 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I am joined by my old friend back on the show Mr. Bruce Becker Bruce welcome back on. Thanks Bart for having me. So Bruce This is a really neat one your previous episode was one of my favorites about Freddie Gruber just because your impression of him Like I love I think all the episodes have some humor in them But that was one of the most just funny episodes. I think we've we've had on the podcast So and a lot of people loved that so I appreciate you again coming on then and sharing your experiences about Freddie, too Thank you. Yeah, you know, I was on I would say like the innermost orbit of Freddie Gruber's world Yeah, and not easy to get there and he ran you through, you know hoops and hoops and hoops Was a pain in the butt many times But we had a very very close relationship as I may have stated in the previous podcast You know when I moved to Europe in 1992 After hanging with him for oh man, that would have been about 13 or 14 years maybe or 15 14 15 Anyway, he was heartbroken that I was leaving because we hung a lot. I didn't study with him at that time I would just go over to the house Get the food with him hang and eat a whole bunch of different things play for students I played for so many students all the time, which was rather uncomfortable at the time But I can look back now and understand the value of what he wanted me to demonstrate for them and that loose approach came easy because I started with him at such a young age and You know, you take that for granted. You're thinking about forget about that I need to play some hip licks or something like that and So anyway, I moved to Europe He was heartbroken and he showed up on my doorstep about. Oh, let's say two months later Two and a half somewhere in July. I got there in May And I had to look after him and then he came some successive trips where I'd look after him We would do we did a few drum clinics together His drum clinics, you know, if you'd ever seen one They were and I don't want to be disrespectful, but they were horrible. They were not very focused. They were all over the place He really wouldn't play. I got him on one that I have a videotape that I've converted to DVD That is I'll say for the record is a pretty good Freddy He was calm. I had to pepper him up the whole time we were driving to the clinic It was in Germany and I just stated emphatically over and over these guys are not gonna get your shtick So don't do your New York bugs bunny nonsense. Yeah, real man and skip to the point and so That the drag is is on that recording my brother was filming so he Interrupted the recording from time to time because we had low battery and as I recall the reason for that was we didn't have a 220 converter to like keep the bar battery charged up. Yeah, so but we got about Maybe an hour and 10 minutes of it And I showed it to a few people who know Freddy and I've gotten like wow, that was a pretty good Freddy You know, so at some point, I don't know, you know in my lifetime I'll find a way to you know, get some public viewing of it. I don't know exactly how it's my personal file So I have no, you know, I'm not into cashing in I just want to share it so people could kind of get it because there was a video that was out of a basic Masterclass that he did and I remember seeing it way back at the late 90s And then I kind of went wow, that was horrible, you know, and then one of my former students who had lived with Freddy This guy's great guy David Bronson. He is the Product manager for the Istanbul Mehmet line He also worked for many many years with the righteous brothers Anyway, he had that and he loaned it to me and I remember watching it It was this the same response and I had when I first watched it actually even more like oh my god Covering my eyes, but but again, it was like I think he had You know like performance anxiety But he may have been a spectrum guy like now that I'm you know I'm a father of a kid on the spectrum and my daughter. I don't know what she has She's being evaluated, but she might have a ADHD like a lot of kids have that stuff And of course it's become more of an industry to have them evaluated But as a result of that I look back at Freddy go he must have been on the spectrum There must have been something that was not diagnosed because he was such a peculiar character, you know Yeah, yeah, then it would just be more he's quirky or something like that But you know and and we're gonna talk about your book here in a minute, but yeah, it's interesting because someone I was reading something online It just popped up something about Freddy Gruber might have been on one of the forums and like someone Said because you know you can say anything you want on the internet and it doesn't matter someone said I just remember reading He didn't drum at all. He wasn't a drummer. He's kind of blah blah blah blah blah blah It's all just like a myth and I was thinking to myself. I was like, I don't think that's true But I was like I've never seen him play. I've never heard him. There's not a lot of videos No, so it's an interesting thing to read that and go like well. No, well, wait a minute But I've never seen him his his playing career would have probably stopped somewhere in the mid 60s or early 60s or so and You know exactly like me doing my best due diligence to find people who would have been around him at that period of time you know, there's mixed messaging and You know a lot of the messaging I'll say that you know Freddy Gruber was a great propagandist for that But that aside if we're talking and I'm just gonna go this analogy because you're living in my old town where I was born Brother Cincinnati and I was a huge Reds fan. Oh, yeah, all for years and years and years. Yeah, but If you go and you find a guy who is just an excellent who just has excellent pitching coaching What do you say? Attributes and he didn't make it in the majors. Does that make him less of a guy? No No A batting instructor not all those guys were able to go into the big leagues, you know and hit 300 or 290 They knew the mechanics they watch they knew how to Disseminate the information and give you some color and candor to what was going on mechanically with you And that's what Freddy Gruber excelled at so he did have that and he used good imagination I will say on the backside That yes that that for some people might lack What do you want to say credibility because he didn't really play at those periods of time, but sure, you know, I Could go anyway because I had this much of Freddy, you know, and I say all the spectrums I'll still still say with an endearing voice and memory to that was yeah He had good insights and knew how to take observations of what was going on at the time And build it and format it for drummers at each particular time if you go back to the 70s He was very much into focusing on, you know the click track and Independence and I think you know with his big ears He would hear about a guy like Gary Chester or he certainly had the Gary Chaffee Books and those those were books that I went through when I was a kid with him All the literature so he was kind of up on that later on what he did move out of that little house around 1984 He did become Less focused and I could just say that factually because I was there I watched him teach So and I know the details of what I went through I could pull down my books of seven years of studies and Go through a great amount of detail of what I did now I was a rare guy because not many people studied with him that long so for me We really tapped into the lanes that were most productive from my development Necessities and you know, I was I don't want to say I was a hustling kid, but I was out there working young I was teaching young. I was just out there doing what you're supposed to be doing You know, you don't sit in practice and and work it out and then go gig You go and you work it out the same time. There's no perfecting it And oh now I'm ready to do a gig you get your ass kicked on a gig you go out for sure You play in a big band you go man my reading sucks I got to figure out how to get that stuff together and how to feel more comfortable to set up the band And then of course there's other styles that may be called upon so Just relating to put a sort of a cap on that. I'll say freddy was a great observer He was tapped in at that time. I think personally if I just give my airing of it He became a character caricature of himself as he grew older and I think just The ego is a funny thing. You have selective memory. You want to have this thing of what you did? He was sort of I'd say, you know like distant about his accomplishments in a funny way But yet at the end he had them all like on his Table at his house like I went there the year he died I went with my brother and just a long story short when I used to go back because I had a falling out with freddy About the late 90s 99 or so And it was just time 23 years. It was time to move it along Yeah, sure and when I would go I'd bring my brother david because david was close with freddy, too And I would come to the door He'd open the door He'd look at david go david He'd give him a big hug and then he'd look at me and he'd brow over his glasses. Hey, man And it would take him about an hour and a half or so to kind of loosen up and get back So the last time was there I actually filmed some stuff and I filmed his table And he had all the little articles and different things that he had done through his career Because I think internally he knew he was you know checking out and it was that later that year that he had passed but Oh, man You know, again, I think he became a character For better or for worse, you know, he just he was like I said a great propagandist He got his name out there people know there's two camps. They hate him or they love them Yeah, I say I'm somewhere in the middle. I love them. I hated them But at the same time I saw the value of what he was able to project Yeah, and you had that experience and not that many people had it and it's a part it's you can't change that It's a part of you. No, dude. It's it's sitting in my fascia material underneath the skin. It's like, you know, So if you want to hear everyone listening if you haven't heard it much more I looked it up. It's episode 86 from february 2021 Wow, that's almost two years ago to the day which is pretty wild. Yeah To this day of recording this will be out next week, but um, so check that out It's bruce's experience with freddie gruber and it just cracks me up the entire episode was hysterical But so bruce today, we're here though to talk about Um, your new book that's coming out and I want to also want to talk about your work with drummyo and all this cool Stuff you've been doing but uh, the book is the ultimate guide to syncopation concepts for the development of motion melody and independence Which is referring to the classic progressive steps to syncopation for the modern drummer book aka syncopation right Just explain it to us. What what what is the book and um, and then we'll dig in deeper from there. Okay, so what I did was Going through a merry out of different materials And looking for like the perfect book that would have this concept or this concept And I have as you see up here a pretty extensive collection of books Yeah More than most not as many as some I have a couple of students who have a million books like my student steve hatfield who actually hooked us up Uh, two years ago. Yes or my former student ralph johnson the original drummer from earthwind fire Who's still with earthwind and fire? He just doesn't drum. He plays percussion. He's in the front line with philip bailey and for dean white Ralph is a consumer of books too So anyway, I was looking for different materials And I started to go through just different sections of the book now Most people would know like the heart and soul of most Syncopation conceptual ideas are built off of pages 34 to 45 or in the old printing 33 to 44 and I've touched upon and heard a great deal from many students through the years Of different things they may have done like via alan dawson or whatever whoever freddy had his Few lanes and he chose And I started to look through different books for different things that I thought were crafty ways of developing further independence or further ways of conceptualizing movement and phrasing And uh, or role studies, which I got a great deal of from that and all of a sudden I was like using Not the whole book but way more of the book than what you'd normally use And so at one point In 2021 I'm trying to think back. Was it 2021? No, it was 2020 Pandemic I was busy because I was teaching all the time. I teach online and For many years. I've just I was very fortunate that I was doing it before the pandemic And able to sustain my normal workload. In fact increase a bit and just do what I do And um, I was thinking geez, you know, I gotta write a book got to write another book. So I have Uh first book that's called puzzles runs and riddles. If you don't know it. It's a great book. Go get it I'm sorry. I didn't promote it a lot, but it's a fabulous book. It is available digitally through hudson It is available hard copies through me Cool And that's a cool book But as I was sitting there in 2020 I contacted one of my students This guy tim karmann and tim is also an arthur author He also has a great band called ga 20 based out of boston. They are killing it They're a retro bluesy kind of roots band Two guitars and drums and I also introduced him to hudson and he got his second book Distributed through hudson via the Download version and he I think he still has access to the hard copies. He just wrote another book for hudson called hainsism It's all about roye hains so As I was thinking about my concept I said Maybe I should talk to tim. I'm not a notation guy. I don't have a software So I called him up. I said tim Here's what i'm thinking I've got this idea for a book Would you be interested in doing the layout for me because I have a lot of confidence in your ability to make it look great And really do a great layout. You've seen the layout so you can speak first hand on that Very cool And um and then my second My second statement to him was I might be a little bit slow and a pain in the butt But we'll get it done. So that was 2020 now. It's just coming out like soon I I know I haven't received a proof proof copy yet, but it's it's coming out soon So here we are in february. It should be out probably in late march I would imagine or or maybe april at the latest, but it's coming out soon It will be available in hard copy. It will be available digitally and there are I believe I put together 35 videos to talk through Points in different sections. I didn't do a video for every exercise. That was too daunting And I just wanted to give some conceptual in point Input and as I say With these kind of exercises, it's the concept not the content So I didn't want to explode with like, you know excessive amount of content and each video in fact is actually a little lesson In breaking things down and not just my performance of it. So I really wanted to make sure that I was very expressive And breaking down everything to such a degree that somebody gets it, you know, because a lot of people are visual learners It's not easy to conceptualize things and just look at a book and go What do I do with this book? So syncopation is one of the books that I've worked through I was taking lessons with barry james who was one of stone students and I barry and I are good friends I kind of stopped my lessons because of kid stuff, but I worked through syncopation I didn't grow up as a big book guy. I worked through a few as a kid But I need the visual aid. I need what you did to kind of help me get through it because I didn't have that like Like extreme, you know book background with with reading So I think what you did with adding that It's it's also like why not we live in this modern era. Why not sit with this? It's more work. It's more effort But it just really helped Well, so, you know, uh, David Garibaldi was a student of mine for a good two and maybe about a half years and then a little bit in 2012 but mostly after his accident and um He was working on his book DG's notes that I have just talked to him like about a week ago And he said oh man, I was like a number one seller for Hudson on the number one list I said you got it. I mean no better educator slash iconic drummer than David Garibaldi for me I mean he embodies everything the quintessential student author slash teacher And innovator so that being said When I was talking to him, maybe it was not last year could have been And asking him about that and I said did you do the videos on your own? Well, apparently he was telling me he was trying to work on that and got Final cut and the dslr and all that stuff and he said his head was blowing up and he said eventually Rob Said let's just go to the studio man to do it that way and then they said to all those videos And I think joe bergamini might have done the editing. I'm not sure yeah Or 100% sure on that each of those is a career that someone has is video editor Well, you know, so when I talked to rob and I said listen man I don't really have time to like Do a high-end thing and he said did you see steve gas thing? I said yeah It's just like one camera He goes you don't need like that's the 90s of like, you know lights camera action He said you need to have a good Camera with a good room good audio One of my students who looked at the book because I was sending it around to have a few guys give me some feedback He said, you know what? I love about it. He goes man the videos. It's like you're in your studio You're just talking just like you are. It's not a high-end production thing. I'm here. This is my workplace. That's it and It was really um, it was fun when agonizing because when you're talking to yourself And you're looking at expressing things Very articulately that you know, that's going to be an imprint forever You know, there's no take backs once you got out there. Well, you could add things later on But you know what? I mean you're putting it out there. It's like recording. It's like recording a record You want things to sit and sparkle? Some days I would flow and kick butt and some days I'd come out here and I'd spend an hour And I'd go like I can't put that out there. It would be like You know tripping over your tongue and and messing up a sticking or whatever it was it was You know something so To just sort of speak about it What I did is I took those videos and I went through different sections and give a lot of insights to what's going on So there are a role section where I really detail the movement of roles I think that Choreographing your movement that was part of my Drumeo technique course was main thing that I did I didn't do the inside of the hand things those exercises take My observation skills because I've really been doing this stuff for 42 years It that kind of stuff is really best when I'm a coach But movement you can talk about it at least in theory I know a lot of guys who took that course like we don't know how to pronounce this last name But I think it's david osakinin or osakinin. He's the drummer for the band the Hooters They had a big hit called and we dance. I think it's called and they were like featured on the The big What was that big AIDS thing that they did the world thing in 1985 where they had stages live aid and stuff live aid. Thank you And so He was telling me because we were corresponding my my drum technique course with Drumeo, which is still available was My at that point I was personally involved because we ran it live two years in a row And it was phenomenally successful But I had interactions with him and he said dude, you're just killing me my chops feel great He was going to work with some roots guy in Nashville and he said it's killing And I said, thank you for the good feedback, you know I got a lot of it from other people But I bring him up because he's a guy who's out there working And it's lovely always to see the impact you can have on the older generation because those are the guys Who maybe have suffered greatly from bad technical approach Yeah, but so back to my book what I did is I broke down the roles and all the different arrangements of that and purposely slow If you can play this slow like moving like Tai Chi Then you're going to get a better essence of how to really tap into the flow Everybody has a momentum that you can kind of find But that doesn't mean you have good control of the range of I would say more to the point of Backsiting it and going slower than worrying about speed But once you're tracking and seeing how things move slowly That will actually root itself in such a way that when you're playing fast Your mind's eye your tracking mechanism will be spot on And your ability to see the movement at the fast tempo now will be undaunted It will be smooth and flowing takes a little bit longer. There's no instant potatoes And if you had them they taste like paste Right grow a potato take the time to grow the potato and put it into a place where you go Okay, one of my students had a great line. I'd never heard this one before but he said Don't practice for perfection practice for permanence That's smart. Yeah, so that's what I'm kind of orchestrating here. Now that was one section of the book I did the body of the syncopated exercises from page 34 to 45 I did a bunch of arrangements of things that are jazz oriented I would say maybe some people out there have seen a couple But not all because I've had guys who've studied with the variety of guys who were more known about using syncopation And when I demonstrated my version they'd go wow, I never saw that one before And so I was very kind of like feeling. Okay. That was before I started to think about the book And then Writing the book I felt really confident about that I also did some things that were inspired and I gave my props do I have one section that I call the elven jones. It was my Inner workings of breaking down Systems and arrangements of things that could get you closer to the identity of what album was noted to be doing Okay, I don't want to say I'm going to turn you into an elven jones But you don't want to be elven jones you want to be you No, but you can practice his style and then put it in your own. Yeah. Yeah, I did in that same section Some brazilian arrangements I took earlier sections and just did simple rock and roll patterns things that I would have worked on with my younger kid students That were not really to have a ready to have a conversation about technique The last thing you want to do with a kid is barrage them with hey kid, you know, let's do All these technical exercises they want to play And of course Yeah, you got to like pull their teeth out a little bit to find out where they're at Yeah, but I would do these things that that had an element of reading simple reading and I'd say all right So you're going to play every note that falls on one and three will be a bass drum and every note that will be on two And four it's a snare drum and we're just going to play straight eight notes And let's play that pattern and just play and now you're playing a rock pattern So I started to use that And then at the end of the book uh around page 56 in the newer printing I use a couple setups that are a little earlier than that in the page in the 50s, but 56 I Discovered a way of now these could also be implemented to pages 34 through 45 But I wanted to literally have somebody see the phrase with the accents and work on it hand to hand triplets But I added a whole range of different things again to really tap into phrasing if you're thinking about phrasing And you're just clapping or tapping your toes or snapping your finger on two and four and you're going A one two three four, of course, I'm going to be a little bit, you know jazz oriented, but I'm going to say Those are all the jazz eight notes that you'd want to interpret You go to triplets. Let's go like a long range of eight note triplets three one two three four But And then we want to go And play 16 notes. Yeah, the point is we want smooth transitions gear shifting without grinding the clutch So I did this whole melodic thing at that section Breaking it down with different moves and orchestrating in different ways, which is stuff that I would use Again, you go through the larger plan of action to draw into the concept And you try to find the you and what you do and so those are like Pretty much like the main points of the book and then the last thing I did was Just an independent thing of ostinato's just as terry bozier would have laid out and I formulated just a visual cue Of how it would look into the interpretation So in essence, I make page and number references So you can see but those In my book are the actual way that I would write it out so you can see So if you got a good imagination and I say at the forward of the book Your imagination is Not only required but requested and if you can put some Spins on the imagination and add to what you're doing Absolutely, you want to keep a chalkboard up here where you can sort of draw out your own plans of action And allow that To build upon who you are rather than just working on a lick Work on a concept of building up. Well, how would I play this in my own way? Or you know, like all the great guys that I love like neil pierre What an original guy no more original than that david garabaldi no more original than that Alvin jones who we just spoke about or tony williams or steward or steward copeland You know like voices that you go that steward copeland or that's neil pierre that is Absolutely, you know alvin jones. Yeah undeniable. So well, let me ask you. All right. So going back kind of To the beginning of all this do you think people need to have experience playing through syncopation on their own before they jump into your book to kind of like Have it makes sense or should you work with them side by side? Or can you just get your book because it seems like To me syncopation Is not the most difficult. It can be difficult. You can always make things more difficult Especially when you get to like I remember working through it and getting into like the last Uh, one of the last exercises and it was like, okay, this just got hard Like there's like there's one page in particular. It was like, oh my god. That's a different story. Um But you can really work your way through it relatively easily without a ton of experience. Um I would say for like syncopation for my standpoint It's it's black and white Yeah, that's a good you want you want somebody to come in with crayons and go like well, let's color this in with blue Let's add a little red And what I want you to do is take your colors your crayons and come in now What I did with my guide was to say like hey, here is Some really great exercises to bring you forward with what you want to do conceptually now conceptual playing Is harder in that you're on your own to a degree. I always use this story You know the greatest thing I got to do Was be a part of an original band for 35 years. I recorded with my brother david We had a trio the david becker tribune We recorded real records with real labels and went out on the road and got airplay and all that stuff that we would do and When you're in that um creative zone You go and you're like my brother's a great composer and he would write stuff And it would be Six drummers would pop into my head of how I wanted to you know sound But yet I don't really sound like those guys. I sound like me and sometimes you'd want to play way too much Okay in a studio setting you might have a producer But sorry, I was the producer along with david and my brother would give me a lot of free reigns in probably 90% of the cases So when you're on your own you're trying to figure out, you know What you want to do and be the best editor of what you do in terms of constructing this soundscape of what you're putting together Sure, not easy and I think That is what you know, you can find out what to play you go to youtube and you're going to see a million things of what to play You're not going to see necessarily how to play it how to move That's one thing that can bring you a whole new opening once you start to feel the mechanics Just be a natural part of what you do all of a sudden your imagination starts to kick in but my point is is that Digging up and trying to be a conceptual drummer and find your own voice And dig deep not easy because we want to sound like that guy and we want to sound like that guy And you do build your playing off that But so important. So I would go back to saying in the construction of my book I give the guideline. That's why it's an ultimate guide I'm giving you the guide of like, hey, look at this section. Look at this section and then once you've gone through those Add to the conversation lift your own Concepts forward and go like hey bruce I love that but look what I did with this Yeah, because I I didn't even do a mathematically you could go forever And at some point you have to sort of step back and go like, all right, that's enough You know because you go like endlessly with ideas. I mean it's it's ridiculous and at the same time You know, you got to snap into snap back into reality What is going to be functional for playing and all that stuff? So there's you know, you can go nuts You can kind of keep balanced I tried to stay more balanced with the idea of the book the thing that pops to my mind though is like This book syncopation is obviously one of the top drum books of all time. I mean it is probably number two Probably behind behind stick control. This is I mean those two have a very special place So what was your experience with first learning and syncopation and maybe explain a little bit about You know what you thought was missing to get To your book where you filled in a lot of that stuff and modernized it. Well, it had so much some conceptual Food in there for me to draw from and I I've used it for so many years and like I said when I was looking at different books as time went on Instead of buying a new book I started to just pick sections and I went Jesus. This is a perfectly great section Now you got to conceptualize it to take on the idea of okay, we're going to do roles with this or we're going to do this with that And you know, Joe Morello did that with stick control. He was a student a stone student So he kind of did that. I'm just taking like I said again Crayons and giving you crayons. Yeah, it's a good to add colors But I did more extensively different sections to draw upon The things that I found that I didn't want to have like say, okay Get this book and get this book and this book and this book instead of getting five or six books Where you might work out of only a small section, you know, as I've gone through teaching I've edited like little sections of things in fact, you know One of the things I'm going to be doing at the end of March is I'm going up to film some stuff for drumeo And I'm going to be doing Topically a thing about method books and speaking about my interpretations because That was the one thing that I got from groover nicely is that He would take a book and he would build a conceptual approach around it that may not been Exactly the point of the guy and you know in most cases if you go to a method book And the guy's not on the planet anymore and you're going like well I don't know you're just going to hear a bunch of interpretations from a bunch of different people So why not add your approach or your conceptual approach to it as well? I'll say as well If you do get a method book rather than feeling like it's a daunting affair and like oh my god I got to start on page one Go and look in the middle of the book. Look at the end of the book find something that speaks to you And see oh, you know, that would be something good if I worked on that because that's lacking in my play And at the end of the day Well, you are always looking for a mentor a teacher a coach to help assist you on your path You also have to be very self-reflecting and be able to evaluate where you are So but back to the top I just brought in stick control because it's the I started with that book back in 1972 My first teacher I was working out of you know The simple phrase is going what that two three one two and three and Then the 16th notes and then after that book we went into the amel show book Which was a orchestra book kind of a rudimental orchestra book and the buddy rich book And then the buddy rich book we broke down the rudiments and for the amel show book that was just straight up reading And what what I'll tell you about what I liked about the conceptual thing for playing jazz in the ted read Was that when I went into a big band when I was a kid I I couldn't I couldn't read that it's strange too because I could read on a snare drum Put me on a snare drum and give me snare literature and I was a very good reader But be with a big band and put that chart up there Not a lot of notation a lot of bars of of repeat to play time and then some figures nothing daunting but My ears would go back to the band And I'd be listening to the band and my eyes would freeze on bar one So they might be on bar 63 and I'm still like I don't know where I am But I'm listening to the band. Yeah, and so and then suddenly the tune would end and not you know I'd kind of like oh And I'd look at the at the notation and I'd kind of go like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah Like I made some error like trying to you look like I knew what I was doing Let me mark that for next time Right exactly So but you know going through those syncopated figures when I finally got into college and was in the big band I go wait a minute. I could do this I just got to keep my eyes moving Like I know how to do on the snare drum and keep my ears open at the same time So that was very valuable and again going back to just that Blue-covered book man. I think I've had about five or six of the copies of that book They always tend to sort of fall apart because I'm always open and ripping and turning and uh But it is the number two method book behind stick control I I say I say respectfully. I think it's number two It might maybe in some polls it would be number one But I think stick control because of the value of that and going through all that and I still with stick control I think people get stuck on pages five six and seven man I got a whole concept of going through other parts of the book and bringing about some understanding of movement But you look at my book first for the movement and then you can go into stick control You can tackle some of those role studies or single stroke studies I would say more my book would get kind of gear you more towards the role studies in stick control Which are great. Yeah, and absolutely imperative to go through well and even the um what syncopation I even love just the the look of it and the notation style where it's almost looks like A marker it kind of the way it's written out. It's just very like approachable And uh, I love having your mod more modern style with yours of reading and and I got to tell you So my background again, I I took lessons for a long time, but my I just didn't keep up with reading It's always felt like something that I need that I need to get back into and I was working on it And then you have another kid and it's just but I I have the ability to freedom I've played drums my whole life. I could sit and play but Deep down inside, you know that it's like I just need to work on my reading I feel like we all have something that we want to work on Yes, get better and it's good. We always need something to do that I mean, I have that with the podcast I have that with this but I look forward to I've watched through your some of your videos and things that you sent me With your book, but it's really nice to have the ability to have a professional master teacher Where I can rewind you and I can start it over and also from a financial standpoint You buy your book. Let's say you buy Bruce's book Once and then you get all those lessons that you can restart as many times as you want That's the new frontier man of how we do things, you know Yeah, so you can then go back and start over and things like that. So I'm really looking forward to that I did I did want to touch upon one thing you said about reading What I found just just as a broad topic of reading what I found was the key for reading for me Was that when you look at one book and it has a specific font and you get familiar with that And you now have dissected the mathematical arrangements of the rhythmic element When you go to another book and the font changes, it can be disorienting at first. Absolutely and math is the same, but When you go through enough Different reading materials, I think that's when you start to stabilize your reading and go, uh-huh Okay, now i'm in there and that's how I formulated. I just kept reading books I mean, I went through the pedemski book with gruber. I went through the wilcoxon book They all american drummer with freddy Um, and then I would sit and read through those books after the fact because you know Your eyes need to be always conditioned to follow the arrangement of math I went through the nard book I got a book by mitral peters that was called odd time rudimental atudes a great book It's like wilcoxon, but it's all in odd time And then my masterpiece of book that was shared with me with one of my students about 23 years ago Is this book called the contemporary percussionist by charles memphis? And that in some section is like stick control on steroids. I'm sorry, uh, ted read syncopation on steroids and There's some challenging reading materials in there. And so I've been using that book and tearing it apart similarly to how I would use something like ted read and It in that it really Puts the reading element together and all the conceptual building blocks have certain stickings because there are no stickings written in there I always say the greatest greatest thing about the wilcoxon book Every sticking is written in there. But what's the worst thing about the wilcoxon book? Every sticking is written in there because you have no chance To develop maybe a couple of different options for flow. You know, you might go Yeah, he's got that one, but I don't know that doesn't work for me and You want to be able to slice it up a few different ways? So what I would do is I do this whole building block of Arrangements and then you look at this memphis book and you go. Oh my god. You mean I could do that sticking in there Yeah, and you could also do this one too and it'll add to a flow So but overall for the reading A multitude of different fonts and when I worked in the studios with different writers Man, sometimes you'd get a chart that was a chocolate mess, but it had all the math right It's just the guy had just terrible, you know writing skills And you can't beef and complain about it You got to like step up to the game or they're not going to call you back So, you know, I didn't do like, you know thousands of sessions, but I did a you know in the hundreds of Different guys and reading and thankfully I was called back. Those were great challenges But you know, you're gonna read you got to read you just gotta do whereas you got to make time to do it Yeah, that's awesome Um, all right. So the book is not out yet though Do we have a time that we want to tell people that you know, they can look forward to getting it It's with Hudson So digital hard copy when when can people look forward to getting it? I'm just gonna guess I'm gonna say probably somewhere in march because like I said, I'm expecting to get a proof copy And and then it's off to the printing presses. So and I know that I've been speaking with Rob and al kind of coordinating a few things and then I'm just waiting for a proof copy I haven't really reached out this week. I will but I would just say keep your eyes and ears open I will definitely, you know Put a little social media stuff out there and say hey, the book is ready and I'll be doing some Maybe another podcast or two in the future Promoting it, you know, I'll post it on the usual suspects in the social media areas Via just me. Why don't you give people maybe an example? We didn't really plan which one we would do but like, what do you think is a good like taste? Let's take a look if you go to the original book the syncopation book page 16 And I reference that in my book It's in the rules section the first section and I'm going to play Just taking those eighth note triplets and reinterpret them to double stroke rolls So every eighth note triplet now will be a double When I'm playing the eighth notes just the regular eighth notes They'll stay in single notes But I'm going to have a very large choreograph choreograph move to build up a fluidity of motion Now I'm playing eighth notes right now and I break this down in my book with a video and also just the notation If I'm playing down tap down tap down tap down So this would be one and two and three and four and okay in that setting You can clearly see That I am playing all these lifts and drops in a molar style method with my left hand I'm playing a wrist driven tap stroke And what I want to do is build upon the fluidity of those two movements. That's one part of it Couple it with the roll if I take the triplets I would have I'll do this in a very very slow way But I would have a pivot catch for my down stroke double A drop and a pull and then a tap stroke double that would just be wrist driven And I would say it could be a bounce to a catch So if I play just a successive amount of eighth note triplets with the doubles I would have pivot catch drop pull double pivot catch drop pull double one two Three and lee four and lee now that's playing it as eighth note triplets We're going to now take that maneuver and superimpose it over eighth note triplets So now every double will be an eighth note triplet. So it'll be one and lee two and lee three and lee four and lee one So if I play that first one I would have and I could also just break down just for minutia the count is sixteenth note triplets Which I do and the count is sixteenth note triplets. That was passed to me. It was passed from louis bellison I was a student of henry bellison louis brother and we did louis method books So the count was one ea any two ea any. That's how we broke down sixteenth triplets And I think it's also important To count to learn to count but also to track and find a way to speak out the choreographed movement So I'll do it two ways. I'll play it down up double and down tap down tap one ea any a two and three and four and down up double down tap three and four and one ea any a two and three and four and now that with that specific one The cool factor is is that you're having basically this choreographed move and Orchestrating it in a large frame way. So super cool That's really challenging to do when you're moving slow and you're getting your movement and flow together And you're really starting to tap into orchestration of movement choreographing your movement Tracking how it works You're going to make a lot of progress with that. Everybody wants to get to the punch line. How do I play fast? And I think Multitudes of teachers in the past would say emphatically Play it slow Learn to play slow and then you will you know be able to move quicker If I do move quick though things would change in in spirit of movement So and I also do that with the 16th notes if I take the pages of 22 and 23 for example They're kind of laid out the same way with the 16th note now be converting into 30 second notes that same eighth note movement One thing I didn't speak about though with these eighth notes bar is when I'm playing these that if I'm saying Down tap down tap or with the left hand lead down tap down tap I'm only accounting for 50 of the movement because inside my lift To set up the down. I got to also think about that smooth lift and to get my tap stroke There's also a return a turn stroke. So if I Focus on just this section of the movement of down tap down tap. Let's reverse it Let's do all the non-notes the movements. I would have up right and turn so it would be down tap down could be Up turn up turn up turn up turn And when you're doing those things you might have reflexive resistance with your arms and add more anatomy than you need We want to focus on inducing a great relationship with what hinge needs to work being super effective and efficient so Each of those sections of the rolls. I'm pretty Detailed in the videos to help to orchestrate what's going on so that you're not left going like what down up tap what? You know, and you go through it multitudes of times. Maybe my Or your first impression might be oh well, okay I don't I got to watch what's going on But in terms of leading somebody with a directive you might give them four or five directives to process Human mind can process one Maybe two But once you get the one you go, oh now there's that other thing he was talking about Oh, there's that other thing and before you know it you're starting to speak clearly But I got to just say like in that section Slow and slow because it's not easy to orchestrate This kind of movement with that kind of fluidity of lifting and dropping and look at the natural motion of the hinge in my Elbow the release. I got to work on not overreleasing my wrist I've got to calibrate my lift to also stay rooted to the sweet spot of the stick tip And not drop prematurely over the tip of the tip and all those little things that you see people do and you go like That's an easy fix. That's an easy fix. You got to fix that you can fix that And that's what I do in terms of the greater scheme of my technical breakdown I have so many little building blocks and back pocket ones if I run into a wall with somebody I can go to the left or to the right because of the experience with so many different students and trying to figure out I have a clear picture of what I want to get out of them. Yeah, in other words Okay, I need to go here But if that line is not clean with them, I may have to go here to get to here Well, everyone's different everyone learns differently and you've got enough experience and that was incredible And it's it's that was obviously a very like, you know, like condensed version of like here's what's happening You obviously are beyond just doing this book shooting the videos A very busy working teacher. So I think people watch that and they say wow, I need to study with this guy Are you accepting new students? Can people reach out to you? Yeah, yeah I always have a mirror, you know things like I have a turnover that that kind of moves slowly I'm very blessed that I have a very full schedule week to week have had for many many years But you know at one point a guy that's been with me for three years It's time for him to move on and do something Yeah, and a lot of the guys I can't say the exact percentage, but I'm going to guess About 70 of people that approach me stay for a good year and a half or two years some longer If you really want to build like good conduit to how you can readdress your movement and get a flow You have to like really get inside what's going on. So the habitual movement before is able to be Push to the side and you know that takes time older guys really lock in and they get kind of stiff They might have some atrophy near the wrist or some problems in the forearm Or some, you know Disconnected fingers from the body of the stick or the grip and all those little fine-tune nuances of inside the hand I have Really highly fine-tuned little exercises. You're not going to see them anywhere And you might see some guys trying to do it in certain ways I'm not going to speak on everybody's behalf But I'll tell you that I've never seen anything more detailed than how I can get things to really manifest and shape that hand To that position of drawing upon the resonant tone of acoustics And maximum efficiency with all the bank for your buck of what you need I want looseness, but I always say Loose with density you could say oh, you're too tight loosen up That's not going to affect somebody if you go through a myriad of little stretching and pressure point exercises that will have an effect How fast will infiltrate your playing? Well, I could just tell you time line. I could tell a lot of guys They may not get the literal translation of a certain exercise, but they'll come back You know the next lesson or maybe in four lessons and they'll go I was playing it felt different I felt a stick in a different way to go exactly more to come keep working time Do you find um uh, do I've done one or two online lessons and um, and it was with my friend barry and Barry does a great job, but I it was I think it was more me being able to like Set I it was before I had like an actual camera set up as a webcam And it was all this do you find that you can really see people's hands and and and I'm sure you run into issues with like No Yeah, I can see the finest tuned little movement when the shoulder kicks in or the guy's elbows tight Or it moves out like that I could see every nuance about that and what I do in my private teaching Is I make Videos of the lesson not the full lesson, but little exercises. They're usually condensed down to about three or four minutes So we get to the bullet points Um, I do that and my my comment to everybody is those are for your personal use not to be shared shown a broadcast in any capacity I'm trying to make inroads to your playing. I'm not speaking to other people. I'm speaking to you Everybody honors that as far as I know I haven't seen anything flying around on the internet regarding that but I did that as a mechanism that in the early days of what you just spoke about where I did have problems where the internet was far less stable and Very disruptive with wi-fi and I got hip like about two years into doing this because I started in 2014 13 actually was like a trial because I thought you can't do this online You got to do it in person and then I was doing a lot of stuff for drum channel and I was getting guys from different parts of the world or the country And uh, it's the only medium. So skype was really horrendous at the time So what I would do is if we were out of sync as I go hang on Let me do this exercise. I'm gonna film it. I'm gonna email it to you You're gonna do it I'm gonna watch you and I don't even have to see if you're in sync I just need to see how you're moving because I don't even need the sound I know what the exercise is and I can tell if you're moving late early Five bars ahead 16 notes behind I can see every single thing And then that became like wow, that's a really trusted ally I can really make greater progress with people and push them ahead to a much faster level Okay, fast faster than what I could do before in the old days. Yeah, sure at the same time Again, you do nothing you get no result. You follow my lead and you start to develop a little bit of a discipline You know, it takes A little time to sit down and see these guys and go. Oh, yeah, I got to sit down and just, you know Work them out because again Nothing comes from doing nothing. That is so true. I try to hold my students as accountable as I can I'm not gonna browbeat them. I don't think yelling at anybody or being, you know A jerk about it is going to draw any good response. Just like We learn as parents If we scream at the kid, it doesn't really do much No, so, you know, and I would say like in my teaching I got patience and visual responses to seeing and Being able to bring forward my messaging and concept to Such a nice fine degree and then you go have your kids and those patients are tested to the tenth degree But I've learned through the teaching too. I go, jeez. How come I could be so patient when this guy's Struggling like minute after minute and I could just stay laser sharp focused and get him through that Do that with the kids? Yeah, you know, that's a different story 50 50 50, you know Yeah, but people are trying and and that's I would say when people are putting in effort They're they're not having fun either. I mean, they're having fun But you know what? I mean no one wants to struggle with anything and to be yelled at doesn't help anything But no, no, I think that's an antiquated old school way of teaching So again, I've modified that but the internet value has become so good All I do is I just say on your end Have at least a laptop. Don't look at me on a phone. Yeah, it's too small No or a tablet and then if you can if you're on a laptop You know get an ethernet cable and plug into your modem and get rid of the wi-fi Check your speed beforehand. That's super important. Yeah always do man. I get speed test up I mean, I'm hardwired so but I still check once in a while with my docking station I'll look and I'm going like wait a minute. I'm not getting full strength, you know Now I check before every time I teach and just make sure I'm all good with my signal Yeah, and so this is just so cool I do want to well first off Where can people we're not we'll keep talking for a few minutes, but I just want to make sure we say to people Where can they sign up for lessons? Where do you recommend they get in touch with you? Oh, you can you go to brucebecker.com and there's a there's a page that will send you to email me And it'll come direct to me And then I respond and say look, you know, I'll give my stock response This is how I do. This is what I do Give me your best days and availabilities Tell me what time zone you're in because you know the challenge is and I've learned to really work with that because I lived in Europe So I understand the value of different time signature. I mean time signatures time zones. Yep. Yeah And I know time signatures too with time zones. So I got it all worked out I got a contingency of guys in the uk. I've got guys in, you know, in germany belgium, italy switzerland I've had a bunch of guys in the the scandinavian countries got Guys, I got a guy in taiwan a guy in new zealand. I've had guys in australia. I mean israel india, you name it. Azerbaijan Have a guy who was in uh Uruguay Canada So Anyway, you just got to let me know what the time zone is and I try to work If I don't have a time then you just wait if you can hold on But generally the way things have worked because I do every two weeks I don't like to teach week to week except for the younger people that I have I have a few people that are every week, but they're kids and kids can Kind of roll with it faster if it's an adult Somebody who's working or has other things going on I say two week interval, but don't lose that two week interval because we want to get traction I want to be able to speak that same stuff over and over so that you're Responding and you go. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right So it's not always the physical nature, but it's the consistent conversation Which helps to really build conceptual results. Yeah So very cool brucepecker.com. I'll put the link in the description. People can see it there But yeah, and this is but this is my studio and I'll just run you through real quick I can just show you like so I've got like, you know, I've got my foot cam. There's the foot cam. Yeah, we've got the overhead cam Right and then we've got just the straight up brucepecker phase cam and when I do my videos I orchestrate everything to measure up to what we need to see And make sure like I said, I get to the bullet point so that we're orchestrating the exercise from a point of Let's hit bullseyes And maybe you're not hitting the bullseye, but you've got the straight Diagram line of where you need to go. Sure Very cool. And and you mentioned before doing some other promotional stuff and podcasts I think you need to do one There's a number of people who do them but Mike Mike Dawson from drum candy comes to mind where you do a podcast interview with someone where again, like I said I love I'm a I'm a good drummer. I know I am but but there's guys like Mike who work every day on their rudimental practice You should do an interview with someone like that who can run you more through the book because I'm sure people are watching this going You know, you guys didn't do more playing again My thing is the history and all that stuff But I would love to connect with you with some other folks like that and help with that Oh, that'd be awesome But social media all that stuff, you know, you want to tell people where to find you there Obviously, we have Bruce becker.com right my youtube channel is youtube. I think it's bruce becker drums And then my instagram is bruce becker drums and my facebook page is just bruce becker But then there's the fan page which I haven't really interacted with a lot But I get again. I think it's the same bruce becker drums sure and You know, if you look me up and put bruce becker drums, you'll find I'm gonna show up. I'm gonna show With this where it's like people are well, what's your social media on it's like well here? It's drum history there It's drum history underscore, but it's like just type in drums hit drum history. You'll find yeah, exactly Exactly, uh bruce. It is always a pleasure to have you on here. I'm glad to have you as a friend in the industry And I'm glad you reached out to me to to talk about your book And I'm honored to get to like, you know Be a place where people can hear about it because I think a lot of people who listen to the show Really do love books and uh and hearing from a you know, a great teacher like you. So Again, I appreciate you being on the show and hopefully we'll have you back again on your next great adventure You know the next thing you do down the road Yeah, thank you bruce and I appreciate you having me on and I appreciate all that you do for the drum community as well You've got some great interviews if People are seeing this interview for the first time or like something with bart Go back and review man. There's a bunch of great stuff, man I go back and I go oh, I I didn't see that one and You know, I didn't I didn't know too much about it until about two and a half years ago And then I started to follow I think that uh the guy stone custom drums guy was the first foray And I went Bernie wow. Yeah, bernie stone and I was like wow that was great story and then I started to follow more and uh just Thank you for uh, you know getting our our knucklehead drummers out there to indulge and listen to just a bunch of drummers talking about great stuff That's awesome. Cool. Thank you bruce. Thanks, brother