of course all those songs that do the Whiter Shade of Pale chord progression where the bass does the descending pattern. Add walking bass to the musical mix and disco in the 70s and you've pretty well covered what bass does. The music theory behind all that can be interesting, but the rules all seem to work. The twiddly bits than annoy me so much perhaps come from the Cello's habit of suddenly abandoning it's bass purpose, and playing tunes - usually higher and more intricate ones. Cello often has the double bass staying behind adding what the cello was doing, but an octave lower. That's the bass sorted again. In the 90s I had my first experience of playing with bass players who would play high and play chords - often very sort of overtly. I hated it s much. They dribbled over Jaco and spent all their time up the top, whle somebody else in the band - like the keys playerbashed out the bass.

Many of these players are really, really good. If you are playing in a rhyth section, that kind of playing is not helpful. The old engine room term works for me the drummer and bass player as a team. Carole Kaye had the job of playing bass in almost every style and was very good at it. A good drummer just works for the band. There are a few drummer's drummers. Those that can play anything. My friend Dr Drum is a perfectionist. He drums sometimes in an Abba tribute and has listened to all the songs and written out the drum parts, so they are totally accurate and totally repeatable every gig. He considers it really bad to improvise when you can with effort play the parts the originals wrote. For some drummers, close in enough - for Dr Drum, one wrong note is really bad. If he creates a drum part for a band he's ppaying with and they do another gig - he will repeat exactly what he played. Random drummers are a nightmare. Close ones are OK, perfect ones can be the best if they glue things together that randomness would destroy - BUT - they get bored.
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Interesting to hear your take on it. I'm a little shocked that you've only heard of three of them.

Also interesting that you mentioned Carol Kaye, because she's also known for creating some bass "hooks" in songs, such as "Good Vibrations," etc.

McCartney also did an amazing job of liberating the bass and making it more interesting. How many Beatles' songs featured a memorable bass line by Paul?

I'm not much of a fan of playing chords on the bass either, but I certainly don't presume to tell a bassist what his/her job should be. I think it varies from genre to genre - and even then, from band to band, song to song. I mean, if you're John Patitucci playing on a John Patitucci solo album and it's your tune, then I guess it's the bass's job to solo. Who can tell him he's wrong? If you're playing a jazz standard with a combo, that usually means a walking line (or it could be half notes if you're playing a two feel), but that's not law. If you're playing funk, that can mean slap and pop (which I really don't like), but it doesn't have to mean that. And the line could be incredibly busy, or it could be simplistic. Either way, it could groove very hard.

I think when we start talking about "traditional" roles in a band, that's when things start to stagnate a bit. Music is constantly evolving, just as the players' roles are. Guitar used to be relegated to a rhythm instrument until amplification made it possible for Charlie Christian to start taking solos with Benny Goodman. It's kind of hard to imagine a time in popular music before a guitar solo was a thing, but it did exist.

How many musical things that started off as rebellious have become conventional?

Distorted guitar? Amps were never designed to distort in the beginning. Thank god they were misused by some folks, and we discovered this glorious sound.

Close-miking instruments and/or amps in the studio used to not be a thing at all. Thank god the Beatles and some others pushed the boundaries and made it a priority to get the bass sound they wanted.

Etc., etc.

In fact, many of the biggest names in music - Hendrix, EVH, Jaco Pastorious, B.B. King (kind of the blues version of Charlie Christian), Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Pat Metheny, etc. - are those of innovators, those that did something to elevate or liberate their instrument (or music in general) in some way.

It's funny that you mentioned the cello "abandoning its bass purpose" and playing melodies, because many people find the cello to have such a beautiful quality when played melodically.

Regarding your Dr. Drum friend, I think I would get tired of playing something note-for-note every single time, but that's just me. Clearly, some people don't have a problem with it.
 
I think a lot of drummers actually write music too. Look at Phil Collins for example..especially keyboards..just a link to my mate messing around on the drums.
 
rob aylestone said:
The bass players and drummers who hold bands together, usually don't even get a look in if they do their job. Only when they do other things are they even mentioned.
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I think this was true up to a certain point in time.
But it hasn't been the case for a good 40 years or more.
 
rob aylestone said:
are drummers musicians? Yes
Do they play stuff pleasant to listen to? Jury is split, same as with bass players, who tend to only get famous when they do twiddly things that aren't bass
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There is no one way to utilize any instrument. The beauty of the human being is that we're inventive, even if sometimes that invention irritates the life out of most people.
There are so many genres and sub-genres of music that it is now impossible to speak of a particular role that an instrument has as being across the board in all its applications.
 
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