Guest
The best that can be said for the camera work here is that it is at least democratic. You get pianist Michiel Borstlap for the first half, and a too-close-up of me for the second. But there are some sparks in the music that make the video worth inclusion on the channel, despite the poor production values. The ‘bending-up sounds’ are small Chinese peacock gongs laid out on the toms, as I remember. Hence the title of the piece. If I were a beginner drummer, I’d have some questions. Now that I can play a paradiddle, what do I do with it? When and where do I use it? Are these answers always the same or are they ever-changing depending on the musical context? Can I make up my own answers? I have no intention of trying to answer these difficult questions, but they do point to a hole in the way we teach drums: a pedagogical lacuna, as the academics might say. Part of the problem is that most instruction books tell you what a paradiddle is, and how to play it, and then stop there. The beginner practice
