 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by musician comedian and writer Josh Harman Josh welcome to the show. Hello So thank you for joining me. I think people probably know you most From your social media where you really do some amazing I don't even know how to describe it. I guess you recreate the sounds of movies and scenes and clips Which kind of has a Trap drummer feel my history brain goes to that but that's hey you're that kid who does those scratchic noises It is parents basement. I think I see you. Yeah, that's that's me. Well, it's super cool I think you found a very niche way to You got to stick out. You're obviously a great drummer. You're a funny guy. You're a comedian You get that you you have good timing comedically and you know you drumming Lee So I think it's really cool that you did that Yeah, I mean, it's been a really fun and interesting Exploration which has led me to places. I never thought I would go. So it's it's really been just so much fun the whole project Yeah, I mean and and obviously We're not gonna be talking a lot about that today because I you have talked about that on other shows And of course, that's kind of what our deal on the show is is we don't do like I mean That's pretty modern. So we're here to talk about history stuff But I gotta say I mean you have 412,000 followers on Instagram I haven't looked at your YouTube. I'm sure it's huge. Oh, you have on tiktok 2.4 million I mean, man, you're you're a you're an influencer. You're you know, you're a big deal I actually issue the term influencer We can we can save that conversation for later. Yeah, well, I think we'll talk more about Josh's Celebrity status and maybe in the bonus episode we'll do for patreon, but okay, so today's topic though You may be asking yourself if you're the listener. What does this? Social media phenom this 25 year old from New Jersey know about the history of French drumming I learned about your I guess, you know Passion in this from listening to your interview on the working drummer podcast with Matt and Zach Who are both on the drum click podcast network, which I'm a part of And you talked about a documentary that you worked on and I was just like instantly like that's That's what I'm talking about. That's more my thing For this show and I reached out to you and you were happy to come on the show. So all that being said Tell us about it. How did you get into French drumming like with your background because you're you're a young guy You don't have that much room for that much of a background. So yeah, get into this. It's all it's all foreground You're in the foreground And I'm also not French So yeah, it is a weird thing, but I also just want to say I'm like smiling and giggling to myself right now because This is something that I got into my senior year of college and Whenever I would bring up French drumming my friends would roll their eyes so much like oh my god Please just shut up about the French drum. It's enough and now someone has finally said Josh Tell us what you know about this and so it's a nice feeling look at you now Look at me now suck it everybody. It's a big deal French drums. Yeah so basically It was a thesis project that I did my senior year at Amherst College Which is where I went a wonderful school where I had an absolutely wonderful time and I was majoring in French literature Which is also very niche and sort of strange from if you look at it from the outside Yeah, but I knew that I wanted to do thesis and I knew sort of that I wanted to Talk about music maybe the rhythm of poetry or something like that And then one day I just said well, you know, it's it's a shame that there's no French drum thing. It's a bummer that France doesn't have some sort of rich Drumming tradition because then I would love to write about that And that was just a thought I had and then I said well actually, I don't know Let me look it up and so I just got to googling and I Read a couple of books that kind of mentioned it in passing and it piqued my interest a little bit and then I just sort of Really caught the bug and wanted to know all about it I'll just say off off the top that rhythm and drums is such a fascinating thing Because it's so Universal but also it's so distinct everywhere you go every You know every society every nation Every city has its own a style of drumming its own rhythms and every drum itself every type of percussion instrument Has its own unique story in terms of how it developed, you know, you go back to Prehistory wherever humans settled they brought their instruments their drums with them and as such History of percussion is linked to that of the history of mankind Yeah itself and as people move around so do the rhythms that they play and It's you know, it's such a profound thing. I think that you know when you study a society's rhythms You study the music of a culture it reveals a lot about people's heritage and you gain an insight into that people Which is not only musical, but it's also historical social and political. Yeah And so I mean I just immediately think like I think a lot of people are thinking like New Orleans or these things Right, so they're just building on top of each other and then you're mixing and then you get something new and then It's a veritable palimpsest. Yes, you took the words right out of my mouth We have a you know people Swing differently in New York than they do in New Orleans, right? Just yeah within the context of jazz people funk differently in Oakland versus in Minnesota and so This is now I'm talking about military snare drumming People play the snare drum the military snare drum in France much differently than they play it in Let's say Switzerland or Germany and what I found In my research was that the differences like the let's say the swing that you hear in New York versus New Orleans is it's you know, sometimes drastic but the difference between This snare drumming in France versus other European nations is extremely right It's like very stark and that is what piqued my interest really Yeah, I read this book by a historian named John Norris. He has a book called marching to the drum He writes all European nations eventually adopted military drums, but the French developed Fascination with the drum almost to the point of obsession When I read that that kind of kicked off my thesis question is I know that the drum like the snare drum is not a French thing It comes from the Arab world if you learn about the history of the snare drum sure and Yet by the time of the French Revolution The time of Napoleon the French. It's called le tambour if I use my French accent the tambour Is something it's extremely quintessentially French How is this possible? How did this come to be that sort of was the opening question of my thesis which I then Set out to answer. That's a good. I mean we talked about those, you know that the tambour or whatever, you know with your accent on various episodes and It is interesting, but I think it's one of those things where it got created and you know, yes You can take it back to certain roots, but it's so just it belongs to everyone in a way in a weird way You know what I mean where then they modify it and it's it's sort of It's evolved into such such different things now. Can we jump into the? What your thesis was can we can we go back to the beginning of you know, the French drumming and really start to go through some some different decades and centuries I guess on on this topic Oh talk about drum history. Sure. Maybe I thought we might start there Okay, yeah, so I think it might be useful to I guess give a cursory overview of why Drums were even being used in battle. So here we're talking about military snare drumming the rudimental drum tradition That goes back to drums on the battlefield signaling to the soldiers giving them messages So By the 17th century or so Infantry units were increasing and I'm talking about no warfare kind of in the abstract is sort of weird to think about now Warfare in those days, you know, 15 16 17th century. It really was a Weird kind of thing. There were all these there was etiquette to it It's very strange because people are killing each other and it's horrific, but there were all these there was almost decorum to it But by the 17th century Battles are being fought across larger expanses of land than ever before like armies are getting bigger the scale of war is increasing and As a result verbal commands, you know general just shouting to charge or to retreat is no longer going to fly it's not going to carry the distance it needs to go and And You know popular before that they would use semaphores right waving flags red means this this means that famously white it were surrendering and so that had been popular and Napoleon did use semaphores, but Why would we need a drum? Why would we need a musical instrument on the battlefield? Well number one you need something that's really loud and two you need something that isn't visual because now as Warfares evolving muskets and cannons are getting incorporated now the battlefield is clouded in gunpowder smoke So it's really hard to see. Yeah, so if you want to tell your 1,000 soldiers we have to get out of here. We have to retreat The easiest way to do that instead of just shouting it and playing telephone is to have a musical instrument on The battlefield hmm. Yeah, that's not a good time for telephone to go wrong and so I get the wrong message You go march forward. No the other way exactly And I find this to be extremely interesting just as a concept because we you often hear about music as a language But this is literally music as a language. Yeah, absolutely. This rhythm means this You know I play Two paradiddles and then eighth notes that means turn right You know, how does that work as far as training the? Frontline infantry if that would be what they're considered then The language of the drummer, you know what I mean like do you go this is what you need to hear and they're like Oh, did he just do a paradiddle or did he just do or you know like how did they? Being the non-drummers the soldiers How do they learn that that's that's I don't know if you know it's very interesting and actually it will come up later My grand story, okay carry on But I don't want to spoil the juicy details. Okay over the French tempura. Yeah Yeah Now this is just sort of an interesting little tidbit So now we have drums and bugles and bagpipes on the battlefield as we're sort of walking through Timeline of midiville European warfare um Drums become the like Basically overtakes the bugle and the trumpet as a chief signaling device of the battlefield. Why? Why do you think why why I'm asking you Bart? Why you're asking me? Why does why would a drum be more useful in battle than say a trumpet to basically do the same thing? I would say maybe that My gut thinks that it's it's it projects further But I don't know about that because the you know trumpet can project pretty pretty far Maybe it's easier to give someone a pair of drumsticks and they can just hit a drum in a certain way Then it is to train them on how to play a trumpet. Those are excellent guesses and It is you'd think you know trumpet you have Melody and also rhythm you could pack so much more information there Mm-hmm, but the answer is really because a drum doesn't require breath And as a result it's a lot easier to play for long periods of time and also while marching long distances interesting and When I went to the archives at the Musee de l'Armée in Paris to learn all of this in the Army Museum They have huge huge archives letters documents From every war that Francis ever been in There's a letter that I found in there where one of these he's like a military inspector general He's writing to another person in another regiment and he's saying I Know the drum is great, but we really should hold on to the trumpet and have at least a few trumpeters in every regiment And I'll ask you another question Bart Why do you think that would be the answer it as a drummer will tickle you a little bit? I mean, I immediately thought well if all the drummers get killed you need a backup Yeah, that is That wouldn't make sense. Yes, and actually it once drummers became really a part of the Army It was a strategy that The opposing side would try to kill the drummers first that that was always the goal kill the drummer Because then they can't communicate with each other Yeah, I mean that you think of I think of like a movie like behind enemy lines or something I always think of that movie where they're like they're shooting the person who's running the line that's to Connect for radio signals and all that stuff so that messages don't get through. I mean I feel like that cutting communication is about as just pure like military Tactic as you can get so that makes perfect sense. But yeah, what is the answer the answer? I just find this. I don't know to be hilarious. It's that if it rains the drumhead gets wet and then it's not as loud Man, that was the reason that They decided to keep trumpets and bugles in the military tradition. Wow That's only they had mylar. Yeah, right The back then they're using, you know Animal hide. Yeah Yeah, interesting. Wow. That's fascinating. I'm sure they had a rifle or something or would be contributing out They wouldn't just be sitting there and you know on the bench waiting to go in Yeah, and by the way, you mentioned like killing drummers cutting off communication In Napoleonic times that was considered a huge badge of honor if you could capture an enemy drum That's like, you know, I Guess in ancient times I holding up somebody's head, you know, oh, we got like that was sort of the Thing like oh if I can bring home this or I think of dumb college students trying to steal Statue or something. Yeah And that is it that was sort of a thing that people or soldiers would try to do as a badge of honor And Napoleon also started this tradition where he would award Soldiers who had been particularly brave Basically like a medal of honor type thing. He would give commemorative decorative drumsticks to soldiers who he found to be of note Which I think is quite interesting. That's so so Napoleon clearly had you know respect for drummers and understood the You know importance of them. Absolutely. Yeah and You could say that he Wielded music Exceptionally well to do what he did. All right, wait, so explain that a little bit Napoleon wielding music Better than others. So obviously I didn't I never really thought about this So someone who can use music better to communicate and I'm assuming this is what you mean better to communicate and Get people moving and get his message across faster That would the importance of that is that if he's doing it better than let's say, you know a general who is not doing that It he's just moving his chess pieces on the board, you know Better than someone else. Is that kind of what that means? I think yeah, basically the you really can't overstate the importance of the military drum in these types of Battle situations because number one it Keeps it well it gives important orders right turn left retreat. We're out of here. We're going in. Yeah, but also Marching huge distances Napoleon conquering all these places That requires a tremendous amount of just marching for miles and miles and miles. How do you get people to do that? It's through a hypnotic repetition of the drumbeat one foot in front of the other and If you have great drummers, it's easier to get your soldiers to do that Wow, it's not something that anyone would you know willingly do Walk by hundreds of miles and to and then to go into almost certain death But there's something about the drum that sort of stirs up courage. Yeah out of nowhere And you can't help yourself puts a little pep in their step was they're walking into a battle Yeah, it puts a little pep in your little little skip in your yeah Yeah It is it's all very morbid, but it is also I think interesting That the instrument that we play comes from this. Yeah, sure The snare drum is part of every drum set and this is the root of the snare drum So much killing and death and violence. Yeah, really and you think about the instrument now and it's really used as a tool for unification and Love and dancing and keeping people together. That's that's a great point So as in the in the history timeline though, what we're talking about so far isn't exactly Specifically just French, but I guess what we're talking about And correct me if I'm wrong though is is what makes it so important in the French history It's just how well it was used Correct. Okay, then carry on from there so This is sort of the the turning point Where the French style and when I was first getting started I was There are only a few sort of excerpts that I could find online of you know examples of French drumming You know books that have been written with the patterns in them And you look at them. They're so complicated. There's groupings of five There's it, you know crazy nested tuplets Incredibly complicated patterns that would be extremely difficult to sight read Even for an experienced player whereas you look at I Don't know Wilcoxon for example something that's very American even from 200 years later And it's kind of like triple it triple it eighth note eighth note triple it triple it six eighth note So that was really blowing my mind and I wanted to know why that is and in My research what I found out is that really came down to two military events That ended up elevating the French style of military drumming above all the others So the first one is this battle in 1515 we're going way back the battle of Novara which is In this war, which is nobody even really talks about it's not even really that relevant But it's this is the war's fought the battle was fought in Italy and basically what happened was that The French got absolutely demolished. They were disorganized They were running all over the place not functioning as a unit and They got destroyed by the Swiss army Who came in and they were using drummers they were the first country to have drums in their in their army and use them pretty effectively and In this battle was Francis the first who would later become King Francis the first of France King of France. He's there he survives battle obviously and He sees this Swiss regiment come in marching in unison Super organized and just systematically they they just wiped out the French people in this battle and when he became King he would remember That very distinctly and he wrote about it in his letters and He was the one who said okay We need to step up our drum game if we're gonna be serious as a military nation and so he then starts this process and he commissions this guy his name was Arbeau to write a bunch of Patterns for the French army That would be you know unique to France and The guy writes these rhythms which are very interesting to look at and to play They all use what's called the Pyrrhic Which is something that you get from poetry because this guy Arbeau was a poet He basically he writes these rhythms which have a Pyrrhic form Which is like a Accented and then a less accented note one of them they're like Which he deduced was the ideal sort of form and style to get people marching That kind of thing as opposed to dot dot dot dot dot is kind of off balance Yeah, but the accent on the first one on the first note of the Dupal meter. It's just something about it Was better more conducive to marching So he wrote all these patterns with that in mind and what's very interesting if you look at the poetry from the time When those rhythms start to get incorporated and start to get heard all over The you know the land it up then starts appearing in literature and in poetry So the rhythms that he wrote for the military actually end up in literature. You start to see a lot of Pyrrhic forms in French lyrics and poems Which I think it's just fascinating. Oh, that is fascinating. It's amazing how I Mean even today even the use of like the internet, I mean everything kind of has like Be a basis in the military in some weird way. You know what I mean? Yeah, I Think I do. Oh, just me cuz it like these inventions that we use come back to that Obviously, I'm you know the internet. It was many many many years later But and also it's it's cool to note that like man the Swiss army We've talked about them on the show before they sound like a pretty, you know badass group of people who are just Really really really really put together So it's neat to hear that they influenced The French army with their sheer killing power. Yeah, I mean the Swiss were so good that They would hire themselves out to other countries exact mercenaries basically. Yeah Which is hilarious. It's like we're so good at fighting that you can hire us to do your fighting for you. Yeah Yeah, and They really did they were the Swiss drummers were exceptional and they Got those people in line and that's I think it's really a big part of why they were so effective Yeah, that's a now. Okay. We're plowing ahead with our story. Yeah. Now we have these Lovely poetic rhythms that are French and they're the French army has Music and it's and it's lovely and they're more efficient and they're more organized this is the real turning point of The story of the French tambour Which is in the war of Spanish succession basically the Spanish King dies no air Everyone's gonna kill each other figure out what's gonna go on. What's good? What the hell's gonna happen here, right? Europe just descends into absolute chaos And there's a battle in 1708 the battle of Udenard in Belgium Where the Allied forces that's the Anglo-Dutch Austrian forces The drummers in those regiments played the French tech like drum tattoo the the the threat the retreat So convincingly that part of the French army did in fact retreat. Ah Ah So it was a very clever tactic. They Essentially imitated the French drum call to retreat to get the French people to leave Wow, that's what happened man. How did they would the would they have gotten these rhythms? I mean obviously their drum you can hear it from really far, but Would they have I'd be it's crazy It's almost like a movie where someone sneaks in and steals their music and then they learn it And you know what I mean like I wonder how that that actually happened Yeah, I don't know the particulars of it, but it would make a great movie But I also think it's just as you said you the drum is really loud and if all it would take your drummer you hear it once Keep in mind the drum calls at the time were all pretty simple. Yeah, it was like three beats means go right and You know if I start playing 16th notes were charging ahead So it wouldn't be so difficult for someone to figure out what it was But would the the reason someone would get more fancy with it and and have it be more unique To what would it be to make it harder so people couldn't mimic it and throw people off? I mean is that part of it? That's exactly what happened. So following this defeat Where the French right what the hell just happened? we got hoodwinked The King of France at the time He decides okay. Well the solution then is to make our drum signals so complicated that no one could ever Possibly copy them and that's exactly what they did interesting and so He much in the way that King Francis the first this is I Believe now so King Francis the first hires this guy Arbeau to write the rhythms this the King of France at that time It was Louie and Louie the 13th or 14th Basically, he hires this guy to write the most complicated drum music that's ever been written like insane and he gathers this guy and a bunch of other top drummers and invites them all to Versailles and Essentially has I don't know a namshow a Big conference where they're gonna basically Not leave until they have all learned it and figured out You know, this is the new French drum style and it's incredibly complicated And we're gonna learn it here and we're gonna write it down Codify it make it official and then go and teach it to everybody. Well, it's more of a basic than a name I'd say. Yeah. Yeah basic. Yeah Basically it wasn't not necessarily about gear There was gear I'm sure so anyway. Oh, yeah There is actually a thing where they started That was the first instance. I believe of The brass snare drum to make it even louder. Oh, wow 1767 French decree. We're no longer using wood. We're gonna use brass Yeah, and they also mandated they were very particular about what they wanted Okay, mandated new sizes for what the cylinder is gonna be 46 centimeters by 38 centimeters So they made the drums smaller but made of brass gotcha I imagined to it would have been similar to in America where there might have been Contracts for drum makers similar to like noble and cooly where it's like You're now making a ton of brass drums get to it Right exactly. Yeah. All right. Like you said, we're in the mid-1700s. Is that right with 700? Yeah, carry on basically that is essentially the the big reason is that This is the king had the idea to make the drum calls so complicated that no one will be able to copy them and He also wrote them down like Which is a big step because previously There hadn't been that much just pure snare drum music written down now. We think about it Oh, we have all these books all the snare drum music, but it really wasn't that big of a thing And now they're written down and it's incredibly complicated And what I think is really interesting is that this document that was created at Versailles with the brand-new new and improved French military drum calls has tempo markings interesting and Beethoven is often credited as being the first person to put like an exact tempo marking on a piece of music Which he did in 1817, but this document was just called the the instructions for tambour les instructions pour les tambours in 1754 Has a tempo marking it says Basically 60 beats per minute. Wow. Yeah, but the way it's written it says Basically 60 beats per minute that is to say with one step every half second that Makes sense. Yeah It's related and I find this very interesting and I then saw this very much It's still in the modern day with the people who are still playing drums in the French style Is that this sense of time and keeping time is very connected to the body and the movement of the body? Yeah Because that's the like nowadays playing the drums and stuff It's obviously about having fun and getting better as a drummer But you know the main goal is to make people dance and really support the music the main goal then was to make people Move but move in battle and direct them and and you know, I wonder as you're saying this There had to be times where I mean you're you know, yeah, you're practiced you're at your you know 1700s French Pasek, you know and you're you're but okay get on a battlefield Where people are getting shot and there's blood all over and stuff I wonder how much of the most difficult music of the time with you know Tempo markings kind of goes out the window or if they were pretty tight still, I don't know if that's documented Yeah, that I don't know I mean it was crazy. I you have to imagine that everything just goes out the window But I guess it's the function of the drummer sort of in the same way that the drummer might function in the band Like the gig is going off the rails. Everything's crazy. The drummers got to hold it together. Yeah So good point your friends heads getting blown off. You're the drummer. It's your responsibility You have to keep people, you know in the right tempo. Yeah and so it's Interesting I find a lot of parallels between this tradition, which is which we're so far removed from now this idea of you know, European warfare Rifles and muskets and snare drums and marching all this stuff that's so far removed from my reality And yet because I play the drums I'm connected to it and it is a part of our history and I just find that We know why would someone want to study this because there are a lot of parallels and a lot of practical things that you can learn From it from anything if you go deep into any historical Section any any you go deep, you know historically into any type of music you end up Just learning a lot. Yeah Yeah, that's that's neat to put it like that I mean basically you doing sound effects for a Tom and Jerry cartoon is basically connected to French warfare From hundreds of years ago on tiktok, right? Yeah, in a way, it really is One I think about that original idea of we need some way to communicate. It's gonna cut through this melee There's Pete. There's guns being fired and every it feels like just everything is so crazy How are we gonna get through to everyone? It's through the drum. Mm-hmm. The drum is gonna cut through and I feel as though I've taken a similar approach in the melee of social media That somehow the drum is cut through. I totally it's just there's something about it. Yeah, I think about the drums It really is a unifying force. I mean for good or for evil depending on the historical context. Yep There's something about the drum. It's so intrinsically human people are drawn to it. Yeah, and it does it just cuts through Yeah Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's it's an impressive instrument and it's visually very cool one more thing which I can say which is a more direct Correlation. Yes, so Question I get all the time Which is Josh? Why do you have a bandana on your snare drum? Mm-hmm? I do that in a lot of my videos drummers We know it mutes the sound Makes a little quieter No, well one I I live with my parents and so I try to make my Recording a little bit quieter just for their sake. Also, you know, it just gives me a better sound for what I'm trying to do Yeah, I Learned that from watching videos of Ringo. He always had the tea towels. Yeah tea towels But I learned in this research that that was actually invented by the French military snare drummers. Whoa because They would use drums to communicate Everything not just in the fray of battle It was also where this is what you play to wake everybody up in the morning and this means okay, we're off duty We can go to sleep They gave all the announcements through the drum But sometimes you don't want that announcement to be so loud That people could hear it for miles But you just want to sort of say it to the people or you know within a couple hundred feet of you Wow, and so they the solution was to put a piece of cloth and it's documented in Letters that they have in these archives drummers are into other drummers about this About how if you put a piece of cloth it makes a little quieter And so a lot of times that's what they would do when they were playing the drum tattoo which meant to break down camp We're gonna march now. Yep Because you don't want everyone to know that if anyone like you're listening fascinating man. That's awesome. That's Those are those little pieces of like within an episode where you're kind of like Oh, man, that just applies to so much stuff and that that history of like of like yeah, anyone does that I mean everyone is a gig and you throw a t-shirt over your snare or whatever like a you know a bandana or something and That's a little bit of French, you know drum history every time you're playing your your kit Gives you a little je ne sais quoi Exactly This episode is brought to you by Burns Symbols in this spot. I'm playing the 20 inch vintage series ride This is by far the nicest ride I have ever owned It works great at live gigs and on recordings with a beautiful vintage sound and look These are handcrafted American symbols that are created from Turkish bronze And gradually shaped with thousands of hammer blows and laid by hand in Cleveland Find them online at burns symbols comm to check out the vintage series that I'm using and all the other different lines They offer and to find a dealer near you Also, check them out on Instagram at burns symbols spelled B. Y. R. N. E We're basically in the 1600s 1700s What is the personnel like I want to know and I guess it would be more I Don't know kind of a Civil War thing in America, but a lot of times people think of drummers They think of the drummer boy, which I think I do think I've learned over time that it's kind of a bit of a Misconception where a lot of them weren't there were young ones There was Orion P. Howe who I did an episode on who you know got the Medal of Honor You know for his bravery and he was like 12 or 13, but that being said There were older and younger people too. Did they have that same drummer boy? kind of Romantic notion that we have with our War history and drummers or were they typically just grown men who were learning these difficult You know pieces of music It was mostly adult men Basically the same as the other soldiers and they were also paid the same amount This French soldiers were all paid interesting and they were the drummers. We could pay the same amount as the soldiers In which I think is sort of telling meaning that their work is just as important as a soldier's work. Yeah Honestly, if not more important, but I'm a drummer. So I'm fine. Yeah. Yeah That's cool. Yeah There are a lot of Little anecdotes about, you know heroic drummers Who do who you know play the drums of such ferocity that they encourage the whole regiment to march? What do you know all this stuff? Yeah, and it's usually just I don't know actually where the that image of the little drummer boy comes from I think that's sort of a weird American thing. Yeah And again, I think there is there is truth to it, but I think maybe some of those stories of Kids got a little bit blown out of proportions where there are other I mean, there's plenty of grown men doing it. Yeah So I think that's in terms of the overall like this back history portion of it That's probably a good place to kind of cap it. Sure Essentially, it doesn't get that much more interesting from from then on it's sort of just okay now French has this beautiful flowery or Nate snare drum music that they're using in the battlefield and It just gets progressively more and more refined from there. There aren't any major Events or anything that happens between I mean, there's Napoleon and he sort of continues and he refines it more But it's it doesn't it sort of declines in how fascinating it is. Sure. What year do we jump ahead to? well, we can jump ahead to 2018 Okay, that's a serious jump major jump and jump right to 2018 sounds good I would love to talk about My trip to France. Yeah, because you worked with a teacher who I've watched and we'll you know You you basically have a documentary that you've worked on but it you see you had a pretty cool experience yes just through my Googling I Found that there's a school for French drumming Located in Brittany, which is in the northwestern part of France and I wrote to them on Facebook Messenger, which is the only way I could contact them and I said hi I'm Josh on this American kid, and I'm really interested in French drumming Could I talk to you at some point over Skype? and then Two weeks later I get a message back from this man named Yvonne Roussel and He's just bonjour Josh and it's written in like his Breton French dialect so I can't even Google translate it and I don't know half the words and My French is pretty good, but I really had a hard time understanding that understanding what he was writing Yeah, let alone then when I went to meet him, but basically he Said oh my god, that's fantastic. It's so wonderful that someone from America is interested in this we'd love to invite you here to learn from us personally and This was like oh my god. Are you serious? He's like yes Be here on this date Like January 18th like in Brittany here in this town called Sambliou So I was like, okay, I bought a plane ticket and I went and I flew across the world to take a drum lesson It's awesome. Oh to be young. Yeah And also to have a thesis budget there you go and It ended up being I mean one thing was just sort of like a cool thing I did on a lark But it really that's at least what's what I thought it was gonna be but it ended up being one of the most profound experiences of my life Just because I mean I've had a lot of incredible drum teachers over the years and a lot of great teachers who have all taught me wonderful things and improved my Perspective my ability on the instrument but this was a whole other thing and it really sort of You know caught me off guard from the left side. Yeah, I'm sure so go into it. What what is You know, what happened? What is the technique? What tells us about the teacher? I mean, I remember just like I think in the documentary There's a part where you ask like doesn't that isn't gonna hurt your arm if you do it like that He's like no no no yeah, so It's this it was this guy Yvonne and his sort of partner whose name is Pierre Yves les Channadec They were the most French people I've ever met and also they're old they're in their 70s Impossible to understand truly So difficult. Yeah, I spent the whole day. I also had that day was maybe why it was so profound I had a 104 fever. Oh my god Which is kind of a funny story pre-covid This is free. This is yeah free It was well pre-covid. Yeah but I had actually I had taken some Tylenol and Had a I took French Tylenol had a bad reaction to it. I guess it's a little different So this guy Yvonne he has a limp like his leg is messed up from an injury His hand is paralyzed and he's also deaf in one ear Hmm, so he cannot really hear the drum. He can't march with it and he also can't play But he but he did in his Younger years obviously. Yes. Yeah. Yes But he is really the last living Grandmaster of this tradition that the French are very proud of At least those who know about it this thing because at that conference in the 1700s When they decided to codify and make this Make this new style of military drumming that then became really imbued into the French culture But over the years it's sort of fallen out of favor obviously like there's no more like drummers on the battlefield It's really dwindled in terms of who knows about it Who knows the technique who knows the history and this guy Yvonne is sort of like the last stalwart of trying to preserve it and that's what he's doing at his school Hmm, and so even though he physically can't do it anymore He's still doing it and so he has people who help him teach and this guy Pierre Eve who was his friend and who works with him was the man who was kind of would play the example So Yvonne would say and now we're gonna do this Pierre would demonstrate it and help me and Yvonne would sort of just be watching Hmm. So it was a really interesting dynamic So you're just to explain or just to like clarify a little bit they like what it is is he's teaching you That's same like you said that at that that where they said we got to step up our game And we need we they got mimicked and someone they got you know It was a brutal battle because they basically listen to an incorrect, you know the other side tricked them with the the drumming They went to that convention. They had you know quote-unquote convention. They learned this very Embellished patterns and all this stuff. He's teaching you that style He's one of the last people who was really keeping that alive, right? Right. Got it Basically the way they hold the stick is kind of strange They just sort of grip it in their fist like in the middle of it and Then it's traditional grip. So the left if you're righty left stick is You know, you held it underneath the stick kind of in this what I found to be sort of similar to The traditional grip that I knew this as an American player, but the right hand is really weird It's you're over the top of it in a fist but extremely Relaxed and you play you strike the drum by rotating your hand sideways So it's sort of like from your shoulder It's a really a rotation of the radius ulna in the arm kind of the same way that when you play With your left hand traditional grip and you're rotating your hand. You're basically doing the contrary motion now with your right hand so both are going side like twisting Sideways as opposed to striking up and down. Yeah. It's all sideways. God. It's kind of weird to like I'm sitting here doing it. Obviously we're talking. Yeah windshield wiper kind of thing Yeah, I mean, but I feel like that that that grabbing it with a fist and Just playing is almost how like someone who hasn't really held a drumstick before Picks up a drumstick and starts not really that side. You know what I mean like where it's like No, no, you don't hold it like that you're like this It seems like you wouldn't get as much control or but obviously that's the thing Which is that and that's what I really struggled with during this lesson, which was a 12 hour affair Oh, let me just say that. Okay, so one drum lesson though Like you went to France for a 12 hour lesson. It was all day I have never been more exhausted after anything in my whole life. They just kept giving me stuff Wow, eventually. I was like I really I need to leave. I'm sick Well, also, it was you know, it's these two guys I don't know how often they get someone from another country being like, hey, I'm really interested in what you do. Yeah So they were just thrilled that you know, and they wanted to teach me everything So it's this weird technique also in the French style. No buzzrolls. No buzz. Everything is straight. Ditto so you're using your wrist the basically in The foundation of it is to have a very relaxed and very flexible wrist so they have there's all sorts of like they taught me these stretches to do to like make the wrist more flexible to relax your arm completely and You are when you're doing double strokes You're doing both of them as opposed to what I would normally do which is sort of you throw down and get two for free, you know It's both everything is articulated completely Yeah, and never any buzzroll Hmm Do they think the buzzrolls are like lazy lazy American way to do it? I did speak to one guy who was like, oh the Americans They did buzzer all The French is clear and beautiful What was really interesting though and to be honest, I don't remember a lot of the patterns that they taught me You know, they had they gave me all these things to to learn and this accent pattern and all of this But what I really remember was sort of more just the overall attention to detail that they had About everything Basically, the idea is that if you have a problem anywhere, you have a problem everywhere interesting and so He was critiquing my posture in a way that I hadn't really that hadn't really been you know done to me before in a drum lesson where I Was everything was also standing right? We're not sitting. We're standing at the drum And he would say like oh you have tension in your left ankle Wow, I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, like the way you're standing your left ankle has like a bit more Weight on it than your right And he's like that's gonna mess you up Wow, he's probably right though. I mean it all adds up to And he was extremely aware of like the body the dynamics the anatomy of it at one point he criticized me He said you're standing with an American posture. I was slouching a little bit and They were adamant about that that your entire body has to be in line and precise and exacting and you have to hold your entire body to a high standard to Be a tambour I would be a French drummer I wonder how buddy rich would do in that situation getting criticized by a bunch of French guys about his posture I think he might have exploded a little bit on him. Oh, yeah That's funny. Wow. Well, yeah, that's cool though that you had that I mean so he would play an exercise then you would play it then you would go back and forth Did you feel like you really understood it when you left or did you leave going? What just happened? I mean, how did you feel? I? Felt like I kind of got it. It took me a while To sort of process it. I was also really sick But the thing that I took away From it in addition to that really detail oriented style of practice and precision was just the overall spirit with which they approached the drum and For me to be there and Just when they would Play these patterns and demonstrate I could see it in this man Yvonne's face It would take him into this reverie and he would just be filled with so much joy to hear the sound of the drum And they just love talking about it. They loved playing it. They loved hearing it. They love teaching it and obviously they They take what they do very seriously because they're keepers of a historical and artistic tradition But they also they just love it They had so much fun and it was cool to see people who loved something so much Yeah, and that is very contagious. Yeah, because a lot of times when you're practicing you're in your basement You know and you're working left foot clave and independence exercises. You can be like, oh god. I can't do this anymore It really recharged me in terms of my musical practice just to meet people who had pure love for the drum and it's a school like you said, I mean, is there a Regular group of students who are there? I mean, I don't know if you were there on like a weekend or something But like was does he how many students does he typically have? I Don't know. It's not very many. Yeah, it's pretty specific, but he also he runs a troop. So the Tambour 89 Which is like 1789 was the French Revolution Mm-hmm. And so he is basically the artistic director of this French drum troop which often performs at big French cultural events So over the bicentennial There was a huge parade in Paris that drum troop was there performing gotcha And I would be willing to bet anything that they'll be in the Paris 2024 opening ceremonies for the Olympics. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm sure you'll be Looking at this look at my end, you know But I think it just mentioning the Olympics Every opening ceremonies for the past. I don't know 30 years has had or opening or closing ceremonies has had drummers in it Which just goes to show you how Important rhythm and drumming is to every culture. Yeah, it's sort of like rice every culture has its own way of making rice Every culture is only playing the drum and it's always a point of pride in the just in the Tokyo one They had the taiko drummers. Yeah, I said, this is a this is a this is our sonic badge This is the symbol of our culture. Yeah, this thing is very cool So I'm almost I I could I'll I'll put money on it that it's gonna be In the next one too and it'll be French. So it'll be even better. Yeah, it'll be extremely complicated. Yeah Then one particular line that this Man said during the interview when I because I was also filming this my my brother came with me He filmed the whole day. Yeah. Yeah, and then we sat down. I just sat down with him and did an interview In between our bouts of me learning like whatever French pata-fla-fla. I Just asked him very simply like what is the tambouric? What is the drum and His answer something I have literally been thinking about for years and only have recently started to understand it at the time one I literally didn't understand it because it was in his like Bretton dialect, but then I Also the words were very complicated. He said The drum I was expecting him to say just oh, yeah, the drum is two taught membranes on a wooden cylinder and it yadda yadda yadda He said that the drum is a system That allows someone to express their feelings A System yeah, it's a system Wow say it again the drum is a system that allows someone to express their feelings What do you take that to mean? I? Have thought about it a lot and I Think that With that sort of definition you can arrive at a theory of percussion which is on the one hand It's it's it's both liberating and it's also it reveals a lot Basically you can boil it down to the fact the drum is a Communication device yeah, it's a musical instrument, but it's really a device for communication I think that's what he's saying when he's saying system that it's not just a musical instrument It's a way to communicate stuff literally in military sense retreat turn right March Literally the rhythms mean something Direct yeah, and that continues. I think today and I Take that now When I'm playing the drums Or making one of these videos. I'm trying to communicate something as opposed to just playing the drums or You know how fast can I play how cool? Can I look when I play? It's really more about Figuring out what you have to say and using the drums as a system to Amplify that message. I the drum is really just an amplifier sort of just like holding a megaphone up to your own personality sure And so yeah, really that's that's how I Take that and I also find it interesting Just thinking about the drums compared to other musical instruments that When you're playing the drum set I feel like it's sort of it's a unique thing in the trap drum set You're very untethered to the instrument itself like a pianist needs a full-blown piano like you have to have a piano and a piano is sort of Obviously, they're great pianos and bad pianos, but a piano is a piano Yeah, a guitarist needs a guitar and every guitar kind of pretty much is the same when you boil it down but a drummer Like the thing about drums setups is says wild variation from like just one drum set to the next like the instrument itself is sort of very mutable and malleable and So what is the drums? Right. Yeah a piano like a piano is this it has this and it has that has the keys and the hammers and it does that But the the drums it's not really a You know a thing it's more of an idea Something you hit it's something you hit. Yeah, um to convey a message, right? Yeah. Wow It's got deep. It is really deep And I think that is Also why I think it's important to learn about your instrument the number one advice I could give to any musician and Now I'm in a position where people ask me for advice, which is interesting But the number one advice I could give to anyone who's saying how can I get better at my instrument? How can I improve my sound? How do I sound better? My advice is to learn the history of the instrument because it will actually improve your sound Not because of any technique or trick But because talking about drums The weight of your stick then comes down with the full force of tradition and then knowing what to play or How to play it becomes almost self-evident when you insert yourself now into that timeline with a knowing respect for what came before and I suppose an eagerness to innovate what should come next Yeah, so that's really what I took away from my my big Aventure my big adventure Yeah, which is that I Now feel so connected to a whole history of drumming which I previously really wasn't like I knew kind of about the history of jazz and baby Dazz and you know New Orleans and and that whole scene and they went up to New York and they took the train to Chicago at all This stuff and it's great But going back even further really Open my eyes and maybe you want to learn even more You know you learn about the like drumming from Africa and the diaspora and how that influenced all these rhythms and It really will just blow your mind. Yeah, and so just keeps going back yeah, I've gotten really into meditation lately and David Lynch the big meditator. Yeah, I love David. He has his quote which I I Heard not too long ago, which I think is apropos He says that if you have a golf ball sized consciousness When you read a book, you will have a golf ball sized understanding of the book when you look out a golf ball sized awareness And when you wake up a golf ball sized wakefulness So if you meditate you expand your consciousness and expand your understanding of the book when you read it When you look out you have an expanded awareness and when you wake up you have an expanded wakefulness. Now, of course, to editorialize that comes incrementally over a long, long period of time. But the same, I think, can be said for music and learning music history. If you have a limited knowledge of your instrument's history, your sound and creativity becomes equally as limited. So if you have an inch-long understanding of the history of drums, when you play a swing beat, you only have an inch-long understanding of how to do it or better yet, why and when to do it. You won't know that swing and jazz used to be dance music and it has to groove and people have to dance to it and that you should feather the bass drum on all four beats, right? Because that actually goes back to marching band music, which again, goes back to this military thing. Man, I mean, it's just, it's so much deeper than just hitting a drum, you know what I mean? And I think hopefully people get that from listening to this show and I'm just honored to have people like you who, God, I mean, you just, I'm so happy I had you on. And just, obviously what you're doing online is super cool. And it's just, it's neat though that, like, to give you a platform for this where you can talk about this kind of stuff and teach us all about this and your experience and just your really interesting and neat perspective on everything, which you're wise beyond your years. So I think you've, you're internalizing it and I think people can kind of, you know, at any age, at any juncture of your drumming career, people can take inspiration from what you're saying and dig deeper and just kind of love the drums. That's what this is all about. So why don't we, as we're kind of wrapping up here, we're going to do a little bonus episode for a couple of minutes. But I want to take a, you know, a minute here. Maybe, I mean, you're obviously a big time guy on social media where I feel like most people have probably seen one or two or your videos, even if you're a big time guy, where can people find you? And then obviously, you know, we can talk about the documentary for a long time, but you do have a trailer out about your experience. And then maybe you can just quickly talk about your intention of releasing it and all that good stuff. So you can just look me up Josh Harman, you can find me on Instagram. The handle is Josh underscore Harman underscore. But if you just type in Josh Harman, it comes right up. YouTube Josh Harman, TikTok at Josh plays drums. You'll find me. And then on the YouTube channel, you can see if you're interested in more about French drumming, you can see the trailer for the documentary that I made about it, which is the name of the movie is called La Porte Suite du Rhythm, or the English translation would be keeping the beat. And so you can find that on my YouTube channel. It's pretty, it's pretty far down in there. I'll share it. I'll share in the notes so people can click it if they listen. And the full movie is about 40 minutes long. But it when I originally performed it at Amherst, I performed the drum score live. So the way it's meant to be viewed. And this is like, I feel like such a haughty, like tear of my film here. But basically it's designed to be viewed in conjunction with a live snare drummer. And so hopefully at some point, maybe when things are, it's easier to do, to release it, I was briefly in talks with the cultural embassy of France in New York City to do a screening. So I'm hopeful that that will pan out. Also, I have an entire book that I've written about this topic, which goes through the history of the snare drum. It goes way deeper into all the stuff that we talked about today. And it also has a focus in its final chapter on the role of the snare drum in the French Revolution, which is something that we didn't even get into. But it is really, really interesting. And I sort of philosophize about the metonymic function of the snare drum in a revolution. And that's something that which has a lot of parallels to modern times. And I think we could all learn a lot from the humble drum. So that will hopefully, I don't know, at some point, be released as an actual thing. Cool. I'll keep you posted. Yeah. Yeah. So Josh is going to be kind enough to take, you know, 10 minutes or so and hang out and talk to me a little bit more for the bonus episode this week, just on Patreon. And if you listen to the show, you probably know by this point, you can go to drumhistorypodcast.com, click the Patreon button and join up for a couple bucks. And you get these bonus episodes. And we're going to talk about, you know, it'd be silly to not talk a little bit about your experience with all this social media stuff, because we've talked a lot about this very deep French stuff. So let's talk about more, you know, TikTok and stuff like it. Yeah, something a little bit more levitate. Yes, exactly. So if you want to hear that, check it out. Super easy to find, but... Equally deep. Equally deep. We're going to do some real philosophizing about TikTok and trends. Yeah, exactly. Challenges and all that stuff. Yeah. Eating tide pods. Yeah, totally. We'll cover all that. So yeah. Again, Josh, thanks for coming on the show. And I should say too, thanks to the working drummer guys for having you on. And this one wasn't really a recommended episode, quote-unquote, like I get a lot of. This is just one where I went... Actively, they said don't. Don't have him. Yeah, they were like, we don't recommend him. No, again, I heard it and I went, man, yes, instantly. Gotta have you on. And I'm so happy that you came on. So thank you for doing this. Hey, it's my pleasure. Thanks for being that one guy who said, hey, you know what, tell me about that French jump thing. So I appreciate that. That's what I do. Awesome. Thanks, Josh. If you liked this podcast, find me on social media at drum history, 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.