 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I am joined by my friend Rob Hart. Rob, welcome to the show. Hey, Bart, thanks for having me. Sure. So you are a musician, an educator, an entrepreneur, and you're here today mainly to talk about your lessons that you took with the great Tony Williams in the kind of early to mid 90s, right? Yes. So our key kind of takeaway that we're after today is really talking about how you've translated your lessons with this icon, just there's no other word except legend of a drummer, and how you're now using his techniques and the lessons that you've used to teach kind of modern drummers today, which I think is just so cool that you're carrying on his tradition, really. Yeah. I was fortunate to be able to study with Tony in the barrier at a place called Drum World and another place called SIR, Studio Instrument Rentals. And that was a rehearsal studio over in San Francisco and the main part of downtown and Santana, all these big groups would rehearse there. So that was, yeah, 1992 when I started taking lessons. Cool. Wow. This is neat because so I got to say that, I mean, if you listen to the show, I'm sure you probably listen to, meaning the listeners, you probably listen to the great episode that was a biography on Tony with Dave Goodman, who just did his thesis on him. And it's a very detailed biography. This episode kind of, obviously it builds on it because it's about Tony, but we're talking more about, we have examples that you've prepared from his clinics, which I love when there's these audio examples so we can hear from the man himself. But it's kind of neat to do. I had it happen with Gene Krupa where there was multiple episodes, George Way, to really fill out this person's life and hear about his lessons and him as a person. So before we even start, I just want to ask, what was it like going to day one, lesson one with Tony Williams? I mean, were you nervous? Well, the very beginning, you know, we used to see him play in San Francisco a bunch. He lived in Pacifica and he was playing like gigs all over the place. And so the story goes is that I was at, there was a club called Kimball's West, which was a jazz club in San Francisco that's actually down the street from what's called now SF Jazz. And I went up to him and I asked him, are you teaching? And he said, no. The very next gig was at a place called Bay Jones, which was over in the Mission in San Francisco. And he had a sign up sheet for classes. So a little bit of the theme of studying with Tony was, you know, some contradiction. And so, no, I'm not teaching lessons. Here's the sign up sheet. So I signed up and then I started classes. I was, you know, I was I was probably very nervous, but at the same time, just hanging out with Tony was like a dream come true. Just being in the room with him, you know, he was larger than life. And, you know, that alone, I think, you know, as you kind of got comfortable, you know, you know, we kind of had a what I say, like, like, I got more comfortable with with asking questions. And being around him. Yeah. I'm sure you were more like, I don't know, when you first meet anyone who's like an idol, you kind of have to be this perfect version of yourself. So I'm sure you could open up more and ask what are probably you thought were like silly questions just to get to the truth of, you know, his style and all that stuff. So what was a people love here in this, I got to ask, I always get you didn't ask how much it costs. How much did a lesson with Tony typically cost in 1992? Well, I forget what they classes were. I remember there was a guy named Lee that John de Christopher who used to work for Jill Jen told me that he was his drum tech at the time. I remember having a receipt. But I don't remember how much that particular lesson or that class was. I don't think it was that much. But when we did private lessons, it was $100 an hour at the time and this was in the 90s. So that was that was pretty, that was not cheap. Yeah, worth it. Yeah, interesting. Okay. Well, that's good to know that's I know it's kind of a weird question, but it's come up where, you know, Freddie Gruber and Joe Morello and people like to say it kind of puts you in that that moment of, but you're paying for quality in an hour, you can get a lot done. And I guess the really the key thing is is when you leave and practice, it's what you maybe you feel more inclined like I just paid whatever the equivalent of $200 today, whatever it is. I better practice, you know. Yeah. You know, the thing about that was that you knew that this is a once in a lifetime thing. And, you know, we all went for it. And there's a there was a, you know, of course, I talked about the sign of a sheet. There was also he put a little ad, there's a local magazine called BAM Magazine Bay Area Music. He put a little ad in the BAM Magazine. And, you know, you would call his service. So you'd call up, you'd leave a message and he would call you back. And that's how you booked your lessons. He didn't have, you know, there wasn't a secretary or anything like that or a manager, he would actually call you back and book it. So he was handling all that business himself. That's interesting. I mean, you want to you want to spread your knowledge, but also you can't just gig all the time. You obviously can, but I'm sure he was at a point where he wanted to teach and spread the knowledge and teach the next generation. So that makes perfect sense. Yeah. And he was in the lessons, he was videotaping all the lessons and he was saying that he was creating a course for college for drumming and the history and the tradition of drumming. And he was working on that before he passed away. Yeah. I mean, it goes without saying that this is pretty close to the end of his life, which he did die relatively early. He was not that old, but you know, that's interesting. It's very sad that he was working on that and he didn't. I mean, you ended your lessons in 1994, he died in 1997. So, boy, you were pretty close to the end of his life. Yeah. Without even knowing it, right? Yeah. Terrible. Yeah. It was just something that I remember my student, this is how I find out about stuff, my student came into his lesson and said, Tony Williams had passed away and I just could not believe it. You know, I go, no, this cannot be true. And he goes, oh yeah, it just happened. So, yeah, I mean, you know, as you know, things are, people pass away quickly sometimes and you know, it's just unbelievable. Like we just lost Chick Corea, you know, who was so vibrant and, you know, gigging all the time and, you know, not ever slowing down and all of a sudden gone. Yeah. No, and especially with Tony, with the routine gallbladder surgery, I believe it's just like, you know, anyone, your friend, your parent, your child, whoever could have that surgery and you never know. But I guess last question about his lessons and then we'll jump into the audio examples and start chugging forward. But how was his like demeanor as a teacher? Was it very, like some people say there's, you know, there's stern, I don't want to say mean teachers, but there's kind of drill sergeant style. Where did he fall into that, you know? Well, he could be very strict. And then on the other end, he would relax and he would just be, you know, hang in man and we'd be talking and just chatting, you know. So I saw the two sides of him. I remember doing like in the, the classes doing, he'd call everybody up one at a time when we work on the practice pad and do rudiments. And I remember him like we're working on a flam tap or a flam accent and he would go, you're balancing, don't bounce. You're playing the sticking wrong and he'd, you know, he'd just be drilling you. I know I think I'm doing it right. You know, so he could be very, very strict, but at the same time at the end of that, that class at the end of that series, he was like, you guys are all doing really great. And he was very happy and he would meet you in the lobby and go, Hey, how are you doing? And so, you know, I saw the two sides where, you know, if somebody took his picture, there was one time at Drum World where somebody was trying to take his picture while I was going into my lesson. And he got pretty upset and he said, stop now. I didn't say you could take my picture. And then he looked at me and he goes, you go in the room. Your tail was between your legs. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it was just, you know, he had a certain, he demanded respect as you heard on one of my audio clips. He demanded respect and, you know, if something happened, he wasn't going to have it. If it was something he didn't like, he would speak up. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's the man. He has produced so much great music and students such as yourself that it worked. And sometimes it's come up on the show where it's like, if you're too soft on students, then that's maybe not the best thing. Because you're not learning as much as you can having your, you know, handheld through everything. You need a little, oh boy, I need to practice. I did not, you know, Tony was not happy with me. But it's nice that the end he kind of, you're doing good, you know, sour then sweet kind of thing, right? Yeah. I think that he had traditional things that he grew up on. He grew up on, you know, he grew up at such a young age. And as David said, you know, he saw everybody play and that's how he learned. So he had all these traditional things that he was very, you know, passionate about. And I think he was really passionate about passing that stuff on. Mm hmm. God, yeah, his life was just so fascinating. Having a mom that was so young and she would be at school and he'd be going off to New York to play. That's we could again, that's the whole other episode, but fascinating life. But so I'd love to jump in and you kind of take the the the wheel here and let's start talking about what you've got prepared here. And we'll go through these clips and this is this is awesome. OK, well, I've got a lot of clips and I just wanted to start off with clip number one where he's talking about incorporating roles and playing even. Through the double stroke role and his hands were amazing. I mean, he would just play the snare drum and just blow you away. But he would do things were, you know, he would do one one voice at a time. Then he moved to the Tom, then he'd move on to the next Tom and then the four Tom, then he incorporate, you know, symbols and bass drum and different things. So in this first clip, he talks about incorporating roles. And there's kind of a couple of themes in these these clips. The ride symbol is a big part of his playing and incorporating the ride symbol. And the other thing is is the hands and keeping the hands even and and, you know, where he positions his hands and and, you know, the traditional grip and how he utilizes things. So I really get a lot out of his playing all these rudiments, but keeping everything even. So the first clip is going to utilize that about using roles. So maybe you can play that first one. Yeah. And now where where is this clip? So we know maybe what year and what what where was this clinic. So. The clinic was at this place called E. Willitzer in Boston. And it was in 1982. And I was attending Berkeley College of Music. And they would have they actually had a whole week of clinics at this at this shop. So it was Tony Williams. It was Simon Phillips. It was Peter Erskine. Lenny White. And so they, you know, every it was I think it was like a week or maybe a couple week series of clinics and they had this big room upstairs. So everybody went to this. So this was like the thing to do, you know, for the whole school. Yeah, it sounds like it. Man. Okay. So here we go. This is clip number one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was good. I'm glad it was made so I could hear it. And then I started playing more roles and finding out the records after that. I don't know. I mean, I noticed it. But after that I started using more roles and things and trying to find out because everything I was playing was really annoyed me after I heard it. I cried. I cried. That's funny. Wow. Cool. That's a great clip. It's neat to hear him talk. You know what I mean? I love being able to put a voice to him instead of just just talking about him. So that's really cool. Yeah. And I think in that clip, his main point was that he played a lot of staccato things. And I think like a lot of single strokes and whatnot. And he was talking about how, you know, he was starting to incorporate rudiments and roles and the beauty of the role in the playing. And so he talks about how when he listens back to himself with Miles, you know, in the early recordings, he didn't like it. You know, he didn't like his playing because he thought it was just too staccato and too sticking. And you kind of played a little bit there of, you know, playing some single strokes. Yeah. Man, I mean, everyone else who's listening to this goes, no, you sounded pretty good, Tony. But he's constantly progressing in his own, you know, drumming journey. So good for him for sticking, being tough on himself. Yeah. And, you know, his, I think the other thing, and this is a, you know, a thing that I, you know, my teachers and my mentors is that, you know, with Tony, he didn't stay in one thing. He evolved and he kept evolving. And so, you know, here's this one point when he was 17, you know, and he's in New York and, you know, he's getting the gig with Miles and he's developing this style and, you know, developing, you know, all these different kinds of ways of playing that are innovative. Right. Nobody was doing it. Now, he's getting stuff from his, you know, his mentors and then he's bringing that forward. And then he goes into another thing where he's going into avant-garde and experimental things, you know, and then he's going into electric and he's, you know, playing louder and more, you know, fusion type of stuff. Then he gets into, you know, going back and playing straight ahead again, you know, with his quintet and then, you know, going on to being a symphonic composer. And, you know, he was eventually going to write for movies is going to be a film composer. Boy, that would have been cool. That would have been amazing. It's like when you think you've figured out what's going on, he's already moving on to the next thing, you know, like you can't keep up with him. So, well, okay. So, yeah, shall we continue here with the next clip? You want to set this one up a little bit? Yeah, so this next one is about the importance of traditional grip. Now, I want to say that, you know, I've been teaching for about 35 years and I don't force grips on people. But if you listen to Buddy Rich and you listen to, you know, some of the traditional things from that time period, traditional grip was, you know, really something that was emphasized, you know. I had to play traditional grip when I grew up. There was no like, can you choose kind of thing? It was never a choice for us. I don't know what it was like for you growing up. No, it was it was match grip. There was no, I guess it was my teacher. I mean, I was taking lessons and I mean, it would have been started in the late 90s. And it was like, I mean, I was a pretty little kid, but it was like, didn't even come up. Yeah. What happened with this is that he did this in several clinics. He talked about how he thought that people who played match grip weren't interesting to him, that he felt that traditional grip was really, you know, made the drummers very interesting and caught his attention. So, you know, it's really about the importance of incorporating all techniques in your playing. Yeah. I mean, I always wish that to me, and it sounds kind of dumb, but like it looks cooler to me, traditional grip. Like it just looks prettier. It looks more traditional, you know, like, like varied classic. But that being said, it is what it is, but it's, I get where he's coming from. I mean, it's definitely, it goes with the classical style of drumming for sure. Yeah. Okay. Here comes clip number two about traditional grip. Okay. Traditional grip. Because I see, you know, there is a, there is a concept which I don't subscribe to, which says, well, if this hand is this hand, this hand is this hand. Why don't we, why don't we able to do everything the same on both sides? Um, guys, you know, I mean, that's great. Let me explain this right. See, I enjoy the fact that I have a right side and I have a left side. And making those two work together to make music is more important to me than this side appearing to be separate from this side. And the people that I've seen that play exclusively match grip for everything. Well, let me put it another way. There's a whole tradition and there's a lot of vocabulary already built up that you play by holding the stick like this. And because the mind works through it does, I think, if you hold the stick this way with this hand, you're not going to think of those things. You understand what I'm saying? So when you, when I hold my stick this way, my mind thinks a certain way. If I hold it this way, I click into something else. I use both and I, and I would like everybody to be able to use both. The reason most people don't use the traditional grip is because it feels awkward. That's the only reason a lot of people say, well, you don't need it, you know, but I think, I think that's a cop out. I think the more you can, the more you know how to play the better you are. The match grip is, I mean, it's great. The match grip is, it's all, I mean, I see a big advantage in learning how to play this way. Can you explain what he's talking about with the vocabulary that you unlock with just traditional and just with match? Like, what is, because I mean, I'm, again, a match grip player. I can do a little traditional, like with brushes. It feels awkward. He's hit the nail on the head there. I just, I haven't really fully, I know that if I put more time in, it would be unlocked. But what is that vocabulary that he's talking about there? Well, you know, he's talking about having, you know, opposite sides and how it's a lot of the theme of his style and his playing is making things, you know, challenging. And I think the reason that he found the traditional grip, you know, very, you know, gave him this facilities because it made him play a certain way. You know, he got, there was a certain feel that he got from playing traditional grip. There's a certain feel he got from playing match grip. Now, if you watch him playing, you'll see that he switches over to match grip for playing power, right? But if you see him go back to the snare drum and just play rudiments on the snare drum or going through stickings, he's playing traditional grip. The other thing I want to mention, a lot of people talk about what is called the hanger grip. And he played from the back of his hand. And so a lot of times, you know, we're learning about all these different techniques that are the fulcrum based and everything and, you know, rebounding the stick and, you know, different kinds of techniques like that. He was more, he watched people play, you know, and his upbringing was watching players play. And he came up with his observation of seeing that people were playing from the back of their hand. From their pinky and their ring finger. And so he was basing his hands on that and then he was playing thumbs up, but he wasn't playing French grip. So, you know, it was just this grip that, you know, he did, he was able to do. And mostly when I teach, I teach putting the thumbs up a timpani grip where, you know, we call it the French grip. And I think most people know about that where it's all fingers. So I think in general, he's talking about, you know, how he clicks into these different grips and how it makes him play different. And it gives him a different feel. Hmm. Yeah. It's just like he's mastered though, like using all the tools in your tool belt for what might be to, you know, someone who has experienced kind of a minute difference, but he's getting, I mean, he's so, it's just so perfect the way he can change and do all that. That it's, it's, it's great that he's using what he's just a master, you know, to fully utilize all these techniques. Yeah. And he, like I said before, I mean, his hands were amazing. You know, I mean, if you see some of those videos of him just doing hand technique, it was, you know, it just blows you away. It's just so beautiful. Yeah. Cause he practiced a lot. You know what I mean? I feel like it's, he's born with it, but also this guy was just a, I mean, his life is drumming, obviously. And I think he play, I think the other thing that, that, you know, we learned from Dave's episode is he actually played all the time. He sat in all the time. Yeah. You know, so he was playing a lot and then he was hanging out and playing and, you know, sitting in all the time. So it wasn't just practicing, but he did practice, but it was actually, he was going out and getting that experience, playing with people. And I think that was another thing that, that he learned about. And the other thing that he, he incorporated into his, his technique and his playing and his ability, you know, having that confidence. He says with Miles that he was just, he was able to do whatever he wanted. Miles didn't police him. And he had all this confidence from that. You know, Miles was his idol and he just let him play. He goes, I'm not going to tell you anything. That was Miles philosophy is I'm not going to give you direction. You just do what you do. Yeah. Man, that's a great way to put it. And when Miles Davis says do what you're going to do, just do it. He's not known as the like friendliest of guys to be supportive. So Tony was like on the inner circle there for sure. So shall we continue on here to number three, bass drum feathering? Yeah. So part of my lessons and I did study with him privately in the drum world store in San Francisco. And he had a 24 inch bass drum. So he had, I went over this with Garrison. He had the 24 inch bass drum, you know, a snare drum, a ride cymbal, hi-hat. This is what I remember. I don't remember the whole kit being set up. So you would play fast swing and you would have to feather the bass drum. And he didn't want to be able to hear the bass drum and you play the hi-hat on two and four. And the technique was playing heel down. And so if your bass drum was too loud, he'd go, no, you can hear the bass drum. I don't want to be able to hear that. And so that was so challenging, you know, to be able to do that. But apparently this is a traditional thing that he talks about the early days that we played quarter notes on the bass drum. They played it real loud to help the bass player out, you know, with the pulse. And then later on they bring the volume down to a whisper, right? So in the in the clip, he talks about how he always feathers the bass drum. You may not hear it, but you feel it's like almost having like ghost notes where you don't hear it, but you feel it adds feel to the groove. So this is what this clip is about. Cool. Here we go. You can play it with just a cymbal, you play the hi-hat, and you play with the bass drum. And I had to learn, or I thought it necessary to learn, how to play like swing time or straight jazz time in the traditional sense that it started out with. See the whole thing started out like with the, like the Charleston beat. You know, the old Charleston beat. So in it, in it, the vintage. You know, swing time like that. But the basic way for a drummer to play it is 4-4 on the bass drum. And after a while, I guess in like the late 40s or the early 50s, that became less, you know, drummers played that less and less. You know, the bass drum on 4-4. Well, you heard it less and less. But it's still necessary, you know, like drummers used to play it. It's a great sound. So the idea, excuse me, the idea is what I'm just, what I'm trying to say is, you still got, I mean, that's part of it too. Even at fast tempos, I play the bass drum. You don't hear it, but I'm playing it like this. Like that. So you got it. That's, and it's real easy to do. It's real easy to do and to play the drums and make it off. Boy, he's got some serious, the dynamics there of the bass drum are just amazing. Where my takeaway from that is like, instead of just doing the same volume the whole time, it gives you somewhere to go when you feather the bass drum like that. Like if you bring it up, it means something, you know? Yeah. A lot of dynamics and, you know, a lot of feel. And then, you know, of course, his up tempo swing was just out of this world. That, you know, I don't know anybody else that can do that, you know? But that, to me, it's always been very pleasurable. I grew up with Tony when I, in a young age, and I grew up in the fusion era, but his sound was always so pleasurable to me, you know? Yeah. And kind of another theme of his lessons is everything you played made sense. He didn't play anything that was, you know, something that would just for the sake of playing chops or throwing something in or speed or, you know, ideas. Everything that he did was very clean and even and made sense. And it was very musical. So, you know, when you're hearing him play that up tempo swing, I mean, it's just so amazing. And the ideas and the stuff he throws in, you know, to me, it's just, it was so attractive and inspirational. It's like, you knew it was him. Oh, my God. It's like, I don't want to say chaotic, but it's clear and it makes sense. You know what I mean? It's just very like, it's just like classic. It's just impressive. Like to any non-drummer, drummer, who ever musician, non-musician, it's just like that is, that is beautiful. Yeah, it's definitely, it's just, you can tell it's him and he has that style. You know, like I said, it's beautiful and it's distinctive and it grabs you. Yeah, for sure. Here we go on playing the cymbal. Yeah, that's because you can practice, you know, from practicing the simplest things, what I'm saying, like even the time when the cymbal, I used to spend days just doing nothing but just the cymbal. You know, just playing that. Because it's because, okay, playing even is a big, plays a big part in how I sound. You know, because I could play a number of things at one volume like this. I'll give you an example. You know, it's all the same volume. That's important to be able to do that. I mean, it sounds simple or it sounds maybe not exciting or it doesn't sound hip. You know, you're not getting any groove from that, but it's real important. So when you can play one thing for a long period of time, it makes that one thing like a metronome. The reason I play the way I play, the reason I raise my stick up is because this has become the metronome. So everything else, people ask how do you play polyrhythms? Because when you practice the simple things and knowing where they are, everything else becomes, you know, then you can do what you want. But anyway, I used to practice like this. And I'd do that for long periods of time. Just that, so that what I did was it's almost like chanting or meditation. You know, you sit there and all of a sudden, I would keep doing this. And all this music, I'd just start hearing all this music. So this would fit in with what I'm hearing. And I never changed it. I never played like this. I don't play like that. So it's just because the music is there. You don't have to play music. So if I can get a good feeling from doing that, I'm doing myself a bigger favor than if I spend all day going. Man, it's like chanting or meditating. That is like the coolest thing ever. And that's just a different way to look at practice right there, you know, instead of just getting the zone. And God, you know what I mean? Just really just do it over and over and don't be thinking about when you're going to stop. I mean, that's just such a huge just theory. When I when I heard this, these clips stay in my mind. And I remember going to my dorm room and just setting up my ride symbol. And we weren't supposed to practice in the dorm rooms at Berkeley. But I just set up my ride symbol and I put on I put on a track and just play along with it. So I literally just the ride symbol practice along just taking that philosophy to heart. And, you know, it really, really helped me, you know, just just working on the ride symbol. The other thing I want to say that is you see a lot of clips on YouTube where in that clip, he says, I don't play like that with the, you know, he kind of has the phrasing. So I don't know if you've heard some of the Miles stuff where he does this crazy ride symbol phrasing. That nobody really knows what that is, you know, it's, it's, it's just, you know, is it eighth notes? Is it swung? Is it straight? Is it, you know, is it phrasing? But when I was taking lessons, he says, I don't do that. So I came to a conclusion that he didn't do that anymore. Or he'll say, if I want to do that, I'll do that. But, you know, I, I can play this way and I can maintain this ride symbol. And if I choose to do something, I would, you know, if I, if I want to do something different, I will. But he's really pertaining to keeping his ride symbol steady and using that as a foundation of everything. And he goes on to say how that helped him with, with different styles of music as well. So that's kind of the contradictory piece that you were talking about before, where it's like, like you said, I don't do that anymore, but he's saying, I don't do that. It's like, well, you did do it for a long time. So I mean, I guess he's, it seems like when he's done with something, he's done it. And then he's moving on and he's working on what would maybe be considered. Like he said, oh, that's easy, but it's not easy. You can perfect it. You know what I mean? Like really go nuts with the pattern. But boy, interesting. He's a deep, a deep guy. That's for sure. Yeah. But you did like I was saying before that, you know, all the different periods he went through, right? And so, and so he had the period that, you know, he did play with the broken ride pattern. And then he went to the period. If you look at the, you know, later period with Quintet, he played straight, you know, the ride symbol was straight, you know. So I think you just had all these different periods he went through, right? Yeah. And then he would just say, I don't do that. This is, this is how I play. Or maybe he'll say something. I don't do that anymore. So it's like the contradictory. Sometimes it's like, well, it did happen and everybody's trying to figure that out. Everybody wants to figure out what he did on Nefertiti. Everybody wants to figure out that time period of, you know, what was going on then? Like what, you know, that stuff that was just magical that happened at that time, you know. Like what was that all about? Everybody tries to figure it out, but we can't. It's Tony. It's the thing that was happening at the time that was so magical. Yeah. And he's already off and done and onto something else. Yes. Cool. All right. So the next clip, similar vein is the ride symbol independence. A little bit about how the ride symbol was, you know, how he keeps the ride symbol as a foundation and everything else evolves around it. And he talks about the different levels of volume with the snare drum and the hi-hat and the bass drum. So he's talking about the grand scheme of things, having the mixing board of the volume of the instruments. Awesome. Here we go. Dude, yeah, but there's a way, you know. Right, that's the idea. Okay, when I started playing, all right, when I started playing, the idea was to be able to play the ride symbol. And that's how what you hear, what you hear in the records, that's what, this is where the time is. So the idea was to play everything without changing it. See, I couldn't play the way the other stuff I play, like the, you know, if I didn't first, all right. And that's what Alan Dawson could do that. Alan Dawson could do that to a kid nine years ago, I mean, I mean, and I'm not, you know, I mean, my arm is down, my shoulder's down. I'm just sitting here, playing from the hand. I don't, my technique involves not the wrist. It's not arm and wrist, it's just the hand. See, when I play around the drums, if I go, when I got over here, I'd be tired. The hands play so much, I can come back, I can go, you know, and I can do that all day. I can play like that because of the hands. So the same thing with the cymbals. I can try to play things in different ways, you know, put them on different and do it. I mean, it that way. I mean, so then, then what happens is, what I've done is, I've got this thing that I can always, and I know always know where I am. You know, and if I, like with the, another thing about the cymbals, you play like this. You'll never get better. The idea is to practice things so the way to play the cymbals stays in one place. The arm stays in one place. But the stick comes all the way back. It almost hits me in the face a lot of times. The thing I got out of that too was the sense of the metronome, the cymbal being the metronome, and how the energy and the recording, of course, it's a tape recorder of the day. And you can hear the squelching that would squash the wash of the cymbal. But, you know, he really had the thing of the cymbal was this constant, you know, ostinato and he was keeping that going and he could play all that stuff over it. And so that was really the key to that and how he was saying just the metronome of how the stick would swing back. So he was getting that almost like tick-tock, like that back and forth motion that would keep the time. So he was really emphasizing that in that audio clip. Yeah, I've never really thought about that with playing, about using that as your, I mean, obviously we, you know, you use your right hand as kind of the timekeeping sort of, you know, thing. But, boy, to really think of the motion of it, that's deep. You know, he's got a very, I don't know, great perspective on everything. It's really cool to hear that. Yeah, and the swing, you can kind of relate that to the stick coming back and swinging back and forth and getting the, you know, getting the swing feel. So it does really, you know, pertain to the whole concept. Yeah, it's neat. In a lot of these episodes, there's been things about teachers and great drummers where like you may be doing something, your whole life of drumming, but like then you hear the way one of these guys describes it and it makes you think differently. Like you might not change the way you're playing, but you're thinking differently and feeling it differently. And that's the beauty of hearing these techniques of guys like Tony. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Okay, so moving on here, where do you want to jump from there? Let's go into pedaling the hi-hat. Okay. So just setting this up, you know, Tony had a left foot thing that is unbelievable. And to me, I always struggled with my left foot. You know, I grew up playing this big huge kit and my left foot was always the thing that suffered the most. And Tony had this amazing, you know, he had amazing feet, but just the left foot with these things you would do with the hi-hat and doing things of playing quarter notes or eighth notes on the hi-hat through everything or doing, like I did a video on the sweeping of the hi-hat and getting, you know, all this beautiful, you know, textures and sound, you know, out of the hi-hats that I don't think anybody was doing, you know. And he had that ability to do that. Now, in the lessons I asked him specifically about like, how did you come up with this? And he said, I didn't practice it. He goes, it just happened. He'd say like, I willed it to happen. But he didn't, you know, specifically practice these things. He did talk about doing heel-toe. I don't know if you've ever heard of that technique, where you go up and down, rocking your foot. He did have me do that. But, you know, this kind of thing of, you know, his, I guess, playing heel-up and then pedaling the hi-hat and he calls it down force is like this whole another level. And at the time, nobody was doing this, you know. This kind of at Berkeley, people were starting to play like quarter notes and eighth notes when I was at school. But this was something that started to be a norm as we see in drumming now. Yeah. And that's kind of the, everyone is always chasing their left foot. Obviously, there's people who are amazing with their left foot right out of the gate. But we're all, I don't know, we're all chasing that independence with our left foot, you know, and that ability to do these little kind of techniques and little like flourishes with the hi-hat. So I'm excited to hear this. So, okay, this is pedaling the hi-hat. I just play like that. Because I can play like this. You know, I don't have to play like that. Now, this stuff is real down force, more down force. And it just happens that because I started playing like this, I was able to start playing. Man, such control. Yeah. It's like it's a stick. It's like it's his hand. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It was something that totally changed my life and practicing that. I want to say that when I was at Berkeley, there was, you know, we had drum rooms and they made, they actually had reconstructed, you know, did a whole reconstruct of the practice rooms when I was there about 1983. And there was a bunch of drummers that would come through and teach us, right? They would just, people would show up, you know, and some would be these old time, you know, drummers, you know, one guy, I think, hung out with Tony, his name was Lenny Nelson. And he would do all these like max roach things and, you know, all these like power exercises and whatnot. But there was another guy that I grabbed onto his name was Robbie Gonzalez, who was playing with Aldmiola at the time. And, you know, he didn't have, I think he was living in Miami or something like that. But he was playing with a band called Tigers Baku. So I was living in a suburb of Boston and a duplex. We call it the legend of Hell House. And we had like a basement and he would come over to my house and we would take lessons and he would, you know, really work on my feet. You know, and I started to get into playing Heel Up. I didn't, nobody even taught me that growing up, you know, so he was getting into working like lifting your heel. Working on your left foot, working on independence, working on technique. And then Tony, of course, had this, he had been doing this forever. So it kind of carried that on of, you know, he talks about the downforce and how he was pedaling the hi-hat and keeping those quarter notes going, those eight notes going and then doing different things with open hi-hat. So I think that, you know, that whole thing is kind of going into this whole, almost, you know, this foundation of the feet. Yeah. Which, I mean, everyone works on their hands a lot. There's kind of a, the theory that like, you know, your left foot maybe gets, if you're right-handed, kind of right-footed with your kick that your left foot sort of gets left for last, you know, which shouldn't be the case. Obviously, what you're talking about, you worked on it and it's, something about your left foot, if that's not your dominant foot, it just, it's sort of like what he's saying about traditional grip. It feels uncomfortable. It's like, you get this feeling of like, it's like frustrating. It's like, ah, it's like, work correctly. If you're trying to do independence and keep your left foot going with, you know, quarter notes or whatever, it's just like, it can drive you nuts. Yeah. And I think the other thing that I know I used to do is I would set up weird. My left foot was, I try to put all these toms up and my left foot would be way off, you know, to the, I would, I would sit wrong and I would, I would not really utilize my left foot because I was sitting so weird and my left foot was so far off to the left side of my kit. Tony also talks about how he sets up where everything's really even, like his feet are even and his hands are even so he's able to access things. And it's weird. My Japanese roommate, who I actually found, I found him on Facebook after like, what, 35 years or 40 years. You know, he used to teach me that because, you know, he would say, you know, you got to set up with your feet even. So your right foot and your left foot are relatively even with each other. You're not, one's not in front of the other. So I think that's another thing that allowed, you know, Tony to play with, you know, this great technique that he had his feet set up, you know, in a logical place, you know, that when I was a kid, I was just dumb. I didn't know. Oh, well, maybe I should do this. I was just trying to put everything in. I know those huge, I had a, I used to have a huge giant kind of Ludwig set. And it's like, you look at it now and I'm like, okay, so my, like the double, the two bass drums, my feet were already pretty wide, then put a hi-hat on there. And it wasn't one of the two legs kind of hi-hats. So you'd have to do the thing where you close the legs and you clamp it onto the bass drum with one of those little like connectors. And I mean, you're, you're like, for me, my legs were so far open. It was like, yeah, you're either playing, you're clamping down the hi-hat or you're playing open. There's not much technique there on a 10-piece drum set. Right. I grew up that way with playing the big huge kit, because I think all the drummers when I was growing up played huge kit. So, you know, Billy Cobham, Karl Palmer, Lenny White, everybody had huge kits, you know. So that was the thing, man, to have as much stuff as you could. But, you know, later on, I just, I got rid of it all. I remember when I first went to Berkeley, I shipped everything off and, and like, I, you know, you had lockers, you know, it's like, I can't set this stuff up. I sent it all back home, you know, I just went down to like a mini, just a normal kit, you know. And stupid me. That's, that's what I should have done from the start, but I was so stubborn and it's like, no, I have to, this is my sound. Yeah. I need 15 toms. Right. But, you know, you learn about playing, you know, with nothing, like playing with a bass drum, a hi-hat, a snare drum and a ride cymbal. That's a really good way of practicing. Yep, exactly. Everything on top of that can be extra, but really you can't hurt yourself by having too much and start walking like you've been riding a horse for 30 years if you're too, too wide with the bass drums. Right. All right. So I think we have time for a few more. I mean, this is just so cool. And I mean, it's just amazing to hear Tony talk about these, these, these just so cool to hear from him directly. I love how you chopped up this clinic. So where do you want to go from there? Let's go into the, the brushes. Okay. So this is a short little audio and this talks about something I never knew about, of throwing the snares off. Okay. Here we go. Tony talking about brushes. The snares are supposed to be off basically. Oh really? Yeah. Best way to play a brush is the snares off. I've heard about that. Really? Never. Wow. That's what you're paying me for. So explain that. So he's saying your traditional kind of brushwork, you go snares off. Yeah. You know, he played the black dot heads. So what he'd said he would do is he would switch out the snare drums with, with a, you know, a coated surface. And he had said that, yeah, I always played with the snares off. Now I had at the time, I'd never heard of that. You know, obviously there are different textures with turning the snares on or off, but he exclusively played with the snares off. I think that was a, you know, just something, a revelation for me. It was like, wow. And that's, you can hear me kind of going, I've never heard of that before. Yeah. Oh my God. Do you think that's possibly like at one point he did play with the snares on kind of thing, like a contradiction maybe where earlier on he did it and then he evolved his sound? Or do you think that was a full on, he always did it like that sort of thing? I don't know. You know, I, it's hard to tell. I obviously, when you hear the recordings later on, you could, you could hear that the snares are off. Yeah. And, and, and you're definitely hearing that sound. Maybe earlier you couldn't tell. Mm hmm. So, yeah, I don't know. That's a, that's a really good question. No, interesting. That's a really practical, easy thing for people to do instead of, you know, everything else we should go and practice. But with that, you can just flip your throw off off and just start playing with brushes. Okay. Cool. Where do we go from there? Let's go to the consistently listening to himself. Keeping time. Keeping time audio. Yeah. Yeah. Just get a tape recorder and listen to yourself. And if you learn to listen to yourself and criticize yourself and say, that's not sounding good. You know, and you got to find and why and analyze it. Why isn't that sounding good? Like I said, the way I did it was I just sat there and played time, no beats, no rhythms. And then when you could sit, someone, Clifford Jarvis told me, years ago, from Drummer, he said, he said, just sit there and you play the time. And when you can play the time and you feel good back from it, then you got it. Because if I sit there and I go, or even without the hi-hat, if you do it long enough, you'll, it'll become very strong. I mean, I can't express it strongly enough how much that works. If the idea is to sit there and you draw a feeling back from it. When you can do that, you're on your way. I mean, because that's what it's all about. It's not the beats. It's not all the stuff in between, believe me. Yeah. I mean, because I've heard people that can play amazing things, it sounds like, it sounds terrible because there's nothing, there's no frame around it. You can play all the wonderful rhythms in the world, but it's not necessarily music. Yeah. One of the things that, that he taught me in the lessons was he listened to himself play and he listened to others around him. And he was, he was really, we talked about taping himself. He would really try to critique his playing and as he goes on, he says, I don't play stuff and I've kind of said that before. He doesn't play stuff he doesn't mean. He always, he's always listening and listening to everything around him and really making sense of everything he does. So it's not like he's just playing. He's really mindful of everything going on. And I got a lot out of that. And the taping yourself is such a great exercise. I think everybody should do that. I, like I was saying, I was obsessed with it. I was taping every gig I did listening back. If somebody tells you something's wrong, you go back and you listen. Like was I, was something wrong with the time? You know, what happened? Did somebody drop a beat? Did I drop a beat? Did the bass player do something? Was he, was, was, were we feeling something different here? Or did I play something that, that wasn't good? Like he talks about that doesn't sound good. Or something where, oh, that did sound good or that works. That doesn't work. So I think out of that clip and, and the studies with him, I got a lot out about listening to yourself and, and critiquing yourself and listening back and listening to others around you. And really you being the judge of yourself, not just listening to other other people telling you, like maybe growing up where people are telling you what you should be doing. Yeah. I mean, God, it's never been easier than now with your cell phone and your a little zoom, you know, recorder or whatever, just set it up and record yourself. That's, it's a great way to, to improve to hear yourself back. So that's smart of you to bring the recorders with you and do all that. It took a couple of extra minutes, which a lot of times for people that's a couple of extra minutes they don't want to spend. So it worked out well for you. Yeah. And would the Sony Walkman had come out then? This is, this is dating myself, but that was, that was the greatest tool. You know, we go to drum clinics or everything, we could tape everything. You know, before that they had like a reel to reel. They didn't really have good portable cassette recorders at that. Yeah. Whereas as portable, you know, and these little Walkman things, you know, we used to take the train and everything and you could listen to music. Now we just listen to our phone. Like you said, everything's on the phone. The phone is the utility knife, the Swiss Army knife. Absolutely. Okay. For the sake of time, how about we pick two more? Does that sound good? Sound great. Okay. Let's go up to number 14, setting up far away. Okay. All right. Here we go. Setting up far away. Yeah. Like my drums are all... If I set my drums up to make it easy on myself, like people do, pull it all in, because I can get to it easier. That's great, but I'll never get better. But if my drums are at a point where I have to reach for them, then that means that my body is always in motion. So you make your body... I've made my body sound into a mechanism, so that everything's always like when I'm practicing. I do like that. Then I've got this, like it's like a pulley, like a weight, you know, like a weight something. So it's... So you make yourself... I've always made myself always... You're always ready. And the way you play and the way you sit tells you a lot about how you're going to sound. Because if I were playing, and I was playing like this, I mean, I might just say, wow, that really, really feels good. That's why I'm really going to groove now. That's great, you know, that moves. But subconsciously, something inside is going to be saying, well, you're comfortable, aren't you? So consequently, you're going to sound uncomfortable with myself. The best chance of sounding good from the very beginning, from the point I sit down, I have a better chance of sounding good if, like, when I pick up the sticks, I go, I sit there, and my feet are like the same. When I look down, my knees are in the same place, like I'm not sitting like that. I'm like, I'm sitting straight, and I sit like that, and I go like this. And I play, I didn't sit down and go, all of a sudden I just sat down. Something inside is going to be saying, well, you're comfortable, aren't you? So consequently, you're going to sound uncomfortable with yourself. The best chance of sounding good from the very beginning, from the point I sit down, I have a better chance of sounding good if, like, when I pick up the sticks, I go, I sit there, and my feet are like the same. When I look down, my knees are in the same place, like I'm not sitting like that. I'm like, I'm sitting straight, and I sit like that, and I go like this. And I play. I didn't sit down and go, all of a sudden I just sat down. Man, that is, like, one of the truest things I think I've ever heard. It's just like, you're setting yourself up for such better success when you sit down and you're comfortable. I mean, we all know that feeling when you sit down and you're like, this is wrong. I'm an inch off on the high hat. I'm just uncomfortable. It's not right. Oh, man, that is so such a simple way to put it. Yeah. And I think the other thing that he was talking about is he actually purposely set up where things were far away. They weren't close to him. He sat high. He liked to be towering over the drums, but he liked to have everything far away and he had to reach for it. He played with 2B drumsticks. Mm hmm. And, you know, so, you know, that that's an amazing thing that I was talking to John Christopher, Christopher about, you know, they had a Zildjian model, a signature model that they made for him, but 2B drumsticks and he played everything with 2B drumsticks. Wow. Amazing. So he tried to make things that were challenging for himself. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, what a natural talent where like things are getting too easy. Let me use these baseball bat sticks and like just make things just a little bit challenging. That's neat, but also on that note, he's sitting down and he's not, I just love that, you know, your drum set. We all know that feeling though of it's just, it's got to be just right. So it's, yeah, that's really powerful. Okay. Last clip here. Which one do you want to go to? Let's go to number 16. Excellence. All right. Here we go. Number 16. I'm not here to play perfect. I'm not a perfectionist at all. I'm at the excellence. Excellence is what I strive for. And I can only do that if I'm happy and relaxed and I know that I can play. I know I can play the drums. I've never had a problem playing the drums. So I'm only telling you these things because I've never had a problem. The only problems I've had with the drums themselves, if I didn't have like the right cymbals or the right hi-hat and stuff like that. That bothers you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can play anybody's stuff. I'm saying when I was younger, I used to listen to a record with Art Blakey on it. And I'm like, Wonderful. How come my set doesn't sound like that? And then I saw this set. Oh, now I know. You know, my set is, you know, I have a bag of nuts and bolts and old-sound cymbals and stuff. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Wow. It's so neat, too, that like, Tony being such an icon, he looks at those guys. He looks at the Art Blakeys and the Max Roaches and has that sort of like, just love for them. I just love that. It's like your hero's hero, you know? Right. And he talks about how that shaped him and how he, from listening to those guys and seeing those guys and being friends with those guys, he used that as his mentorship growing up. Right? Now, he also talks about how he took things from each one of those drummers. And he goes through a wide range of drummers. But, you know, the influence of Max Roach, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, he talks about how he took stuff from all those guys. He could play just like them. But what he did is he took the things that he were, he felt was encompassing his style and he threw away everything else. So he took the stuff that he could use and he got rid of everything else. But he could play just like those guys. I mean, unbelievable. I mean, and I've got more audio that maybe we'll share later of him playing just like his heroes. Yeah. One amazing thing that he can assimilate that and then say, well, I'm going to take this and I'm going to throw everything else away. Yeah, that's because otherwise, not that there's anything wrong with it, but if you're just taking everything, you're copying them and you're going to sound like an imitation of them, but he's picking and choosing and creating this beautiful Frankenstein of all of his heroes to create the sound of Tony Williams, really. Yeah. And it's such an amazing thing that he took this tradition and he's passing this tradition on and we're able to get so much out of it. Even today, you know, he's been gone for what, over 20 years? What has it been? So he is still influencing everybody. You know, people are still talking about him. And I think that's such an amazing thing, you know, that his spirit is still alive. Yeah, very much so. And I think people like you, his students are passing it along. I've done a couple of them where these clip episodes where we play clips from things, it just, they fly by. I mean, I think anyone listening is thinking, holy cow, it's been an over an hour. So like Rob mentioned, we are going to do a bonus episode where we're going to actually hear these clips of Tony imitating Max Roach, Philly Jo Jones, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones, which I'm super excited to hear and kind of dig into those a little bit. So we'll do that on the bonus episode. If you want to hear that stuff, you can join up, go to drumhistorypodcast.com and there's a little Patreon button and you pay a little couple bucks extra a month and you get stuff like that. But Rob, this is just so cool. Why don't you tell people a little bit more about you and where they can find you and taking lessons and all that good stuff? Great. My website is www.robheartdrumstudio.com and my goal is to pass on the tradition that I've obtained from the greats and I've been working on a compilation of music courses and now just completing my third course, currently editing down 30 hours of video and audio footage accompanied with PDF lessons that contains rhythm, reading, theory, detailed hand and feet technique and groove independence and much more. Thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. People love that stuff with the show. So again, that's www.robheartdrumstudio.com H-A-R-T. Well, Rob, just I can't thank you enough for taking the time to chop up these clips and I'm excited to go through more with you and have some more fun in the Patreon bonus episode. So you're really doing a great thing by continuing on Tony's legacy and I've never really had an explanation of these clinics and maybe we do this more with other drummers on the show and with other people who took lessons with them because this has just been awesome. I think you've really brought a cool new perspective to this podcast especially. Yeah, and I want to say, Bart, that I reached out to you. Usually people probably get recommended to you. I got addicted to your podcast. I was exercising every day and I put your podcast on and I binge listened to it and it's so great. The things that you're doing, the services that you're doing and the history is just so amazing. Like I was telling you before that I'm getting different drummers. I'm turning them on to your podcast. Steve Smith is listening to it and he goes, oh, did you hear of that one about the Joe Morello or the Freddie Grieber? It's such a great thing you're doing. Oh, thank you. I'm really inspired by listening and I've almost got through almost every episode. Oh, wow, I love hearing that. There's some people who are updating me on that where they go and literally while we're talking, I got a message from someone saying, hey, I just did the PV episode about PV drums. I love it, so it's cool to hear that people are going through. Man, I don't take that for granted. I've done that with other podcasts where I feel like I need to hear every single one. Word of mouth is the best thing. You trust your drummer friends and people such as yourself are sharing it. It's just so cool, so I appreciate it and appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me today. Awesome, Bart. Thank you. If you like this podcast, find me on social media at drumhistory and please share, rate and leave a review. And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future. Until next time, keep on learning.