 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by JP Bouvé to talk about improvising on the drums JP welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man Really glad to have you here. I've heard your name. I've seen you play on social media and all that stuff you're a monster player and Brandon Green is the one who connected us. I want to give him a shout out right off the bat He was on the bio mechanics episode very recently, which was a very cool one. You're his teacher, right? Right. Yeah, he's a student on my website. He's a great drummer in his own right And a great dude. Yes Absolutely. I love when people can connect and tee up another episode and and here we are today. So I think this is a really neat one because improvising I feel like it comes easier to some people than others I feel like drums sort of lend themselves to improvising more than other instruments. I'd say So just to hop in here Let's start at The most basic question. What is and how would you describe? improvising on the drums Yeah, let's let's Make our first for a here pretty general because I think we're gonna revisit this and define it with much greater detail as we go but really what I would say is What improvising is is having a lot of options and having the control over them to be able to move between them fluidly and to eventually Ideally get to a point where you're moving between them sort of by accident in the same way that you speak you think of something You want to say the pieces the individual pieces fill themselves in And you have a lot of options a lot of ways you can move and that is a little bit of foreshadowing For when we get into the details a lot of people think That improvisation or let's say creativity is like a personality trait. It's something you have it's something you channel And I over now that I nowadays Specialized in teaching improv and creativity. I know for a fact that that is absolutely not the case There's nothing about there's no innate ability to create to create or to improvise And it's actually surprisingly systematic once you get into it I mean, that's that's where I have begun to thrive as an educator is everything in my Educational world is a step-by-step process that that's that's not woo-woo There's no like okay. Now just you know light some candles and see what happens. It's all really really methodical And it it's yeah leads to people having a ton of freedom typically when people think creativity Improvising it's definitely it's it's it's really interesting that you're teaching it because it's it is something like you said that I like I could see people saying oh, I wasn't born with that. I'm not creative Which it's sort of like a barrier that people put up for themselves and say and they're stopping themselves from you know being able to be creative and Another thing that comes to mind about It's funny because before we started you use the word latency and we were talking about recording It's almost like the more you practice the latency from your brain to your hands with creativity would get smaller Meaning the delay of time that it takes you to think and Get it out of your brain into your hands and just on the fly quickly very quickly make a decision And just get out of problems Oh 100% yeah, I couldn't agree more and that really is you know obviously automation is a huge part of playing the drums But the one of the sort of mantras I'm always reminding my students is we need to be able to simp think simple thoughts While we play progressively more complex things because the truth of the matter is when you see the you know Your favorite the craziest drummer playing the craziest stuff They're not thinking crazy thoughts they're thinking really simple thoughts because we all have the same limited amount of attention and We can all focus on one thing at a time and we shift between things very quickly We all are like severely limited in that regard But when you see really advanced drumming those people have automated more more complexity into a single thought right so I think I'm gonna play like This melody right and a really advanced drummer can execute that melody completely effortlessly so the technique the coordination The independence is all built in but also a variety of creative variations right different Like orchestrations different arrangements of the pattern those are all built into a single thought so it really is a matter of consolidating more and more complexity into these simple thoughts and and Teaching people to think What simple thoughts do we need to think and what do we need to package into that automation? What do we need to automate so that like you said? When we think of whatever the cue is or whatever the name we have for that vocabulary is it gets executed With no latency ideally no latency at all and I love that you said nice Solving problems or whatever it was that you mentioned with the problems because that is majorly a part of it It's like when you're creating when you're combining combinations When you're combining patterns in a novel way in a real time It might spit you out on a weird hand It might spit you out on a count that you're not used to coming out on and that's exactly what you need to be doing in real time is Problem-solving and that I think is part of why improv on the drums or I assume on any instrument is Inherently rewarding from the get-go, right? It's enough like if I stop playing with musicians forever I'll still come play my drums and create in the moment because it feels like a game You know, it feels like a balancing act kind of like riding your bike where you can never fall asleep You can keep you ride your bike for the rest of your life. It doesn't become more challenging But it stays rewarding for some reason, you know, sure. Yeah, there's a certain Like productivity like it feels like you're getting something done when you're improvising and you're just kind of Going off the cuff. Now that being said, there's there's something very important to practicing things That are systematically designed to make you better But you need a little bit of both, you know what I mean, but it feels so good to like practice Like for fun and just improvise. Yeah, and I would say there's this is this is one of I think the most common Misconceptions that students have about Improvising is that you can't like create practice creativity But so much of my success as a teacher teaching improvisation comes from setting very specific tight constraints and Saying okay, you have to improvise within these strategically chosen constraints in order to build this specific type of freedom within the these, you know, these constraints And it's always obviously relevant to a type of groove or a type of flow that they want to have But at the end of pretty much every lesson that I teach on my site, I Encourage people to switch into what I you know what I call creative practice mode, which is okay now improvise Within the confines of what we just did in this lesson. So if we were Actually, let me take I just filmed a lesson that taught How to basically make melodies with your right hand this thing I call the swung down up method going down down up Down down up up up down you're switching from downbeat to upbeat You're doing so in an unfolding manner and you work up to the big milestone is you know be able to switch from down to up At random and not lose one. This is a form of very basic improv and then we took a step of putting The backbeat in so now we have a groove down up to God don't don't don't down up up up Up up a boom by doom. Okay. So then we work on okay. Any right hand is a fair target for a kick drum So we've basically created a game and now as a creative exercise I say, okay We've just went through a bunch of exercises with specific examples to build a coordination now after you spend whatever 20 minutes doing that Take 10 minutes and don't leave these rules I just play swung down up grooves with a backbeat and the only freedom you have is to choose Which right hands you put kick drums with Because that's such a crucial element of improv in modern drumming That has to be it has to be developed in its own on its own So you have this little Improv mini game that you play But the rules are designed to give you a skill that you need At the sort of end goal of the course, which is just like improvising in triplet grooves if you will anyways one example of A creative exercise the constraints are so key Yeah, no, I think that's awesome and I should have mentioned this up front But your website JP bouvet method comm which will be in the description. I mean you can Look at it and the first tab is improvisers club. I mean, so this is really I think people should figure this out You know at this point of us talking but really it is the cornerstone of your teaching and I think that's Very cool because I don't know many teachers who use it as their Kind of thing they hang their hat on of like if this is you're gonna get freedom from learning with you As opposed to more just strict rules. I think that's really cool that you're doing that I just want to make sure people know that like obviously that's your thing, but so JP we talked about a few things before and Misconceptions when you mentioned what in your experience are some of those major misconceptions that people have about improvising. Yeah The first is the misconception that when you improvise you're pulling random ideas like out of some Bucket of ideas in your mind or some bucket of patterns or combinations and that it's randomly combined And now I kind of tire of speech analogies because like they're as different as they are similar But this works right when I'm speaking the next word I use is not randomly pulled from all the words that I know in my vocabulary That word is determined by everything I just played and is determined by the subject the topic of conversation in drums It's a similar thing where when where like Like your vocabulary is organized into sort of clusters that are relevant, right? If we are talking about drums a bunch of words are on my mind Paradiddle that won't be on my mind if we're talking about I don't know the economy or something else. Yeah, that's sort of It queues up a whole set of other words So in the same way when you're playing the drums there, yeah, there are patterns that work really well together and they they should be clustered together because Because just of how well they work together for example one example would be right left left kick Right a super common pattern right left left kick right left left kick right left left kick a lot of people get to that point but Also, so that's a group of four right a group of two would be right left right left left kick right left Right left right right right right right now. I'm already able to improvise a little bit And then I throw in like a right left left kick right or say right left kick right left kick a group of six So I've got a two four six Doesn't matter what they are but in this case they happen to work super well together now I have three sort of like pieces of conversation that I am going to somewhat permanently attach to each other So that when I'm playing right left left kick right left left kick I don't have to think what of a billion options could I play I've got these ones that are always kind of adjacent to it and I know that it fits right. I'm in straight time. I'm playing 16th notes. I'm flowing on the kit a lot of stuff gets excluded And now I've got a little more guidance. So anyways And that happens when you're playing in the moment when you're improvising if I'm playing a bunch of paradiddle snare vocabulary Right the next thing I play like ideally a bunch of stuff lines up in my mind. That's adjacent to that That's really similar. That's just other snare patterns or other diddle rudiments a paradiddle diddle a double paradiddle A bunch of doubles in a row that are diddles So you create these sort of pockets. It's not What completely random thing am I gonna pull out of my mind? So that's I'd say misconception number one Misconception number two is don't think worst advice worst advice possible for a beginner or intermediate improviser is don't think but there's a caveat because Usually the people giving this advice are are correct. Like they're not wrong so when you're at this is like it like this is like a The stereotype is you're at a drum clinic watching an incredible drummer and Someone goes, you know, what's going through your mind as you're playing this completely insane stuff and they go nothing Like I am just flowing and I'm in I'm I'm channeling the muses and the drummer a beginner intermediate goes well if If you're supposed to just not think and amazing things are supposed to happen I clearly don't have whatever I need to have because when I don't think amazing things don't happen The problem is the master drummer on stage Has already done all the work to automate all the patterns. They have crazy melodic, you know vocabulary They have it all in there and at that arrival point It's true that you can go into flow mode and pretty much turn your brain off and watch the show and amazing things happen but 99.9 percent of drummers do not have that level of facility and a Beginner or an intermediate drummer needs explicit instructions and there's so many Useful things they could do like we talked about creative exercises We could sit here and think about creative exercises for hours that would build the ability to move between options Like we said in the beginning like you know improvising is moving between options rearranging pieces There could be a lot of real technical work that they do But it requires thinking the other thing is with don't think When you're drumming even when you get to a place and a lot of my students get to this place after just a couple courses where like You know whatever vocab we've built within the confines of that sort of subset I call it they're able to improvise pretty freely and kind of listen to the show You know they can't play everything in the world, but they can play like a lot of improv within this this area but the thing is a lot of times you don't you're anxious or You turn the camera on and you start to get like you know red light syndrome and Yeah, you you need to be able to perform well When you are thinking really hard when you're really kind of in your head when it's totally impossible to say like Yeah, I'm gonna turn my mind off and just flow right still at this point in in my career 20 some years into drumming and specializing in improv When I go to the studio and they push record. It's not the same. Yeah, I am in my head I need to be able to think of things and therefore Like creative strategies or ways of thinking about your vocabulary again think like here are some thoughts Yeah, are very helpful as opposed to don't think yeah Well, I mean in my experience too of like doing like jingle sessions and things like that for like radio spots Sometimes you they don't want you to improvise like you got to also throw that in there where it's like If you're doing a spot where like alright It's a tight 30 or a tight 60 and just do this for this like hot tub company. Just do it We don't need craziness play a 2-4 beat for 32 measures with one fill with a Pat Boone Debbie Boone crash out and then be done and Then you know, yes, maybe do a couple other takes with some improvising But I think sometimes though you got to like know when to not Improvise a hundred percent and I like to I like to think that Well, I mean it's just it is the fact but when So with whatever like setting One might be working on improvisation in I like to think that what you're really doing is you're developing options and you're getting a ton of control with them So like what looks to the outside on the outside like really creative sound a fluid thing in your mind is actually like kind of boring Are you thinking like well, I'm gonna like I'm gonna play threes on the kick I'm gonna link up my right hand with that right, but on the other side. It sounds like music is happening and The the sort of happy byproduct of that is that you develop Vocabulary in general. So when you have a session and they're like, yeah, like don't improv. This is the beat Don't yeah, don't don't get them. The thing is in your improv practice You've done all this melodic work. Let's say with the kick drum So when you're in the session and they call out some kick drum melody, you've got the facility to execute it there's a weird sort of Like practicing improv gives you all the options so that when someone just like says hey play this option You can nail it without improvising. Well, and then there's also going continuing down that road of like you're improvising Let's say you're improvising on a track and you're playing and then they say oh wait play that thing again and Then it's kind of like well, wait, what did I just play? Do you have any tricks for like kind of remembering what you're doing or recalling what you just did, you know? Yeah well, this is another argument for developing Sort of a mental framework for thinking about your vocabulary Like so I mentioned like subsets these sort of groupings of whatever of groupings of patterns But there's also an actual melodies. I'm always talking about rhythmic melodies, which is just rhythms rhythmic melodies that Are also grouped together, right? So for example, it dotted eighth notes and what I call dotted doubles So you've got three e and a four and a groups of three three e and a four and a one two three one two three one two three one And then the doubled version of that money three e and a four and a one and a two and a two and data So those groups of three those are always sort of permanently join to each other. They're there together. Yeah, so When your melody making gets sort of Clustered into categories as well and you have a structure for thinking about them Then when someone says what did you just play you hear the echo of it in your mind? But the thing is at that point you you understand the rhythms you're playing on a deeper level and they become quite a bit simpler because every for example every Measure long melody you play is built up of a lot of the same pieces right groups of three a Consecutive downbeats consecutive upbeat so you sort of categorize these things and Then when you look at a measure Instead of seeing 16 16th notes and you need to remember like which ones are on and off basically You see oh the first half of this is groups of three and the second half of this is you know a bunch of upbeats in a row I know I need I only need to think of two things now not 16 and I'll be able to recognize remember Replay that in a way, so it's all about again Yeah, we need to be able to think simple thoughts So we need to consolidate our melodic thinking and our patterns and our recognition of notation and the feeling the procedural memory The muscle memory into these these packages that can essentially like execute automatically Yeah, I have a to kind of pivot to something else here a little bit. I have a distinct memory as a kid I was probably fourth or fifth grade You know, I've been playing drums for a while and there was a kid who was the like You know star piano player in the class. He was really good. He was great. I won't say his name, but I Remember he came over and I was like this is gonna be awesome. We're gonna play together. We're gonna jam He sat down and was playing like a classical piece And I was sitting down on the you know drum set with like rock You know playing with other friends who have a little guitar and drum just experienced with jamming with friends He could not Not play like classical pieces. He could not kind of just go like dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum And then like jam with his right hand and just go There's certain instruments I feel like where like we kind of talked about before but like there's certain Instruments that just it doesn't work as well and I feel like piano when you're classically trained I obviously people can improvise on the piano and they're great at it But as kids I feel like you're taught as a piano player to not really have that Freedom or it doesn't come to maybe your old lady piano teacher to go with the like generic stereotype of a piano teacher And I just thought that was really interesting, you know, it's like well as a fifth grader I'm like, well, I can't this kid just kind of make stuff up, but right That's what kids are supposed to do right? Yeah, you know mess around. Yeah, it is interesting And I think I think part of it too I mean, and I just happen to play the drums, but I do think that this is true I don't I don't think I'm being like drums are special We hit things with sticks. I mean, you're not that special, you know, but On the piano the guitar the bass To a slightly lesser degree most instruments There's a lot of like stuff to learn and play and memorize and like play songs, you know And the drums there's not so much a culture of like, you know, learn a piece You know, you can learn songs, but it's really not the same because you can't go play that song without the music That it accompanies it. No, no I remember learning Pretty Woman as a kid in like a like a like a clinic kind of class and you play that by yourself It's a lonely time. It's a lonely time. Yeah, so I think since we don't really Have solo options. It makes a lot of sense for drummers to want to create and I mean personally as a drummer, I can actually imagine being a piano player that just Plays classical like learns pieces expresses them in certain ways. I can imagine doing that and it being rewarding I can't imagine playing the drums with no ability to improvise and it being fun, right? So learning song after song exactly as they're supposed to be and playing along to the record There's some satisfaction in that for sure and some people are all about it You know different strokes for different folks, but for me personally If there wasn't improvisation involved with drums, I don't think I would keep playing the drums I would pivot to something else that when I did an improvise when I learned something exactly It sounded like music that stood on its own two legs. You know what I mean? So to me It's like the whole reward of thousands of hours of practice is to be able to sit down Let stuff come out and like the sound Yeah, that to me is cool at some point. It's like like I said with like riding a bike It's like you have to pay attention. You're in it. You're solving problems in real time You're staying balanced and it's just it's just fun and like on a bike for some reason It's fun to go fast. You start going fast. Yeah, I don't know why this is fun But it is it's like that on the drums you're pushing yourself in different ways It doesn't have to be fast, but it can be complexity fast, whatever. Yeah, and there's just something about it when you are making it up That is like riding a bike. That's just like really inherently rewarding and it's not I mean I've never I've had to learn exact songs and it feels good to like nail apart. Don't get me wrong But it's not the same Fulfillment like I don't want to then go home and play the part again On my drums after the show or something. You know what I mean? Where as I do want to go Make more music by myself improvising Which again, if you're one of those people at home who does like to play the exact thing each time and nail it perfectly There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I always like to say that where there's everyone's different Where they have their own style that they like but one thing I think is interesting. I Think I have found that I find out that It becomes abundantly clear that like I enjoy having the freedom to play the drums from 25 plus years of playing that like okay, I've done this a long time It just I don't I don't have to think about it That becomes abundantly clear when I sit down with like a little ukulele and play with my kids or on the piano And I go oh, I don't have it on these other instruments like oh I do have it on the drums But when I'm sitting here playing the ukulele and I know four chords and I'm trying to do something else like oh That's the freedom that I don't have so I do have to stick to doing four chords over and over again or change Them up, but it impresses a three-year-old so that's all that matters and in my house, but You you realize that when you try to pivot and play something else You're like oh, that's what other people might not feel when they're starting out that frustration of being stuck You know, yeah, and it makes you grateful for whatever level of freedom You do have not even on instrument on anything you can have fun, you know, not even expressing yourself I'm just doing you know, I mean a sport whatever and whatever. Yeah sport Yeah, I'm with you. Um, it's very interesting now the next kind of question I have for you is Improvising is it genre specific people think of Improvising first thing that comes to mind is jazz guys just making things up as they go But then you also think of like jam bands, then you also think of Rock bands who play the same song the same way every single night drummers who were famous for that But could they be improvising so what's your thought on it being genre specific? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think Improv I Don't think improvisation Thrives in any particular genre more than others. Maybe you know, maybe a little bit Sure, maybe there are some genres that are a little bit more conducive to it But not in an exclusive sense, right? So I mean and I feel like nowadays Sense the you know, streaming revolution like everyone has access to everything all the time and the result one of the happy results is Musicians at least a lot of musicians. I know tend to be very not Genre specific anymore in the way that they used to be I rarely meet someone. It's like I lie I like rock and roll. I play rock and roll. They're like, yeah, of course. I like everything. I listen all sorts of stuff and Therefore, I think people are exposed to more ideas and potentially more creative ideas and potentially more Places where some form of improv can happen, but again like I Don't think of improv as Taking a solo like for example great example Matt Garstka animals as leaders. Are you familiar? Yes and I saw him do a clinic at Guess what was that? Was it pay sick was the last one I saw? My brain is I've seen him do a live clinic and it was incredible. Yeah, Matt is an absolute beast he lived across the hall from me when we were at Berkeley many years ago and You know, it's been really amazing to see him succeed because he has worked harder than anyone I know and it you can just see the payoff in the time spent But the reason I bring him up him up is he is in an extremely right technical progressive metal band And and when they go play a show Matt is Improvising a ton throughout an animals as leader show despite the fact that the parts are written But the point I actually want to make is that When Matt writes parts for the band, right Matt The his ability to create is where these ideas come from it's why the the parts in the albums are so interesting is because his Awareness of the possibilities has been pushed not by sitting and doing like math with No, it's of course. He totally does that to some degree. I'm sure but yeah Yeah, it's like his improv has pushed him to a place where his available options are there and that's what I Feel like is important to also sort of emphasize here It's like yes improvisation by yourself can be very rewarding and a band where you need to take a solo Obviously very useful But it's way deeper than that in that when you are practicing improv that is when you are simply Developing options that you could possibly use right? You're just extending what you understand about the possibilities of the drums So that when you go to write with your rock band or your folk band or your funk band or yes your jazz band the parts you're able to come up with are way more expansive and Right, so it's like in a sense studying improv is really just like being becoming an expert in rhythm melodies and Developing the facility to execute those melodies applied in different ways So as much as it is and can be a creative expression it's also just how you develop vocabulary on the drums and From there it applies and this is where to come back to the genre ideas like if genres don't You know, it's like yeah, I will play a show for an hour and never need to like improvise a drum solo But I'm making creative decisions along the way a fill here Like how I'm doing the ghost notes the melodies I choose to use on the bell of the ride symbol these are all bits of improv and They're sprinkled in along the way kind of the whole time It's like I heard someone say this many many many years ago They're like the payoff of meditation is not in having a good day It's in a thousand like Unrecognizable tiny improvements. It's kind of like that with improv is like when you go play the drums at sort of every moment Thing you have more options. You're thinking more deeply about the drums You can make a move that you couldn't make before and even if you're playing a pretty tight written set Like those things still show up Yeah, for sure You kind of touched on but fills seem to be the kind of like if if anywhere in the set you're gonna improvise It seems like fills are sort of like in our brains. We can have fun. You know what? I mean, that's kind of the area to Improvise and do whatever you want unless you're in a band where it's an iconic fill and they expect that fill each time But play that fill play that fill we people came to hear like in the air tonight kind of like yeah But I think that's that's where you can sort of maybe if people are learning about it and you're the expert on this But that seems like a good spot to kind of dip your toe in to get a little more Interesting is change up what you're gonna do each time and that's improvising a hundred percent and Not to not not to take everything you tee up into some abstract drum lesson, but I'm gonna do it anyways You're exactly right filling is the first place we go when we're thinking about like, okay I I have a chance to do cool drum stuff I want I don't want to play the same fill over and over again, and I feel like I do The way that I've had success teaching fills is to play the end to develop the ability to play the infinite drum fill And it's what I call flow mode right and it's just like playing the drums without playing a groove The idea behind it is if you can play a drum fill, you know a solo or flow on the kid for 20 minutes straight and You develop some vocabulary within that we can do that easily you can play a variety of melodies You can do it at different tempos different volumes then when it comes time to play a fill You don't have to think okay, which of my five like fills that I can remember am I gonna execute? You're like I'm good at flowing. I'm gonna flip even with even with limited vocabulary now I have a fill for one measure. I'm flipping into flow mode, which is easy for me I've developed it on the kit for the last couple months. I flip into flow mode I know what vocabulary is available. I know what's not I'm not good at and I execute that fill and I get out of it And I'm back in groove mode And then when the time comes to and then it's kind of like no matter how long the fill is you're able to just flow So yes 100% fills are sort of like a window into the vast world of potentially developing just like flow on the kit infinite flow kind of thing Which is an exciting, you know sort of entry point it is exciting and then after your 20-minute drum fill your band is like dude Yeah, so then the the you know the next thought too is what about metronome and practicing to a click and improvising to a click because You got to have both. I mean I think from having studio experience The best thing in the world that you can do is practice to a metronome when you're younger and like build that Like internal click and not rush on the fills because if you're improvising sometimes you're You lose it you speed up, but you don't want to be too Stuck to the metronome. So how do you how do you handle that with practicing? I mean, I think you're absolutely right. They only the only practice-related thought that I have on the metronome is that I sometimes Need to I more often need to can there actually, you know, there's a lot of different types of people and students But there's one type of of of drummer and person who is like I must practice to the metronome I must and there's typically like a very organized. I don't want to stereotype like a very organized person That's like by the book. We're gonna do this I'm gonna do every page of this book and all metronomes always on and that's how they think More often than not I need to tell people that when they are learning brand new vocabulary And it's like really rocky still so they're learning to let's say do flow mode and I've given them Three patterns to get good at rearranging on the fly Sometimes you need to be able to in the practice room Be like slowing down like what was this pattern? Messing up, okay And if you're always going to the metronome turn up totally interrupting the flow So it's interesting. I oftentimes need to people like Need to tell super organized practices like it's okay not to use the metronome until you have like a Baseline with this stuff sure and then as you said a hundred percent like let's get the metronome going Let's make sure that we're not habitually or returning to the same tempo every time no matter where we start You know because like certain patterns have certain like comfort tempos Yeah But yeah, 100% I honestly I've always been so bad with keeping up my metronome practice and sometimes it bites me But I gotta say I'm the opposite. I'm like the most non technical practice or ever I'm like come in and I'm like I'm gonna create But you need both but it's it's funny here Have you say that because I mean you're a very respected teacher and it's like But we if we don't have something that we're like working on then You're not trying hard enough I hope that doesn't come out the wrong way We're like there's always something to do and I think about that with podcasting where I'm like if at night or whatever I'm not like, you know changing YouTube descriptions. There's always something you can oh, yeah I'm sure you feel the same with like your website and your courses There's there's literally there's never a time where there's not something you could be working on Oh, yeah the list of the long list of like courses I'd like to film is many many years of filming and watching We'll get there. Yeah. Yeah, I think we all have We all have our go-to beats. We have I have friends where I think when I think of them I think Like I think of his that my friends go to beat where if I you know what we have like a practice space I walked down the hall. He's a guitarist. I hear it and I go. Oh, that's him on the drums. Mm-hmm How do you break being stuck with that go-to beat? I mean, we all kind of have that where we we go to our comfort zone We get our our blankie our drum blankie and we're nice and comfy. How do you get out of that? Yeah, I would say this I would I would point to two areas one is within the setting that that habitual groove exists Making sure that you've you've expanded That subset of vocabulary so that if it's doing a cat's got the kaboom cat's it's kind of like a fast drum and bass thing Sounds like to me. Yeah. So if we kind of roughly label it as fast drum and bass stuff Can we like so we don't actually play that specific groove? How can we? Create a lot of variation within that drum and bass quick space. So like what would a halftime groove sound like? What if we do different back beats that aren't on two and four alternate back beats? What can we think about with our ghost notes? Is there room for like triplet embellishments in here? Can we what would it mean to add a lot of space to this group? And that might show you like what melodies am I having trouble playing? Right, so you could like dig into the actual area of habit and push it outward So that you're not literally playing the same groove. And then the other thing I'd say is like, okay This Go-to groove is a perfectly fine groove. Let's not throw it away. Let's keep it And let's just think like what would be a nice compliment to that that is substantially different So let's say it's a groove. That's like a halftime triplet groove Yeah, okay, cool. It's a groove in theory you could move between them if the tempo was right But then to get out of the you know your habitual groove It's like, okay now I've identified a different feel a different tempo Let me build vocabulary here and let me essentially Find what my habitual go-to groove is in this setting Because truthfully if you turn on a metronome and it's you know, tell me it's straight time or triplets I'm gonna end up if I'm sort of mindlessly just like first thing that comes out Sure, I'm probably gonna play a groove. I play a lot at that tempo in that field So everyone's got these go-to grooves like my drum and bass grooves total like go-to stuff. Whatever. Yeah name the genre. It's there And that's fine But I think it helps to say like, okay, if I'm gonna have like go-to groups Let me get at least like five of them in different fields going on and then within those once I kind of recognize What my habits are but now they're more expansive I can dig into each one and push the boundaries slowly and you can even push the boundaries in the same way you could say I'm gonna Visit all of my habitual grooves and explore alternate backbeats. So I'm not gonna hit tune for every time I'm gonna say what happens if I anticipate the backbeat don't cut. Okay. I'm in triplets. Yeah, chicken to do book Okay, I'm in half time Yeah, whatever, you know anticipated backbeats whatever it is you can sort of apply the same creative tool across the board Maybe one way to expand one way to expand. Yeah It's all about it's all about doing it. Yeah Stop do anything else. I do tell that to your friend. You always play this pattern So for the next several weeks, never play that pattern like you have to play other melodies or whatever it is You got it. You got it down move on to something else. It's a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah If habitual groove is not a jam band, it should be I think that's a good All right, well, let's talk about like your Method, I mean we we have been but your website and your courses and there's the improvisers club and all that stuff You have a very cool setup Obviously we actually for this recording. We have both have SM seven bees and Sony headphones and stuff like that So what is it like when when you're teaching courses? How does it work online teaching? I've done a few lessons, but I've done it with a few people who it was earlier on and it wasn't what it is now where It was just like I Would play and then he would play and then both the volumes would duck out and it was like wait I can't hear anything that's happening. Yeah. Yeah. So how does the process work of like taking lessons with you? Yeah, well, there's private lessons which I teach Uh, you know on zoom right now and those are pretty those are pretty straightforward kind of like this But the the vast majority of education related online stuff I'm doing is through my website which is never live and it's not one on one while there's one on one feedback but it's not live so my Teaching situation is one where I'm recording lessons Lessons within chapters within courses. I'd say the average length is like 12 lessons in a course and every course Is the goal of everything on my website again, especially as in developing freedom on the kids So the ability to improvise be creative with vocabulary every course is a subset of vocabulary, right? so the one I'm working on right now is triplet linear flow groups, right? This is really, you know, there's a lot of Vocabulary that's specific to the site that you start to get to know Yeah, basically it's the ability to go to do to put you got to do to put you got to to get to Boom that type of groove, but like a lot of control a lot of variation possible But other ones will be like the drum and bass course So it's like, okay, you start with the drum and bass 101 groove But again the point is to be able to Develop the ability to improvise within that so that's like a I don't know 12 ish lesson course two chapters And by the end of it like for chapter one is basically the ability to Shift notes Shift melodic notes in a drum and bass Ask style and make infinite melodies just with the groups Right so don't cut don't don't cut cut don't cut don't don't cut don't cut don't cut cut don't cut cut don't So there's a specific approach step by step to being able to just kind of shift those notes around and Essentially improvise within those tight constraints like we've said chapter two is Embellishments so now you've got the ability to improvise the melody of the groove the kicks and back beats Now let's look at All of the stuff of the variations we can pile on top of that which sort of has the effect of like exponentially multiplying what is the perceived Like variation and and by the end of the course You're still and this is again the mantra you're thinking pretty simple thoughts because first you got good at this specific technique for creating the melodies Which now is automatic and then you Throw in five or six variations to the patterns that each have a melodic variation built into it But you're just thinking the original melodic variation So you're thinking simple thoughts, but you're adding these variations so that the listener um Receives something that seems really crazy varied and complex So anyways, that's sort of the the a really typical form of one of my courses and I I have begun to think of My courses I'm very offline. All right, so I I don't Really know what other educators are up to out there to be honest But I know from my appearances in other places where I will sometimes do a guest series of lessons or something That sort of in line with the sort of stereotype of the day like everyone's attention spans are really You know really short. We got to keep all the lessons to three minutes. It has to be you know Fitted an instagram reel or something I have Really resisted that very comfortably and I treat my lessons a lot more like a university course to be honest So like I just posted or just filmed you know a few lessons that were 30 minutes 40 minute lessons And I'm it's pretty demanding of students, but that's the environment. I want to create I want I want people to come to this not for entertainment I want them to come for a serious educational experience like a course that you would take in college And I went to Berkeley College of Music. So I I know what a rigorous course is meant to do I just got a degree in psychology again just recently and that Was I feel like in some way that I probably haven't recognized to right now really influential on my Willingness to lean into the rigor that I'm trying to create on the site because To me like I don't personally I don't need fun Videos the fun is getting good at the drums. The fun is having freedom and playing what's in my head so Since I've leaned into that I have you might think that people would have like Been like ah, this is you know, it's like who has time to watch these lessons and like this I'm asking too much and la da da But I've had the exact opposite I've had people doubling down on the seriousness and being like thank god. There's like a really deep deep dive on these subjects And I love that because like you're more invested, you know, it's longer. You've put the time in it's more There's nothing wrong with the short ones. I mean, I've seen multiple of the different sites and they're little Hey, here's the groove. Here's how you play it But it sounds like with and I haven't dug into your particular courses But it's like when something's 45 or 50 minutes long you definitely have more there's more room to explain Yeah more sitting down your focus is you know, yes people have short attention spans We all know that I mean you I feel like we're similar in age and you always hear that kind of thing about our generation but like That's not always the case if you're into something you can spend an hour or two hours whatever working on it 100% and I think if And again, like everyone's obviously doing things differently and it's perfectly fine Like some students want Some smaller takeaways some students want to do a super deep dive some students want to dive deeper and you know Go further and stuff than than I provide to Um, I mean when you commit to college to like music university, you're essentially saying like wow I'm like going deep deep deep deep dive but in In general, I'm just finding that if I want to I mean this is every Well, I'll just I'll just say this The site is the way that I teach is just kind of reflection of who I am how I think and what I'm excited about with the drums I like thinking hard about these things thinking about a whole system that underpins it the philosophy underneath it How to convey this in in some certain way? And like is always the case with a you know a band Uh an educational thing whatever a blog you find people who are like you, you know So it's like the the people who are attracted to what I'm doing um They're they're in it and it's like I'm not It's not going to be a bad fit for people because if it was the people for whom it's a bad fit They just don't sign up or they sign up for a free month and then they bail or something And that's fine So it turns into a community of people who are like studying pretty darn hard on the stuff And it's also I was thinking about this the other day is like your typical college course is 14 weeks or so semester Most of my classes are about 12 courses long And or 12 lessons long and again, I'm kind of asking you to to do a lot of practice between I try to plan the lesson so that it's a week of Practicing required to like get control over the content So it's not a lot of Quick payoff in a sense, which some people would say like that's a terrible business model And I'm like I know but I think it's sustainable because it's exciting for me You need that I mean growing up taking drum lessons It was week after week after week after week after week after week after hour long or half hour lesson, you know But if people don't like that there's plenty of other Different types of teachers because I think I mean growing up. I had okay this teacher. I didn't really like That guy. Okay. This teacher. I love this guy. Okay. Let me try someone else Let me learn from this. Yeah, not every teacher matches every single person and you don't always need like I Personally, I don't like really long courses ironically I'm the type of learner that like I want to be shown like some small idea and it has to be the right idea. There's some amount of luck involved here but you know, I took a lesson a couple months ago And the teacher mentioned something like in passing that wasn't even the focus of the lesson And that ended up being like the seed for months of practice that I'm still doing I was like, oh that And again, it's exactly how my website works. Again, it's the same. It's just me In website form is like, oh, I'm going to create a giant system out of this I'm going to create all the vocab and I'm going to be able to play all the melodies and have control over this And I'm still working on it and still finding like new ways to push the boundaries So I'm basically like doing the course I would make but in my own practice But it's not It it's just this like moment. I mean it was literally 20 seconds of a lesson Where something and at the at the moment I didn't even process that it was interesting It was actually when I went home. I was like What was that lick he was playing and I started trying to figure it out and I was like, oh, this has crazy potential um So yeah, I mean to your point everyone needs something different learns differently and needs different things at different times in life You know what I mean? Yeah in the very beginning. You need guidance. Obviously Yeah, it's very fun and not get overburdened and I hate this 100. Yeah I think you have built a very Cool like brand. I mean it's 2023 nowadays like you can do it all on your own where you're in I have my own take on it of doing social media and building all that stuff and and everyone has their own little universe that we can build Do you have any tips for people who might want to become a? You know a personality in the drum world on youtube um Maybe being an online teacher whatever you don't have to give away secrets with that But just in general with like instagram and all this stuff I think I think people young and old all want to play the drums get recognized for it There's a lot of different ways to do it now, uh, but whatever that means recording tips gear, what's your take on on your journey of like? building this brand Yeah, um, I think the most important thing is to do something to make sure I mean it sounds so cliche, but like Uh, fine not even fine like identify What your authentic mode of giving is? um because You know, I've been I just celebrated the 10 year anniversary actually on in Six days from now 10 year anniversary of teaching online. That's when I lost the original jpbv music.com. Um It's gonna it I for it to work It's gotta be sustainable and it for it to be sustainable. It has to be enjoyable Which like means you have to just be able to go and do you I I've always been super resistant to like putting on sort of a character Or like, you know more excitement than I really feel or whatever it is. You know what I mean? It's just like yeah go be you People like when you are you people like when people are real and you can see it in a second I remember There was a clinic I was watching and it was the guys a young guys This was so so long ago. I was young too. It was his first clinic and it was a real moment of Of insight for me He was really nervous about the clinic and he was teaching it You know very like by the plan that he had made and you felt like you were watching a presentation It was good And then there was one moment where he like he like dropped a stick or something happened and he like kind of sworn He's like oh my bad And like suddenly I loved this guy. I was like that's the guy. I want that guy all the time And it was just such a moment where I was like wow like we really need And we are really attracted to like real people That that's my biggest piece of advice is like find the way that you authentically give because then it'll be easy And you don't have to like will you drag yourself to the practice room like okay? I'm gonna like I'm gonna try to teach this thing that's like not really my thing or like I'm gonna go like be way more like bubbly and excited than I really am or whatever It's like kind of find you and if that means that you're finding your niche Then great everyone says to do that in business And just kind of rock it and Start And keep going So you have to start That's the hardest part And then you just do it you don't you get good at doing everything by doing it if you want to get good at teaching a concept Go teach concepts over and over and over again Um, and even if no one's really listening there's value Being generated because you're getting better at teaching and presenting you're analyzing things better You're creating better lessons better systems better ways of thinking about the drums Um But yeah, follow your interest. I mean you what's your story getting started on this? It's such a unique and beautiful podcast and surely this is just uh, uh, you sort of recognizing your authentic interests And building a brand around it. Well, that's true and to give you the condensed version basically 2018 I was in a band uh for years with friends and it just kind of fizzled out and I was like, all right It was actually a 28. I was about I was like, I'm gonna be 30 in a little bit I need to do something to break through in the drums and my background work wise is recording As an engineer working in a studio. I was working on a bunch of Um different podcasts as that was coming up and uh, and then I said, well, I want to do my own I want to be a person in the drum community And then I just kind of all fell into place and I said, well, I want to learn more about the history of the drums Let me learn from people who are experts and then Again, I've done voiceovers for work in the back in the background You know here and there and it just kind of all came together But the social media stuff which has grown to be where most people know me as an instagram account and then they find out There's a podcast It's like, yeah, you got to just keep doing it. You got to keep posting you got to keep finding what you're doing and then I mean I This is so much I put so much work into each episode like if I put this time and effort into a Different job, you know, I'd be making a lot more money But I wouldn't be having as much fun and I wouldn't get to meet people like you and be in the community and be a member of that um, but It's it's just been a long journey and you I've learned the entire way and and I will add to what you said of Templating things and being set up for success Like if I came in each day and I had to set up my mic and set up the recorder and move the camera You wouldn't do it. So I'd stop I'd be like, uh, this is terrible. So just setting yourself up for success like that Yeah, remove resistance at every turn if you can streamline. Yes And I don't know if I don't know what you've encountered in this regard But I tend to find that people really don't care That much past a certain threshold about production quality Not not anymore. I used a handy cam to film lessons for eight years And basically made a living doing that and only upgraded stuff this year um And it's like no, I've never had someone complain like the video quality is like kind of not the best it could possibly be It's just like dude is the content cool like so many students the reason I bring it up So many students are like I'm gonna start posting stuff like after I spend I just need to save up and spend $3,000 on recording and video gear it's like dude literally 80% of the things I post are iPhone audio of me drumming. It sounds awesome Yeah, I mean you just need to do it I I do think that and I'm I'm guilty of it where I want to do more youtube videos and and focus on youtube and do more like Gear reviews and things and talk more about the other side of my background Which is like talk about this mic and talk about the gear But I'm like well, it's it's hard having a baby in a toddler and you have a Five month old daughter, which again congratulations to you Welcome to the madness But I don't know just do it. That's that's the key thing here and or don't do it or don't say all the need to do that Everyone doesn't have to be an influencer if I if I Had a normal job I would not be on social media at all I am in a weird position where I kind of think social media is poison for the mind and society But my entire business model kind of depends on it. So here I am, you know, and I'm at peace with that I love that and I actually I should say People know how to use social media way better than me I'm just like So I was immediately addicted and scrolling and I'm just like completely can't control myself But I have friends that are like, what are you talking about? It's awesome. I learned so much I I it's my encyclopedia and they're right. I watch them literally becoming total masters of like random stuff On youtube and instagram and I'm like, damn, I suck at this Well, but you're so right that is the The dark side of it is like I find myself you find yourself checking your instagram All the time, but it's just it's a part of what we do and it is very addicting. So it's a slippery slope But but it's a it's powerful and you kind of have to be there Yeah, I know it's it's hard to imagine. I know unless you're a gig I know some gigging musicians Who don't have social media and I'm like damn that's cool It's like one, you know one in 10,000 musicians. They're like, no, I'm just that good I have I have friends they call me for gigs Never started a facebook or instagram and I'm like, wow That's a crazy life. It's not at all But I'm like, wow hard to imagine Yeah, good for them. Um, all right jp is we kind of wrap up here, man. Why don't you tell people, uh Where they can find you your website name social media all that good stuff. Yeah, um Yes, so Website jpp of a method.com and you know what while we're at it. Let's make a freaking promo code anyone listening put in Drum history promo code. I'm gonna make it as soon as we're done Cool, and you'll get a free month. Give it a try. I'm really excited and and I'm proud of the stuff I'm doing there and students are really Reliably learning to improvise and be creative on the kit. So jp of a method.com That's where I'm teaching and my band is called childish japes childish japes putting out a new album this year A double album our fourth album I'm very excited about that And then you know, I'm online just search my name to find stuff. I'll put it all in the description and uh That's awesome. Yeah, I didn't even talk about you playing in bands and stuff because sometimes honestly you think of people In your role who who live in a bubble and kind of just play in there in their House and not again. There's nothing wrong with that but Taking it out of the lesson room Onto the stage is very cool. So Congrats man. That's awesome. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, that's a whole whole different discussion Cool. Well, thanks to everyone for listening and jp. I appreciate you being here man And uh, like jp said promo code drum history on jp buve method.com. Look in the description and you can see it there JP keep up the good work, man And I appreciate you being here and hopefully we can meet one day in person and hang out and uh talk drums and all that good stuff I hope so. Thanks for having me bart