Isaacs Vaughn Band

Hello again!  I just wanted to take a moment to start this section.  While I may include or link to actual transcripts of grooves and exercises, this section won’t always be strictly about technique.  Instead, I’ll also explore some of the less tangible aspects of drumming and, more importantly, approaching drumming.

The first thing I want to discuss is a couple of books I recently read.  The first book was written by bass playing phenom, Victor Wooten- the book is called “The Music Lesson- A Spiritual Search for Growth through Music” http://www.vixboox.com/.  The first thing to note is it doesn’t matter what you play or even IF you play, go out and get this book!  You don’t have to be a musician to benefit from it; however, if you are a musician this book will give you an important new way to look at playing music.

I won’t go into detail here, but I will note that one section describes (in narrative story form, as the whole book is written as a story) how music is truly a language and points out how we never really practice talking the way we practice our instrument- why is that? Because we are IMMERSED in the language we speak from the first day we’re born.  So what do you do about the language of music? Immerse yourself in THAT language, too.  Now that doesn’t ONLY mean theory and reading and all that, on a deeper level it means to play in the moment, surround yourself with music and musicians, folks who speak the language.  It also means listening when you play, just like in a conversation.  Enough of that for now, but before I end this post I will leave you with one last message from Mr. Wooten’s book- STOP playing your instrument and START playing MUSIC- think on that a while and be happy!