Rants - vol. 1

From the files of CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER!, a drumming blog, all the posts filed under the Rants category, from 2012-25. Typed in a rage, usually over something awful witnessed on the internet, related to this art of playing the drums. Massively updated and expanded.

Organized in the following topical drift-piles:

GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND WHATNOT All about what we do as drummers, our values in general— on music, learning the drums, teaching the drums. Questions of drummerness, and why they're all against us.


DRUMMING GEAR Various complaints, drum and cymbal sizes rated, rules of gear acceptability, approaches to buying junk. Analysis of a really, really wrong effort to re-engineer the drum set, but smart.

HANDS Technical matters, especially related to that subject of endless fascination, “hand dominance.” We never get tired of it, and neither will you. The wonderful smart open handed drumming vs. the desipicable contorted crossed-armed drumming we all do. Various drumming rudiments are praised and castigated.

INTERNET AND OTHER PERSONALITIES Escalating irritation over the existence of drumming YouTube and everyone perpetrating it. Discussion of some other people, and the things they've done. Stewart Copeland, Stanley Spector, a guy who said rudiments have “nothing to do with drumming.”

THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC AT PRESENT Tech interference in music. Here we really let a couple of creeps have it. What we should be doing as serious music people living in this screwed-up economy.

299 pages.