 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm honored to have back on the show Mr. Mike Johnston Mike welcome. Thank you. Good to be back. Yeah, it's been like two years I mean you were in the first, you know 10 or 15 episodes and we did the history of online drum lessons, which is kind of your your bread and butter with Mike's lessons but Yeah, so today we're gonna do just in general drum lessons, which I think is a super cool topic That was suggested by Martin Novum. I think I'm pronouncing your last name, right? Thank you to Martin for suggesting this episode and on that note Mike, let's jump in and yeah Why don't you go ahead and teach us about the history of drum lessons man? It's it's one of those things that right when you think about anyone acquiring a skill You have to think that as soon as that skill is acquired then that skill is ready to be taught to someone else and So we can assume that in the history of drums Dating back to people banging on things that it was taught to other people the rhythms the traditional rhythms all of that stuff So I think if we're looking for forms of education And that's what you and I have discussed is in the past about like what a cool topic that would be In forms of education we have to start at in-person lessons because that would have been the first way This would have been done in and that would be with any skill Yeah, and so when you have in-person private drum lessons one-on-one I'm passing on information to you and a skill set to you That has its own pros and cons. I mean all of these have ups and downs all of these have things It's like oh, that's the best way to go Except for this except for this and I think that that becomes such a cool topic because people like me that are obsessed with education we're always trying the best trying to find the best way to pass on that information to someone else and I got to say that I would assume by the end of this podcast We'll wrap all the way back to the beginning which is in-person lessons So I think the first thing that would have happened before published books and obviously before the digital world Would be in-person private lessons on the instrument and I think it's probably safe for us to just do this Coming from the drum set perspective instead of cavemen hitting random skinned instruments No, I think I think totally and I think that's You know before that and and a lot of it maybe we can kind of just like Assume that a lot of the lessons that would have happened Before kind of our modern in-person drum set would have been you were taught via the military Yeah, this seems like a safe assumption from what I've learned over the years of doing the show is You know, it's you're taught the snare drum for a reason Or in other cultures, maybe you're you know, it's it's traditional music and you're playing and like a pub or in you know At a party quote-unquote yeah, I think that you know the function Was a big thing, you know, what are you doing this for it wasn't the modern day of like oh I play drums because I dig them, you know, it was like I'm doing this to go along with this traditional dance or this traditional ceremony So going from those but if we consider like modern-day Private drum lessons They wouldn't have been that different even a hundred years ago You would have had to either go to someone's house or a music store And you would have had to sit down and take a one-on-one private lesson now The pros the positive side of that is the I think the biggest one is that it's personalized when someone writes a book It's not personalized. It's general But if I walk into a room to take a lesson with somebody Hopefully as long as they're doing their job, right? They're going to be creating the education specifically for me And my desires on the instrument so getting Personalized instruction is a massive plus the other thing is you have someone in the room watching you mess up that can correct it in the moment instead of Submitting a video and then waiting two weeks for someone to get back to you in the moment They can even and I don't mean this in like a Whiplash kind of way, but they can grab your wrists and turn them over a little bit Yeah, and I remember I still remember being a kid and having my teacher grab my hand and turn it over and just that feeling of like Some another human being like no do it like this that stuck with me forever Yeah, so that is amazing and the other thing that never gets talked about enough But as someone that taught private lessons from the age that I was 17 and from 5 until 17 I took them and then I taught from 17 on The teacher becomes a life counselor to the student because the teacher is the one person that is removed from their Social circle so the student who's going through whatever it is in their life whether they're a kid or adult They have this person they can tell their problems to and that teacher can't spread the rumors It can't turn into drama because they don't know anybody So that's one thing that you know You get out of private lessons as you get a bit of a life coach Get someone in the room to correct you and you get personalized instruction You're absolutely right and and I just have like a funny thing that happened because I I mean you're obviously on another Planet from what I was doing But so I taught at Sam Ash for a while and I taught private and then at another store here and I guess my Specialty would be working with really young kids not as much like shredding like let's go You know rip through a bunch of books and stuff It was like getting kids to really like the drums Yeah, and I had a little kid and you know, I won't name him obviously but he They were the dad was from another country where I believe it was a little stricter on the kids I think that's fair to say But the kid the young five-year-old would very often just kind of like talk to me and tell me stuff and like you said It's like a psychiatrist kind of thing almost but one time he said my dad told me to grow a pair What does that mean? And I was like, oh man talk to your mom. I'm not I'm not getting into that. I don't I don't want Sam Ash to come after me But yeah, but that that is such a normal part of being a private drum instructor is that You're you are the person that they can go to and just say like look I have no one else to talk to about this stuff and you know, you can also and that the problem is You can't step in and be their parent because they already have parents and so you just have to kind of be there for them and listen As much as possible But I think that that's that is one of the few things that I never hear mentioned and I think like man, even so my last private instructor that I was actually in the room with was Peter Mangadini and That was just such a blessing because he's just a legend in the world of education And I would drive two hours to go have my lessons with him and we would be in his basement And I was in my 20s. So I wasn't a kid, but I was able to tell him. Hey You know how I'm touring and I have this record deal Something doesn't feel right and he was the first person to tell me Education can be your plan a you just have to choose it Yeah, and to have somebody say that to you when you think like I don't want to admit that I don't enjoy the rock star lifestyle To have somebody believe in me and say look man, you're you're meant for this thing I don't know where my career would be if I didn't have an in-person life coach at that moment To say those things. Absolutely. He was on the I probably should have sent this to you before he was on the show From when we were recording this a couple weeks ago like a month or two. Oh, really? Yeah, he did we just kind of talked about his career and his life and he talked about you and told a bunch of embarrassing stories awesome Beautiful. No, no, he was super proud of you obviously, but yeah, that was another suggested episode by someone but um, I agree completely where you can like it's almost like a It's just like someone who's been down the road before and can and can kind of steer you in the right direction But I think maybe that brings up the the point of but a bad teacher can really affect things negatively as well Right. So so and you know for the the downside of private instruction I Think the biggest downside is that you are limited to the people in your local area and we don't all live in San Francisco LA Atlanta New York London where there's top-level pros and That's I think why you see the success of books eventually later later in the timeline the success of drum clinics drum touring Even online lessons That's because when it comes to private lessons Whoever works at your local store. That's who you get, you know, I mean, I know for as a kid I didn't choose my drum instructor. I was five years old My mom got me drum lessons and whoever the teacher was at the store that was closest to us That was going to be my new life coach and it didn't go well for like the first three teachers I wasn't clicking with the people and I had the jazz teacher that told me the only way to play is like this And it was you know, I was like, God, this doesn't really Sit well with me that I'm I'm trying to get better in an art form And you're telling me that it's the military that there's rules and it has to be done this way And so I think that that can be a bad side of in-person lessons the other thing is that and this is something you'll know from Sam Ash and Either positive or negative But you are also limited to how much the store or the school supports their lesson program So you might go to an amazing store that has killer gear But because of where they chose to have their location, you don't get to take lessons on a drum set you have to take it on pads or an electric kit and So that's another really bad part about this is like, oh man I signed up for this instrument that's supposed to be loud and bombastic And I've never played one because I don't own one and the place I take lessons doesn't have one exactly Yeah, really and that's kind of like the the old like but and the likelihood of like a Student to be like who's like 10 to be like all right. Well, maybe it was a bad teacher. Let me try again They might be like, well, you know what? I'm gonna go play soccer Totally, and you put that in my mind a long time ago that like our biggest enemy is like kids playing football Yeah, and play station and everything else they could choose instead of this instrument. Yeah, and so I think that that's why You know, I've hosted teacher camps at my studio in the past where I'm teaching other teachers And I think that they're always waiting for this thing where like I give them the breakthrough information like oh if you just tell a student this they'll practice more and it's like That's not how it works. You need to truly have a desire to pass on information to someone else and Treat it as an art form if you want to do this Otherwise you might be the person that stops this boy or girl from actually moving forward with this instrument And so, you know, even though in the end I think there's no Substitution for in-person private lessons and that would have been our first form of drum set lessons It's still not perfect because there's the human element of it. Yeah Yeah, that's very true and I should have said this at the beginning I You know, I meant to but obviously I think most people know I kind of skipped it because I think everyone out There kind of knows who Mike is but obviously Mike Johnston is an educator and clinician and runs Mike's lessons calm Which is kind of one of the I would say the top online drum Platforms basically I as far as you know, I'll say I think you were a pioneer in that field and Mike also has a Podcast which is great called called drum with Mike and Eddie, which is a Eddie thrower So I'm gonna say that 14 minutes into this thing I highly appreciate it man Anyway now back on to it. So yeah, so starting off in-person drum lessons Which I'm assuming that would have happened for a while before anything switched technology wise. They weren't doing zoom lessons 1905 No, they were trying but they just weren't able to make it all work out with the networks So yeah, I think the next thing you're gonna start seeing I mean obviously is going to be drum books and that's gonna be this Collection of the information that would have been taught in the private lessons now in the drum book world One thing that you will notice if you start buying old books and let's just say so that everyone can relate There's a million old drum books out there, but most people that have studied the instrument are familiar with stick control and syncopation and if you've bought either of those books and studied out of them You'll you'll notice something right away Those books were meant to be accompanied with another human being a drum teacher So there's very little text It's just all pages of exercises because they were written so that you'd be in a room with your teacher and the teacher would take you through them A lot of times nowadays when people are start drums someone will randomly tell them Well, you have to have stick control and syncopation There's no faster way to get someone to quit the drums than buying those two books without a teacher Because they don't tell you anything they weren't meant they were meant to be accompanied with private lessons So in the drum book era when that starts to come into play The the thing that you're getting there is this massive collection of information to know Okay, I paid 17 dollars or whatever it would have been at the time And now I have the next four years of my life figured out as long as I keep taking these private lessons and What happens is with books like that you're getting A million lessons per page the amount of things I could tell one student to do with summary number one of syncopation I mean, it's it's a lifetime study. Yeah And so there's things like that and there there was also obviously All of the snare solo books coming out at that time That were very precise But I think that one thing that books gave us Was it was our first chance for teachers to step into The spotlight a little bit because in the past, you know up until the books started hitting the printing press Either you're on or a hit record or you're not but there's no way to legitimize that you're a player and that you're a drummer As soon as you have a book I walk into a music store and I see The name George Lawrence Stone. I see the name Jim Chapin Freddie Gruber whoever it is. It's like, oh, well this person must be good because they have their own book Exactly And you think a drummer is better because like like it's like you walk into a room and you see someone who has a bunch of like books Not even drum books, but just books and you go, god, this guy's smart He's kind of a bunch. Yeah has to be smart. Yeah has to be smart Yeah, and I want to throw it out there too that so, um, I did an episode with uh, mark beacher about the history of rudimental drumming and we talked a lot about This is different. This is going to more of what I was saying about the military and the rudimental stuff Some of these books that were like the first documented like, uh Literally music goes back to like the 1200s and the 1600s. So I think that's a separate conversation. We're more talking about like modern like like you said stick control like drum Modern education really, you know, so I mean the way the thing is I think that that's what's important And I'm glad you brought that up But it's important for people to realize that if you went to take a drum lesson at your local Sam Ash right now It's really not that different that it would than it would have been in the early 1900s there would be a human being hopefully one or two drum sets in the room And there would have been this moment where you guys sit, you know Face to face with a practice pad in between you and you start working on drums and life at the same time And so that's kind of where I'm starting this whole thing It's from that. Yeah, not somebody at a um, you know A renaissance festival having like a chicken leg in their hand and taking a lesson at the same time I don't think it was called a renaissance festival then. I don't think so life. I think it was just Living their daily life Yeah, yep. Um, okay. Yeah. So anyway books, um, okay So from there, I think that you know as far as what they gave us amazing and we still use them today The only problem with books by themselves like I said is you can go home Buy a book and they're not generally instruction manuals and at the time they were not being accompanied with any audio So you just had a book and assuming you're starting out Well, how do you learn to read a type of language notation? When you don't know how to read it there's it's really hard to do that. And so even though yes stick control or Uh, or syncopation could be one of your first books But imagine somebody telling you to get advanced techniques for the modern drummer by jim chapein and you haven't played yet And it's like yes, this is a fine beginning jazz book But beginning jazz is advanced drumming. So We're already we're already needing that in person Lesson type of thing. So I think that books on their own Are not like the answer But they were great supplements to in person private lessons the next thing that I was shocked how prevalent this was But somebody sent me one of my students sent me this huge box of lps From like, I mean, I think from like the 40s and 50s and these were full on drum lesson records I didn't even know that that was a thing. That's awesome Yeah, I mean incredible and it was like It was so funny you'd open up the lp jacket And the notation was on the inside or it might come with an insert and it has one piece of Paper now the thing that I love about that Which obviously leads us eventually into the world of books with cds and books with tapes, but the lp education delivery system Now you're actually getting education from some of the greatest players in the world And that is Something that just cannot be overlooked because like I said if you're if you're in a small village and no one plays the drums But you've heard the drums on the radio You don't have the option to learn really. I mean you might not even have a music store within a hundred miles You don't have any teachers. Well now through this lp or through this album You can get drum lessons from Jim Chapin, you know as a 20 year old stud and he's going one one one one and doing his whole thing And it's it's just it's just mind-blowing and the fact that it's coming with notation And now that you're hearing this thing so imagine staring down at the notation and it doesn't make sense But whoever the the instructor is let's assume it's Jim Chapin He's walking you through it on the drum set and you're starting to fill in the blanks in your mind of what's actually happening And I think the other thing that's so great about audio without video Is that it does force you to close your eyes and imagine is that a 12 inch tom? Is it high tuned? Uh, was that too tall, you know and all of that stuff. I think is great practice for any Student is to imagine what's actually happening Yeah, and then you have to like I mean it's just before Like I was just doing an episode about gene krupa that hasn't come out yet about a new book And it's like people couldn't go to instagram and look at it You'd have to either go out and you're you'd stare at the the actual like album Cover and you just you know drool over it. So it's just a lot more early And that's the thing is like on an album cover You can't take your index finger and your thumb and zoom in on it Like whatever you can see is what you can see and I think that those That is something that we're missing now and I definitely don't want to sound like the old get off my lawn guy But there is something special about active listening putting on a set of headphones or in your monitors Laying your head down on the pillow and closing your eyes and imagining what was happening whether it's with An album of music or with education I can tell you right now I've probably heard david garibaldi's Tape and cd that came with future sounds More than any tower of power record. I listened to that in my car I listened to it on runs and they're like and now number 46 46 is the jam That's so cool. It god, you know, it almost makes me think it's like a parallel too of like, um Like comedy albums where like, you know a young old alien would be like, you know Listening to this and then it puts into their mind that like maybe I could do that and let me practice it It's like it's like unique things that are on albums. Like I'm sure there's like cooking albums Where people describe recipe. I'm sure there's all kinds of weird stuff. I think that that's I think because of my age I I missed out on the The lp world it was something that my parents had them And it was uncool to have them as a kid because we wanted to have tapes and then eventually obviously see these And so I missed out on that and that's why just like you said when When I got the albums from my student I was like, oh my god, of course, of course they would have done this but Whether it's cooking or comedy or drum instruction You can't have an album unless you tracked an album. So that means that some drum instructor went into the studio got mic'd up And I mean must have had just a pile of notes and like the producers, you know going like, all right, jim Give me a exercise 42 Like that's so amazing to just visualize that actually happening. Yeah, that's an interesting That that process. Yeah, the other thing is To have an album And a book at the same time or whatever You have to actually be able to play this stuff because you have to record it To become the audio example for the rest of the world of how exercise 7 is done And so the amount of pressure that would have been on these cats to be legit session cats And be like, okay. Well, I can write the notation I mean, I can write books that I that I wouldn't be able to play for the next 20 years But I would never put them out because I know that it's disingenuous the fact that I can't play that stuff So these guys are writing all their exercises down and then having to go into the studio and track it and say, okay That's the way to do it. I'm I wrote the book and I'm telling you how to do it And I think that that's Something that you know a lot of educators are educators because maybe they do have a little bit of Stage fright when it comes to either touring or even session playing but these cats had to do both. It's pretty amazing Yeah, and I'm sure some people listening to the show are thinking what I'm thinking where There was an episode about max abrams who was a you know top level british drum teacher and Neil wilkinson who's a stud mega drummer in england was talking about his lessons with him and he said what what max would do is record Individual lessons for each student each week on a reel-to-reel and play it back and then leave the room So you'd be listening to a lesson that max recorded For you for that week saying like hey mike. Okay this week. I don't think he was that nice I heard he was pretty right rough, but he'd say hey mike this week you're gonna do He would say you're gonna do paradiddles. Okay. Let's do it and then um, he he talked about how he would like He he would pop in every once in a while and like check in on you and say oh you missed number 14 But he said later on he found out in actuality. He was just coming in randomly to make you think he was outside the door He was actually outside like cleaning his car and stuff of course during that's hardcore That's the next level when you're so amazing. You don't have to be in the room But still to your point. I mean that is what youtube became for me It was recording lessons for my students when I couldn't make it to their lesson Yeah, and then putting it up on this website. And so I think that Drum educators have always and educators in general have always tried to find A path that allows technology to help them deliver that information better And that's where you know if we think about the the downside of the lp you've got Very limited ability for notation because like I said, I mean they when I got these things They had like maybe 10 to 15 exercises Printed inside the jacket or with an insert and the reason why they had so few exercises is because the vinyl Can only take 15 to 20 minutes per side depending on How high the quality was of the recording sure so you can only do so much So it's a very limited thing And that's why I think the biggest breakthrough in education After that was once we got drum books That came with cds or cassettes in the jacket like you know in the pressing And that was a whole different level because now with cds We've got you know one or two cds coming with the book And we've got everything we need like that at least for me because that was definitely my generation That became the no excuses era Like yeah, you heard it you heard david gearbalty play it you read it He wrote a bunch of words that told you what to do For sure if you can't do it. It's on you Yeah, and just the reading of the book. I think we're all guilty of that. I should say I'm guilty of it Where it's like, uh, yeah, oh no, I didn't read the beginning of the book and it's like well You kind of missed the point of it And I think another thing to keep in mind with all of this is like it's just cool to to to think how popular culture Dictates what's going on in the lessons because a lot of times of course the student is going to want to go in the 60s Like I want to play like ringo. It's Just cool to think that because I think that happens now where kids I would always have kids come in who'd be like You know, I want to play imagine dragons and it was like yeah, all right, whatever Well, no, but the music is the gateway to the education. I have you have to tell me What you wish you could do and let's say you say I want to learn tom Sawyer by rush Yeah, then I can show you Okay, here are the technical elements that allow that type of drumming to be possible And you don't possess those elements right now, which is fine. I'm going to now create a plan just for you That will unlock those doors for you Um You know like When your head is bobbing and then you kind of fall down that's because part of the song is in an odd time signature Seven eight, you're missing an eighth note. We have to learn that. I can't just teach you rush or you know I mean and I was in the same boat as you teaching around the same era where people would come in and just Lesson two they bring in their tool CD and I was like I was like dog I have all the faith in your potential but Uh, no, but but the thing is like I would never say no It's it's obviously just like you said like ringo and the beetles and imagine dragons and whatever It's like I don't get to tell you what you like. I just need to take what you like And turn those into lessons so that you know when I'm spoon feeding you vegetables Those vegetables are getting you closer to your eventual eventual dessert and they're getting you Closer to unlocking doors and that's where a lot of drum teachers unfortunately go wrong Is they say well to be a drummer you have to have these skills But they never explain them in the moment and when I'm on a boring rubber pad and you're just telling me I have to do it I really wish you would get some sort of visual aid or jump on the kit and Play something amazing and say just so you know that was just the inverted paradiddle And then I'm in then I'm like oh my god, uh, I'm gonna obsess over that thing You know, I mean having as as a teacher that also worked in a store in a retail shop When I was 17 too I remember just having one guy come in he sat down to test test out some kits He was checking out like a premier genista and he just Played this amazing halftime shuffle and to be honest at 17. I didn't know about fool in the rain I didn't know about uh, you know all the Like peg and uh, what's steely dan stuff. I didn't know about any of that And I just remember asking the other older drummers that were there behind the counter with me like What was that thing that just happened and I'm like dude, it's a halftime shuffle You tell me you've never heard rosanna. I was like god. No, I don't even know what that is. Yeah And so it's like though to me that's where education No matter how it's presented it almost has to start with that Moment of the student going like what is that? And then the teacher gets to reverse engineer it and say, okay Just so you know, there's a lot of things leading up to that and I think that cds LPs coupled with either private education or with Books that's what it took for me. I mean, can you imagine reading future sounds and never hearing david gary baldy play And never hearing tower of power like with no reference Those are the most randomly syncopated grooves ever But when I put that red cassette, I think it came with a red and a blue cassette when I first got it When I put that into my boombox I I just like I said, it was a hit album for me I I listened to those things on loop all day long and I couldn't get enough of it I put it in my sony walkman and walk around listening to those grooves and and then the notation came to life Yeah, that's where the obsession Absolutely starts and something you said before about the kid coming in and wanting to play something and go and go You know tom soyer and play really hard or I'm gonna play tool It made me think I was taking guitar lessons as a kid and My from a guy who taught my brother my brother's best friend my best friend who I played in bands with forever And I was like kind of noodling on the guitar I could play some chords and I said, all right When do I get when do I learn how to shred? I want to shred, right? Yeah, and he just laughed and he told my brother He told my friend oh, no everyone and was like making fun of me to other students And I was like, whoa, what the hell dude like yeah, that's that's in confidence Like seriously, yeah, I mean that's the thing is we have to as educators support Whatever their initial dream is instead of thinking about what their dreams will be 10 years from now like At five and six I had no desire to know who buddy rich was or gene krupa or chick web It was like look the new poison album just dropped. It's amazing ricky rocket is a god I wanted to rocky rocket. Yeah. Yeah, and and so and and that's the thing is like When I watch my students have heroes And I know that Like oh man, you don't even know who dave weckel or viny caliuta is I that's not the time the time is is to be like Thank god for whoever your idol is because that's the only reason you're in this room You know and that's what's insane about people Dogging out popular drummers that aren't in the you know clinic uber drummer world It's like that drummer is saving our industry. Why do you think anyone plays? They don't play because of weckel and viny in the first place They play because of of like you said they play because of ringo They play because of travis barker and exactly less love and so I think it's Our job is educators My bad for going on a tangent, but it's our job to encourage that and be like that's amazing I don't care who your idol is if if if they got you in this room Grand now let me reverse engineer what makes them special so that I can get you playing your first blink song or your first beatle song Absolutely quest love. I was just watching Sesame street with my soon to be two year old and quest love was on Dave grohl was on and I'm just like man exactly like here it is like, you know, he's a two And there's quest love Yeah, and that's that's such a beautiful thing and I think we have to celebrate The people that got us to the drum set in the first place like it really bums me out when people say What do you think of and it's like well here it comes you're gonna ask me about a famous drummer But not famous in the drumming community. I mean famous overall. You're gonna ask me about tommy lee You're gonna ask me about larry's orage and it's like I think That our industry wouldn't exist without those people. Exactly. Why would you start playing drums without them? And I wasn't kidding about the ricky rocket thing I mean I wrote a letter to ricky when I was five years old Telling him that he was the greatest drummer to ever live my grandma mailed it to him It's a poison's pr department and you know, I mean and even still when I see ricky walking around at nam I can't help the I don't think like oh my gosh. I can't believe I looked up to that guy I think that totally opposite. I'm like dude. Thank you for being around And being so cool in those mtv videos Because I wouldn't have played without it. Yeah No, that's 100 true and that's a pretty good segue into the next line on your timeline here of videotapes and dvds because a big part of this is you see these guys it just draws you in that much more so Obviously, I love that you wrote that on here. I mean this technology of doing drum videos didn't exactly go back I mean it it as technology changes then The delivery system for lessons obviously changes and that was a big one That was that was the most groundbreaking thing ever because like you said, we finally got to see these people play and you know, I remember Originally, I was when I was working at this music store. We were carrying videos from dci And that's and the dci sales rep would come in and say, all right What do you want to order and we'd be like, all right We need 200 of the chad smith one because everyone buys it. Yep and whatnot But I remember just always asking Do you have the dci sample tape and that would be five minutes of every single video they offered for drums? Yeah, and I would watch that thing back to front over and over and over again and and seeing You know things that just were like really hard for me to put into my like when we were talking about Imagining what the drummer is doing and then I would see the video of that person teaching. I was like Wait, he's left. He's open-handed Well, no wonder why his fills sound like that. Okay. This is starting to make a little more sense and yeah, like, oh, okay That tom is way smaller than i keep cranking my 12 But I think that person's got a 10 which I didn't even know you could get with your pearl export at the time I had to get my ad on and so that the thing that we could now Go into our local music shop and buy a 20 or 30 or 40 dollar videotape And we had two hours of education to watch the video and then run out to the garage and play our kit and come back And try to emulate what our heroes were doing It was just incredible and some of the videos were not overly educational It was just our first time seeing it, you know, we would see Dennis chambers playing with uh john scofield and Just or was it sco or uh, maybe it was john mclaughlin. But anyways, um, you know, we would see that stuff And it's like, okay, it wasn't a ton of education But it was education because I finally got to see Not only do you get to see the drummer, but the problem is up until then, you know, if you're watching ringo Play on tv on the ed Sullivan show You're seeing a band be filmed. This is our first time seeing a drummer be filmed without a band And we have angles. We've never had a top down before, you know, we never had a foot cam Yeah, the snare side cam. I mean What's just the production value went up and and a lot of them I mean a lot of them are like you said less Educational of here's how you play it. It's more of like here's Carter bowford and victor wooten playing together and it's like they're it's just people playing or they they play with this You know, kind of other drummers playing with like a prog band and then they'll kind of just say here I'm gonna play it for you. Did you get it? Okay, cool Right. Yeah. Well, and then you're back to your imagination of like, okay I got to figure this out because it didn't come with notation. They didn't really explain it and It also started the video world started to separate Players from educators, right? So you all of a sudden you're sitting in a room with one of the greatest drummers in the world realizing This person is a savant and can't explain anything And i'm assuming dci or Hudson or whoever, you know It was like, oh, this is so great We got this drummer on board to do a video and then it's like how the hell are we gonna make two hours of content of this? I can't explain anything and so then it became more of a performance style video and then we also got people that we'd never heard of Breaking things down on a level where it's like, okay. You're a professional educator. This is what you do And even though you may not be famous or cool or whatever I'm getting so much out of this because you're properly explaining this to the camera You're turning the camera into a person and that's when Things got really interesting for me and like I said, and then I remember too, you know If you were super lucky blockbuster video or hollywood video would start to carry a couple drum titles And then I would be able to rent You know these dvds and these videotapes and I mean, you know dvds and videotapes There's just nothing worse than one one of your favorites starts to go bad on you Yeah, and and then you you press eject and that damn tape just comes out with it and it starts sobbing No, this was like three months of allowance to get this videotape. They're expensive I remember them being and I when I was I was I think About 16 or 17 and I worked at guitar center in the drum department and it was just like I just have this like You know, there's always a drum tape playing on that like 14 inch tv that's hanging and there's just a certain like smell Of just like guitar center in the carpet and like but the tape would just play all day Um, yeah, and it just puts you in that those days are those days are not It's just different now It's different and that's I think that that's the history of drum education and the history of education in general But is that we're always trying to evolve And people are trying to take advantage of the technology, but in a race to take advantage of the technology there are subtleties that can can get lost sometimes and You know, all of a sudden, I mean, you know, I don't want to jump too far forward but yeah, so many of us have become amateur cinematographers and We have to be we're videographers cinematographers lighting directors. We're the whole production crew that I know for me for my age i'm 44 and my dream was to have Whether it's you know, dci early on and then eventually Hudson and how Leonard and all those companies to have them Make a dvd. I wanted a dvd Of me teaching that was always my dream and it was kind of like unfortunately my notoriety as an educator Just happened in the wrong time Like I was five years too late with my development And by the time those companies were offering me the chance to do dvds. It was like honestly guys I can do this on my own now Yeah, i'm not getting anything out of it, but Man, I mean even the the most modern dvds that we can think of when that was starting to run out You've got jojo mayors Modern tech secret weapons. Yeah. Yeah videos. Yeah Um, I think still probably the most impactful dvd in my life Later on as a as a as a pro drummer that was still buying dvds was Definitely Todd Suckerman's methods and mechanics Um, that was just a game changer. That was the first time anyone shed real light On the fusion chops in the fusion licks that we had heard forever And he was like, oh that thing it's called a blushta Here's 40 variations, you know, it's like, oh my god, this is amazing. No one talks about this stuff. This is great Um, you know, and then the production level that benny grebb went to in his first language of drumming video It was like everyone kind of knew that this thing was coming to an end And they were in this race to have it stamped forever as like, okay Let's go as big as we can because eventually this will be gone Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean it's just like Like you said documenting it so it and that's the cool thing too is like you get to see Greg Bissonette with his big hair on one of the dci videos it lives forever and you can play like that, but it's not So I guess this is a pro and con of being like, you know the sign of the times of like, oh, I want to play like You know this like ricky rocket like Yes, it's very like 80s and 90s-ish, but you can still take lessons From it and when I post these videos on on instagram, I mean there's still so much good stuff in every single one You can find something good. Oh my gosh. I mean, you know, I'm I don't I've said it before but I don't follow a lot of drum accounts just because at some point I just Mentally couldn't handle it like waking up to 90 people that could Play circles around me every morning wasn't really good for my mental health But I still follow your account And it's one of the few drum things that pop up in my feed every day because It is a reminder of you know what that's actually not outdated at all You know like in science when somebody says like well Our son is the center of the universe. It's like well, you're actually you're factually wrong that that's not correct anymore But that the the drum information. I'm like god that still holds true right now I mean, there's you know, I think about like The last maybe 10 things that I've taught in a clinic I bet almost all of them can be traced back to something. I saw on a dci video that I eventually just Grew into my own thing, but they were they're not original concepts It's actually really frequent somebody will come to me be like, oh, yeah, that thing you taught I remember that was like an old Who's john melton campstrummer? Kenny, yeah Like oh, that's an old Kenny Arnoff thing and I think like the first thing it pops in my head is like Well, I did have that videotape when I was eight So there's a good chance that like that was my you know, those were my bedtime stories I was just listening to kenny talk about like dynamics and stuff and so That stuff doesn't go out of date. It takes you five seconds to get over rod morgan steen's hair Um, and then be like this dude's kind of badass. He's a monster dropping knowledge bombs left and right Yeah, okay, and so I think that you know on the historical timeline Video tapes and dvds massively huge and I also don't think that it's fair to Mention tapes and dvds without mentioning the modern drummer festival because those tapes and dvds Were as educational as anything else even though they were mostly performance based We never were let in on drum festivals before and we I mean most drummers didn't even know that festivals Were a thing. Maybe we knew that clinics existed, but we didn't know that there was this time where 10 of the greatest drummers on the planet Were in a room together and they all got 45 minutes on stage and for md to let us into that world I mean that was I really just can't even think anything Other than my own birthday and Christmas that I looked forward to as much as the next md festival dvd Or or videotape being released. Yeah, that was you know, I would save for that because it's like well I have to have it I'm about to see a 12 year old Tony Royster followed by exactly this new guy that's doing left foot clave named Horacio Hernandez And then they're backstage hanging out with, you know, Roy Haynes and and and then Jim Chapin walks over with a pad It's like, oh my god. This is amazing Yeah, that Tony Royster jr. One from what is it 98 or it's it's back there like 97 98 ripping that off of like Morpheus or kaza one of those like like Torrenting sites and then just watching that so much Just you see where you like like I just remember down here There's a little bit of a tail of the previous segment and then it goes to the next one it cuts off and it was like I didn't know for like 10 years what that was from when I was a kid I was like, what is this from and then of course I learned like md fest man. It's crazy Yeah, and I mean I think that It's funny when you see a kid do something As insane as it was somehow is more tangible to me than watching Dennis do the same stuff I I kind of thought like I think I can do that and and because of the way he tuned and the way that Obviously as we're talking about this timeline Not only is the video quality Getting better and we're getting, you know, jib arms and boom cams and everything. Yeah But we're also getting better audio and the clarity in Tony's playing and his tuning and the kit he chose I remember like I can actually hear I can't do it But I can hear exactly what he's doing and now I can go in the garage and practice and then like I said Then Horacio came up and it wasn't like I had to think Is that guy playing like a does he have a percussionist? I could see like oh his left foot is playing an effing clave. Oh my god Which was mind-blowing at the time and by the way effing stands for freaking just to be clear To all the children listening out there. So yeah, so I think that that has to be mentioned too with that because that was such a Big thing, you know, as soon as someone in your neighborhood of drummer buddies got the md fest It was like, all right. I'll be over at your house. Like we're watching it from start to finish So really big thing and then obviously that's kind of leading us into more of our Modern world, you know of current drum clinics drum festivals drum camps and that type of thing Yeah, absolutely, which you are, you know, uh, there's there's other people who do it Obviously, but you're one of the guys with uh, which again set up before we talked about it in an episode with mike um a couple years ago, which is I think it's like episode 14 or 12 or it's it's back there but um the online drum lessons which it's sort of like It's sort of like bringing these drum videos to life and and now 2020 slash 2021 when we're recording this when It's one of the most bizarre times in uh human history. It's kind of cool. You get the chance to Your drum videos are coming to life and you can work with some of your favorite people just with zoom lessons because everyone needs Work, you know, I mean they're they're all doing yeah, well the one thing that I think is a big difference between online lessons And say a dvd. Let's say that I've got the exact same cameras. I've got the same jibs same lighting as a dvd The biggest difference in my mind between modern online lessons and a dvd If the video in the end is going to look the same the difference is We have access to the people making these videos now like you can dm me and say Man, I really wish that video would have a foot cam and I can say oh great the next one will You just had an impact on the education because now you have access to me 24 7 Whether it be through my website or through social media and I think that that Like you said it brings it to life. It's almost interactive because sometimes we're doing live streams We do like for a week on mics lessons.com and then we have Obviously the pre-recorded stuff, but if somebody comes to me and says Man that it's kind of weird that you have a foot speed course and no foot cam. It's like, all right I'll just go refilm it no big deal like you can have a major impact on somebody's education Educational content now as a fan. So I think that that's really important The downside of online lessons as someone that does it for a living is once again, you're not in person and I've had to put a ton of work into solving the fact that I can't see you play because we have too many students To do it in like a zoom setting. So it is even our live broadcast. You're in a chat room Interacting. So my wife is keeping track of all of that and she's asking your questions, but I'm not seeing you play So eventually we actually had to add The student upload page to the website where you actually do we have our own version of youtube Basically, like you're uploading your videos to our servers And then I have to film a response to every single one of those and that's my chance to see you play So I think that online lessons are great once again, just like you said in the age of covid What's great even though it's such a tragic situation is that some of our Greatest drummers on the planet who honestly never had time to to be educators because they're too busy touring and recording Well, now they're at home and they do have time and and you get a chance to Talk to them and to take a one-on-one skype lesson with your heroes like Yeah, man, you know when somebody when one of my students says like, hey uh on a canillus is giving online skype lessons next week But I can't really afford to do your stuff in hers. I'm like, are you kidding unsubscribe from my site now immediately Go do it. If she's your hero. This is your chance like go for it And you know and I got to say as someone that still has drum heroes As much as I would love to take a drum lesson with my heroes God to be so I think it's so much more important to spend that time in a one-hour conversation Yeah, you know because the thing is is like honestly no matter how great they are They're going to give you drumming advice like oh you should turn your left hand over and it's like anyone can tell you that What anyone can't tell me is Hey, Dave Weckel, what were you listening to when you were 17? Because at 44 I'm almost to your level of where you were when you were 17 So I don't want to know what you were listening to now. You you and I are in different places I want to know what you were listening to when you were at my level Who were your influences at my level and you know, those are the types of things I think people can take advantage of right now for however long this lasts Yeah, and I think that's both A pro and a con. I think the pro is like like you said just talking to these people It's great But I think you need to go into a lesson kind of expecting that because I've done some online lessons where like I went into it expecting like um We're going to do it. We're going to work through chops We're going to do this like I wanted to work on my reading more and it was like An hour in it was like I haven't even played yet and Now I know more what to expect you you just need to Manage your expectations and kind of know what you're looking for so you you get out of it. That's where in person is just I mean in Obviously, I know you you were the king of it and you you love doing it But there's nothing like someone like you said grabbing your hand and turning a little bit and being like oh Okay, that feels better. That'll help me for the next 20 years that one little movement, you know, bro I had no doubt that around the 50 minute mark. We would be exactly where we started on the two minute mark Nothing it's gotta replace in person lessons, you know, I think that Everything has its benefits for sure and I am I mean If you could spend one day at my studio, you would know how obsessed I am with just trying to make the online Education thing as personal as possible. I'm literally pouring through all of their accounts because they all upload their their Their kits to their profile picture and everything Pouring through their accounts so I can memorize their configurations and their setups and when my wife says you know Derek Gurley has a question I can immediately see His kit and his toms and his zildjian symbols And that he's gone to coated heads like I I want to make it as personal as possible But but the reason why I still have drum camps is because It's unfortunately, it's not it's not in person. I mean, you know, I think When you think about drum camps Which is another form of education that probably started in the last I've done it for 10 years and I know thomas lang was doing his drum bonanza or big bonanza or whatever it's called He was doing hit or no, I think actually it was it wasn't called It was his boot camps thomas was doing his boot camps before I was doing My camps and I've been doing camps for 10 years So the reason I still do them Is because I need to lab This educational stuff that I'm putting online like I think it's working I'm pretty sure it's working but until you're in here in person And I can see oh man, I must have skipped a step because you did my entire You know independence course Yet you can't keep time with your left foot to a basic rock track. I screwed up somewhere I have to go back to the online world and fix this and so Camps are a great place especially for people that are like, oh my god I get so nervous when I play a show. It's like, oh go to a drum camp Wait till eight drummers in a room watch you try something It's way worse than a show. You'll never be nervous in your band again if you come to a camp So I think that that's you know Where we're at right now after everything that our You know heroes in this industry did for us from the early 1900s of just in-person lessons up to books Then books and audio and LPs and then eventually drum videos and drum DVDs And DVDs had extras and we got even more to the world of online lessons. I still think it's it's pretty cool that the world wants camps clinics and drum festivals to come back because there's just nothing like Sitting, you know 10 feet away from Chad Smith playing a chili peppers groove and feeling the air come out of his bass drum port That's I can't do that online. Yeah, and just like hanging out all day I mean, I remember the last basic it was like it was almost a thing where it was like so tired Because I mean there was a thing the night before where all these drummers were playing and it was great But it was like I don't want to go back to my hotel But it's like it's almost just fun to just kind of be like sitting around Not bored, but you're just like eating some crappy pizza and you're just like around a bunch of drummers and it's like It's like three in the afternoon, but there's like I wouldn't now I want that more than anything Yeah, I mean, I think that we overlook the fact That drummers acquire a hidden language that the rest of the world doesn't have access to and we really actually have our own vernacular And we don't have a chance to use it in day-to-day conversation with non musicians and non drummers So to sit around a table eating pizza and to talk about bearing edges reso heads You know Coated versus clear nylon tip versus wood tip all these things that are trapped inside us And we finally get to express that with people I mean, that's that's why the drumming community is has always been so beautiful and is something that Is so different than even the rest of the art community or the music community I mean there's the things that we do for drums and that we have for drums They don't have that for harmonica. There's no harmonica festival. There's no harmonica history podcast There's no There's no accordion clinic tours There should be but there aren't and it's like the drum community supports that stuff and It's insane when i'm over in a in another country doing a clinic tour The people that come out there They're just so relieved to be in a room with other people that get it They're in a room with a bunch of Kids adults men and women that take this frustrating instrument really seriously And finally they're all laughing it at the same jokes, you know and yeah because they get it They've all been there before trying to do this thing where You're trying to put the bass drum in between the hi-hat notes as a as a young drummer And no matter where your bass drum goes your right hand goes and you just can't separate those two limbs And we all get it because we've all been there before so yeah I think that what has happened and what has transpired over the last hundred years of drumming education Is the fact that we have made the community the priority and that's why We have things like online drum lessons drum clinics drum camps and drum festivals I agree a hundred percent. I mean it's a special Community and and i'm i'm excited to see where it goes which leads us to kind of your last point here of What is the future? I mean you are a guy who's been a big part of pushing drum lessons forward In many ways, where do you see it going? From here. Yeah, it's it's a great question And I think obviously Being an amateur futurist is something that every entrepreneur has to be if they want to Not just have their moment, but stay in business for a long time. I thought it was going to be apps because I Created an app for one of my books so appifying a book I thought like okay everything I wished a book could do Let's do that in an app. So if we have a groove What if you just hit a simple button and you separated that groove Into the limbs and and now instead of it being this composite groove You can see just the hi-hat and just the snare and just the kit. I was like, oh, this is great technology Can do this for us It was successful But nowhere near as successful as one of my paper or of the same paper book was the paper book still Way outsold the apps and so I was like, oh, wow, okay And to create that app is a grip load of money and sure Yeah, so I was like, well, I can write a book for free or I could develop an app for 200k Let's go with the the book. So that I don't think is the future I think there are apps that will be part of our future, but I think there'll be more music based helping us connect with other musicians and and play, you know, taking The drums out of a track, you know, there's apps that can do that now slow down apps I think that's going to be a huge part of it. I don't think vr or ar will be a big part of it I mean, I really looked into that heavily when Microsoft was putting out the I think it's the hollow lens And obviously google was working on their glasses and everything And I just thought well, what would it be like if you were looking through glasses And you could see my arms and I played the groove for it. I don't really see that being part of it I will say the first thing that kind of caught me as like, huh, that's weird That's everything I've always talked about is the is the new mirror. So the That you know, it's it's an exercise thing right now But my biggest piece of advice for technique is always like, dude, you should go to Home Depot and buy a mirror You just need to see what your hands are doing. You don't need to spend, you know, $2,000 or whatever on I mean But so to explain that more because I've seen commercials with it The mirror is basically where then in like the corner of it you have like an instructor, right? Yeah, I mean, basically it's it's a shiny LCD screen, right? So but it's It's like a giant LCD smart TV But it can I'm assuming when it's not in use it is a mirror Yeah, and so and there's a reflective property to it. So you can see yourself and the instructor But I could see that being a part of our future where I'm teaching you head on and I could see that maybe it's it's definitely the one thing that I'm keeping my eye on right now Yeah, but I think in general the future of education is It's hard to say this but It's care The more that educators care like that's why I get so frustrated when In the past especially as my career was coming up I was labeled as an online teacher and I was like look I'm a teacher the the modern medium is online But if you swap that out for DVDs, I'm fine with it swap it out for books I'm fine with I don't care in in person like I just want to teach man And so I think that what's going to happen is Teachers are going to keep emerging as people that are truly passionate about spreading education And those people will be the new Jim Chapin's freddy gruber's eddigpins of our world And that will then I'm hoping that what I'm doing right now I'm hoping that someone is 14 going like Exactly what Pete Magadini said to me. I'm hoping somebody's 14 thinking wow teaching could be my plan a And it's like yes. It's not a fallback plan man Like if you care about delivering information and conveying information to other human beings This can absolutely be your plan a and all that's going to happen is tech is going to change around you So you have to I will say this anyone that's teaching right now wants to teach for a long time You just have to stay on top of stuff. Yeah You have to download tiktok and wonder is this is this in line with what I'm trying to do as an educator It doesn't matter whether you use it or not It matters that you knew it existed and you made a choice not to use it or to use it. Um, you know when I look at um What's the one the streaming platform for all the gamers? Oh twitch Yeah, so, you know, I as soon as twitch started making its way into the non gamer community I just looked at it and thought like okay What is this offering to my followers and fans and students that I can't do on my own And I didn't find a use for it But I still had to be aware of it and know You know what it's for and then and then when I look at somebody that maybe doesn't have the time to create their entire online platform And studio like I have it's like dude twitch did it for you. This is perfect Just launch your camera and play through 10 of your band's tracks. This is amazing So I think that's really the key for all educators is stay on top of tech and know what's happening around you So it doesn't pass you by Um, but in the end if you're a private instructor That stuff hasn't changed in a hundred years. I care about your students and do your job really well Yeah, and you know an interesting thing that I've really yet to dig into but I'm sure you'll probably Have heard of it or will come across it but uh the the I guess it's called a social media platform the app clubhouse Super popular. I mean it's apparently Blowing up, but it's like very small where they did the thing. So basically I what what I understand about it I have it. I got an you have to be invited. So someone invited me and it's like rooms that you go into where there's like live Non-recorded discussions. So it's like live podcasts happening at The time they're being done Okay, listen to them later, but you you can just kind of join that room quote unquote room And um, I think that's a big one that's coming down the the pike. Wow I love it. Check out and that's I think that like right when you said that The the educators out there. We just have to immediately think how could you leverage this to reach more people? And do your job better and that's you know, even with uh Instagram stories versus instagram's main feed Versus all their other features and you just have to think like does this benefit you like you don't want to do it Just to do it I mean it was it did not take me long to be like, okay tiktok Just doesn't have a place for what I'm doing. Yeah, it would clearly look like I'm trying to Fit into something that it's just not who I am and it's not what my brand is about Like I only want to do things that I want to do sometimes social media comes along Just like youtube did for me, you know, I've said it before on our first podcast, but youtube was dropbox for me It was like wait, you're gonna let me park my videos for free and not pay any charges This is amazing. You just saved my life for sure Because now I have a place to put video content for my private lesson students We're on the days that I'm sick or whatever. So when social media And and tech can solve a problem for you be ready to jump on it um And like I said, you just have to there there is some FOMO Involved in social media like um man, that's the third time I've seen this person talk about being on twitch or being on tiktok Should I go there and it's like just ask yourself does it align with your current goals for your brand and and your business? yeah Wonderfully said I mean that's uh, yeah tiktok. I didn't quite gel with it and then before you know an hour is gone And you're just watching people jump around and dance and it's like okay. This is I shouldn't be looking at this but um All right. Well, mic. This has been awesome. Um, I think we covered it. Uh, I think it's Really good to do these kind of like like obviously we could go in and go in 1905 this happened But I like this much better of just being like a just Just hitting the bullet points of what happened. So, um, I appreciate you Just as a drum personality out there doing the podcasts obviously with modern drummer I've heard all 200 whatever episodes and and uh, I think everyone Misses that show but they um, they love hearing you with um your new show drum with mic and eddie. Um Which uh, maybe we'll talk about that a little bit more. We're going to do a bonus patreon episode Which is going to be about 10 minutes or so extra of talking to mic. Um, so If you want to hear more with mic check out the patreon episode Go to drumhistorypodcast.com and you can see the link there and everything but Anywho on that note mic Um, thanks so much for being on the show and sharing your knowledge with us And uh, just being an inspiration to to drummers all over the world really really you are Thank you bar. I appreciate it, buddy. And this is always a blast. You have no idea how How much I was sweating with excitement as we're talking about all these things because I get to relive them Like the first time I you know got a videotape and a dvd and a book and all these things So I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity man. Absolutely. Thanks mic. You got it 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