[Dixielandjazz] Drummers' Brains

[Charles Suhor]

Wow— so eloquent, Ken, and so right on all fronts. Thanks for a your fine, witty entry.

Charlie

> On Dec 29, 2015, at 4:10 PM, Ken Mathieson <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hi Charlie et al,
> 
> Charlie posted:
> 
> Check this out. An interesting study, though it seems very preliminary. Who were the control group subjects? Also, the fact that so many of the comments, seemingly from drummers, are childishly focused on bigger and BIGGER kits makes me doubt the premise.
> 
> Charlie
> 
> http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/the-neuroscience-of-drumming.html
> 
> I had a look and agree with you Charlie: no real data about the control group or indeed the specifics of their so-called findings. Meanwhile, the "my-kit-is-bigger-than-yours" respondees are missing the point entirely: Max Roach played inventive music on 4 drums - bass, snare and 2 toms. This wasn't merely rhythm, but singable melodies and it highlights the fact that there are great drummers per se and there are great musicians who play the drums. The latter are in a relatively small minority, but include people like Big Sid Catlett, Billy Higgins, Joe Morello etc, who dealt in colours, light and shade, melodic concepts, thematic development etc first and foremost, not simply displays of dazzling technique. That's not to say that some *drum athletes* couldn't play musical drums when required: Put Buddy Rich in a small group of great musicians and he could propel them with immaculate taste while keeping the technical fireworks for his solos - just think about his recordings with Basie's Octet.
> 
> I doubt very much that physicians will find that drummers' brains are wired differently. I suspect they will find that they are capable of complex muti-tasking and rapid reactions, but you'll find these in Grand Prix racing drivers, standup comedians etc too. I was on a gig once with a girl singer who was going on at tedious length about females being better at multi-tasking than males, so I felt impelled to point out that I routinely had 4 limbs working independently of each other, with two of them, the right hand and the left foot attacking the beat slightly ahead of its centre, the right foot anchoring the time dead centre and the left hand operating freely across beats and bar lines to propel the rhythm horizontally. While all this was going on I was chewing gum, not necessarily in time with any of the limbs, listening to the singer and all the other instruments and reacting with fills as appropriate, so there was an appraising and editing function operating in the background. And, if all that wasn't enough, because I'm male, I had to think about sex every ten seconds. We didn't hear any more about multi-tasking after that!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ken
> 
>