Is a drummer a musician?

[grimtraveller]

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....The drum set is generally the farthest back and the poor drummer is hardly seen behind them.

To me, in many applications, I compare the drummer and bassist in a band to the spine of a good-looking woman or man. Not what you'd immediately notice, but just you take the spine away and see what results !
That said, on a personal level, because I initially wanted to play drums and I'm a bass player with a weird approach, I, like many other musicians, have this facility to do multiple things at once. So when I'm listening to a song, I'm listening to the whole piece as a listener of a song, but I'm also listening to what the individual components are doing. Therefore, the background, to me, is as crucial to a piece of music as the foreground.

 

[dogooder]

Tim Bogert!

 

[60's guy]

No one will ever be able to convince me that drummers aren't musicians or teachers. Drummers might not use the 12 musical notes available to every composer or performer throughout history. Drummers are different.

I have to backtrack to 1960/1961 when I was a fifth grader taking drumming lessons from a 27 year old black man. His name was Ron Gardner. Before he would allow the five or six students to even hold onto a pair of drumsticks he demonstrated what two feet and two arms could do. All these years later, Mr. Gardner is still using his feet and arms to teach others in the same way and manner that are identical to when I was one of his students.


Remembering the man that I knew so many years ago pales in comparison to how many other people will also remember him because of his efforts to use rhythm to help peop!e afflicted with Parkinson's disease.


It's amazing to me that he has continually used his two feet and arms to teach or heal for so many years.

Had it not been that I had been taught about the importance of rhythm years ago I would never have learned that there isn't a single guitar player, sax player, bassoon player, or any other musician capable of playing their instrument without a fundamental understanding of rhythm, the foundation of which is provided by drummers or percussionists.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

Drummers know that you don't need a drum kit to practice.
I was at a supermarket checkout, and I could tell the young man on it was a drummer, practicing in quiet moments.