– It's maybe, if we
encouraged a little bit more tasteful experimentation,
and also to remind ourselves that this is an artwork
that you're working on, and you're a musician;
you're not just someone that's just blasting these things, that this is a musical instrument– – Absolutely, yeah. – And that you have an imagination. (drum beats) (drum beats and cymbal clashes) – Yeah, man. (clapping) – Okay. – (laughing) That was awesome! – Thank you.
– That was awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, it's
Mr. Dave King here at Drumeo. Thank you so much for
coming out, buddy, yeah. – I'm gonna catch my breath
for about 20 minutes. – Go for it, man, go for
it, I'll introduce you: For those who don't know who Dave King is, he is, well obviously he's
an incredible drummer.
Also, the drummer an
co-founder of Bad Plus, one of my favorite jazz groups. In fact, that was the jazz group that really got me into jazz, and, so I thank you so much for that. – I'm glad, thanks. – Yeah, you also do a lot of other things. You have a quintet, the
Dave King Trucking Company, Dave King Trio as well, King's Speech. You have a lot of cool
little side projects and projects of your own
that you're working with, so go and check him out online.
If you want to follow him online, go to his website, daveking.net. – That's right. – You can see his little about section where you can see what
he's currently working on, you can see tour dates and
all that kind of stuff, and if you want to follow him online, you can check out his Instagram and social channels which is @googlebully. Is that correct? – Yeah, that's for the Instagram thing. – That's the Instagram, googlebully. – That's right. – So are you a bully on Google? – No, no, it was a character I developed 'cause I visited the Google campus, a friend of mine worked there, and I went to their campus in Northern California, and I thought, 'cause it's so wide
open and everybody seems so friendly to each other, that if they hired one
person that was just there to cause tension, and he just
kinda hangs around the campus, and "Where are you going?", and he stops and grabs somebody's laptop
and throws it on the ground.
– (laughing) That'll be you? – Yeah, I thought it'd be a fun character. – I love it, I love it. Check him out on Instagram @googlebully, (Dave laughs) and the other cool thing
that I haven't mentioned yet, you gotta check Dave out on YouTube. He's got a really cool YouTube
channel called RATIONAL FUNK, and he's got, you were
saying 60 episodes on there. It is so funny, it's so
good, you just gotta go and check it out; after this lesson, go to YouTube and find RATIONAL FUNK. – It's been over for a few
years, but they're all there.
– They're great. – We did it for about a year and a half. – You've had some guests on, you had Mark Guiliana on there. – Yeah, Mark was on there,
Jim Black, Jim Burns, some other people, Reid from
the Bad Plus, Reid Anderson. It was fun. – Very cool. Well you're here at Drumeo now to teach a lesson on improving your improv. (laughing) – We worked on that title for a long time, had some focus groups, (laughing) and they passed– – [Host] Took us two years
to think of that title.
– Two years, we've been here. I've been here for about
two years, living with Dave. – It's been good. – In his spare bedroom with
I think it's a Murphy bed. – I've got to know Dave
on a whole new level. – We work out together, we
do white belts in karate. – We do our Pilates every morning. – Oh this one, yeah. I've been looking at the wrong one, I've been looking at the still camera. – Yeah, you're still getting used to it. We got a lot of cameras
in here. (laughing) – I was looking at this one down here. – So, improving your improv. Now, improv is a tough,
tough topic to teach.
How do you teach someone
to improv, you know? – Yeah, improvising, obviously it is sort of a mysterious space;
I'm not sure even how the neurological studies that have been commissioned over the years to figure out what's actually going on when people are, but in the way that we're
improvising all the time, talking, I think it's a language
when you're playing music, and we talked about that
on some of the lessons that we have put online
today, and whatever– – The course that we've put online. – Yeah, and rhythm languages, and, it is a difficult thing though
to actually get yourself in a pure improvisational space.
Even the greatest jazz musicians, some of 'em aren't necessarily improvising as much as they're a sign
of, developed a language that's personal to them
that they play within, and rearrange letter and
numbers, and things like that, and I try to put myself in a position to not play many rifts, just
even looking over and seeing, oh, there's a music stand
here, whatever this was, we didn't use all day, and it's like, oh I've played on those before, they sound good, and do whatever.
It's almost like setting
yourself up to have a dramatic and sometimes vulnerable
space to work within to create these rhythmic structures, or just to develop a
language that you can use when called upon, and not feel tense or hiccupping through
it, and not feeling like you have to rely on
your rifts, and rely on flashy things to get you over. It's more like actually trying to create some sort of artistic space.
– Yeah, so for those watching, this is gonna be a really cool lesson. We have done stuff on creativity
and soloing stuff already on Drumeo, but this a
cool different approach, and I thing you're gonna like it. We're gonna talk about
preparing yourself for improv, and basically the technical
agendas to improvisation. So throughout this you're
gonna do a lot of improv. In fact, this whole lesson is improv. – That's correct. – Yeah, I don't even know who I am. – I might not be that good. (laughing) – Yeah, we're making it up on the spot. So where do you begin, man? What are some tools that you
can start developing for this? – Well, you know, one thing
if you're interested in jazz music or in contemporary jazz, whatever, using of course lots of different reference points
throughout music history. Modern jazz musicians are
dealing with a lot of texts. Not just the texts of jazz history, but music from all over the world in contemporary classical music, and lots of different, like I said, reference points to
start improvising with.
One thing that I thought I could do, is do a little playing based around just a mid-tempo kind of swing feel. Almost just like a small
group jazz-type setting, and then talk about
what I'm thinking about when I'm just getting the
orchestra or the drums together. All these different tones,
using different touches to get different sounds. To prepare myself for a
situation when I'm with people, and I can react or not react to things, or I can support things
or not support things, create counterpoint, create tension, create the release of
tension, all of these things, and then I can talk about
just note value improvising where I just have a
quarter note in my head at different tempos that I play against, and I sub-divide– – I love it.
– And do these things, and then
you could do the same thing with different time signatures, or focus on playing over the bar, or all these other ideas that basically unlocks you, and
that's kind of, I suppose the way a melodic improviser uses either melody based improviser,
or chord based improvising, or anything where you're
learning how to thread your way through different
chord changes and what not. Understanding the way that works, but that's still not personalized. – Right. – What you really want to
try and do in my opinion is prepare yourself to receive
the information as it comes. – Love that, yeah. – And so a lot of that is about unlocking channels that hiccup,
give you hiccups, or, stop the flow of maybe ideas coming in which everyone experiences.
– [Host] Oh yeah. – But, I guess these are ways that I use to put myself in a
position to have to deal with these things and let them
keep flowing and not stop. Try to keep a stream of
consciousness of ideas, if you will. – Let's give it a try. – Okay, I'll start with
sort of a jazz thing. This'll just be kind of a complete idea, and then I'll talk about
how it breaks down, and everything like that. – Yeah, what was going through your head. That's a big one, I'd love to hear that.
– A lot of it is going through my head is thinking that the sushi near the ocean is better than in the Midwest. – (chuckling) In Minneapolis. It's a little bit better, that's good. – That was something I was thinking about during that last one. (laughing) So, well since we had sushi today. – I love it, yeah. (laughing) – Alright. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) – It's beautiful. – Thank you. – That was beautiful, man. So what was going through your head? – Well, there, I was playing
like I was soloing a bit. So, I probably wouldn't
have been going that nuts if I was having to interact, but maybe in a duo setting,
something like that could've been nice with
a saxophone or something.
With the sort of center of the time being (cymbals clashing) I'm playing 4-4, and then I was experimenting
with different triplet figures and then double
time figures, 16th note. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) You know, playing: (drums boom and cymbals clash) and 16th note, just kind
of using those subdivisions with just a straight core note field. The idea that I'm just trying
to create streams of ideas. I'm not necessarily
concerned with the ultimate taste zone at this point. – Sure. – It's much more like
here I'm using dynamics, tonal things, moving around the drums, but the whole thing is
a sort of time choir. There is a center to the time, but it's almost like I'm experimenting with different, like
I said, tonal quality, dynamic color, but at the same time, always adhering to this sort of pulse, and I'll do something like that. I used to that a lot more when
I was practicing a lot more, but in different tempos, and then sometimes I
don't even have to think, I don't think about so
much like in a swing feel.
When it's over, I can
just take the same idea, that whole first solo, for instance, was based on just this idea of here, broken 16th note. (rhythmic drum beats and cymbal clashes) – Right. – It's just this, I like looking at you the whole time there
because then I don't have to think about the sushi too much. – I'm giving you, what is it, all the encouragement that you need. – (laughing) Exactly. But that idea that, what I'm hearing there are these syncopated streams
that can over the bar, use different groupings, five groupings.
(drums and cymbals alternate beats) But you hear this almost
marching band drum line. (drums and cymbals beat in rhythmic time) You hear that? You hear that sort of
center that's just funky. (drum beats) Now it's easy to get tripped up, and be like, where do I go from here, and that's this idea that
the stream keeps going. All this different syncopation. And these aren't rifts, you know? They're more like syncopated musical phrases that
just are streams coming out. – Now, are you thinking
ahead when you're doing this, and thinking, well what should I do next? Should I go to this pattern next, or, – No.
– This grouping next,
or you're just doing it and you're reacting to how it sounds? – Yeah, I'm just kind of reacting
almost like a line drawing in art where you start this line, and it's gonna go where
it's gonna go, but, there is a flow to it,
a shape, a composition. And so, I'm not saying this is something that happens right away,
but I'm saying these are sort of the spaces that I use to, the idea of practicing
improvising is very interesting because we can work on
different time signatures, compositions, you've got a read a chart, you gotta do whatever.
Some of the information is there. This is just information for you to borrow from, use from, to
stop those moments of tense lack of ideas or whatever. Sometimes even in jazz,
sometimes if I'm playing some up-tempo or any other tempo, just having a nice strong ride beat, which we talked about in the other lessons is a safe space to go to when
you're sort of like ha ha ha, you know, you've got a lot of information coming at you, or your whatever.
You've still go this
really solid time space. The exact same thing with
what I'm doing there. I still feel a very strong
internal quarter note. So even if I'm doing these
triplet based things, I've still got: (drum beats softly) Even I'll use huge spaces or rests, I can still hear this center to everything, and for me, even the most abstract music, the most avant-garde music,
it can be rubato music, having that pulse, whether it be esoteric, or a strict rational pulse, is the key to all of it
as far as I'm concerned.
– So you're singing that quarter note? – Absolutely. – You're subdividing that quarter note. – I'm just feeling that
space and then trying to improvise within it. I'm not trying to rely
on a 12-8 jazz pattern with a bell cymbal or something. Of course, all of those things
I've worked very hard to do and all these different Ed
Blackwell based patterns, whatever, he's one of
my favorite drummers. Some of these things, but
also just be able to improvise within those spaces in
a way that feels fresh.
It feels like I'm actually taking risks, I'm actually creating a
dramatic element, and, hopefully the audience
can ride along with that and feel that from you, and I think that's what makes it, to me, a high art form is that there is risk involved, and like I said, vulnerability involved, and I like that; I like
knowing that someone is in there trying to deal,
not just coolly doing everything they know they can do. – Where they heard something a
hundred thousand times, yeah. – Yeah, and when you see something, you hear some of the greatest jazz masters like Tony Williams, and, some of my heroes like
Elvin Jones, Paul Motian, Jack DeJohnette, people like that, you can hear it's real
improvising, it's real risk taking, especially certain people like Paul Motian or Jack DeJohnette, are people
that are edgier that use elements of really progressive
ideas and modern ideas.
It's not always nailed. It's not always this idea
that everything has to be really nailed and perfect. I don't know, I mean in certain elements of your music career, yes. You're playing drums for a big pop gig. You're playing drums
with Justin Timberlake. You can't just be back there
doing all this esoterical– – [Host] (laughing) Yeah, of course. – You gotta be like
nail it to the sequencer and do your thing, but as an improviser, there are other tool-sets,
and there are other parameters that have to be adhered to. – So we got that, we
understand your head space, and that's, I think, the
goal for a lot of people. I'd love to get in that head space where first off, egos aside,
and you're okay with trying stuff out and improving, but, now how do we get there? What are some of the steps that you took, or some of the ways that
we can build that facility? – Well like I said, it depends on, if I'm talking to a broad audience, I'm not sure the life experiences or their technical
abilities, but I would say there are ways to immerse
yourself in those languages of creative music, jazz music, by checking out all the master recordings, and all of the mountain of music that's out there.
To just immerse yourself in languages that might turn you on, but as a player, just setting up, you don't even have to
be someone that can play a really great jazz ride beat or whatever. It's much more like if
you're just interested in getting an improvisational
state together that you can use in pop,
in rock, in anything, I would say trying to diminish the idea
that there are roles in the, and I don't mean technically
roles, I mean role-playing. That the hi hat plays
this role in the thing, and the snare drum plays
this role in the thing, and the floor tom plays this role, all these rational roles that we hear. Instead, maybe think about the whole thing as this tonal orchestra,
and then from there, you can start to just play with it. – Okay. – And that's one of the
ways that I play with touch, and then I'll give myself a center or not. I can say I'm gonna have a center, I'm gonna focus on a 12-8
triplet field to a center, and then maybe I'll say I'm
gonna do it without one, I'll do it with one stick in my hand.
So then it'll be like
okay, I've set myself up. I've given myself a couple of rules, and within that arena, I
try to explore those spaces while keeping the rules of the arena. Then there can be some
moments when I've decided I'm just gonna create some drum piece that doesn't necessarily
adhere to a time relationship. It's much more tonal or color based. I can bring out some time
vignettes within it or not, but I give myself two to three minutes; I talk about this when I teach, I give myself two to
three minutes at the end of maybe a really regimented
technical exercise. Or I'm just hitting, playing ride cymbal, up-tempo ride cymbal for ten
minutes, or doing whatever, where you're just feeling really
comfortable doing whatever.
Then give yourself some
space to just improvise and explore the instrument. So, do you want me to play
another example right now? – Show us an example about– – Like, so if I said to myself
those parameters like I said. So like a 12-8 kind of thing, and I've decided I'm doing this now. I've done this many times, so I'm not sitting here going like oh, what am I going to do? I have an idea of something I want to do, but within that, I don't know
really what the flow will be.
So again, you're facing the realities of what improvising is. It's not this pure from
the mountaintop channel of galactic energy– – There's still parameters that you put. – But there is some of that in there, and, at the highest level, there's a lot of it. And so you prepare yourself
to get into a space of those lines start to appear, and the flow starts to appear, and like any great saxophone solo, or any great artist,
any great composition, it just, how these things
begin and end are mysterious. So within them, you just
try to follow that line.
So okay, I'll think about that, okay. So here's my boom, boom, boom, boom. I'll start there, okay? Three, four: (drum beats with stick tapping) – Unreal. That was unreal, man. – Oh, thank you. – That was very cool, yeah. – So, there you have this
stream of this sort of: (mimics drum) and then every now and
again, I busted out some: (mimics drum) and it's just a line that you follow, and again, this idea
you're touching the drums, this is an organic experience, and, personal, and– – So are you thinking melodies
at that point in your head? Or are you like, just take us
through that thought process.
– Yeah, well again, this thing, it doesn't have to start there, of course. You can just start at
any rudimentary level by just thinking triplets. Having these things and then
developing a language of, I'm not sure where the line crosses from, struggling through it, even though I went through all those
struggles of these things, but again, recognizing
music as a language, and rhythm as a language,
and as also a tonal, colorful, melodic language, so, right there I've got all
these things I can do and hit the drums a certain way, touch them a certain way, but, I could also start just with the basic: (beats drums and clashes cymbals) just mono dynamic sticks in my hands.
I'm not thinking ultimate, you know, I'm the genius improviser that I am. – You are a pretty genius improviser. – No, that was a joke. – No, I wouldn't say it's a joke. – I'm saying that with
a mid-western humility which is sort of passive-aggressive– – You are a very humble guy. – Anyway, the point is, is that (laughing) I'm just gonna play
those triplets right now, and I'm thinking mono dynamically, here's that same language. (mimics drums) Right? (drums beat and cymbal clashes) Make them bleed separate from
each other, they can overlap. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) That wasn't as mono dynamic, that was getting more into dynamics. Here I go, I'm getting excited again, but again, I decided the 16th note: (drum beats) Used rests, so it's not
just a constant stream of 16th notes, but I give
that as my parameter. I'm playing 16th notes and rests. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) I messed up there, but check it out: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) Now let's say we're in there playing rock: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) Now if you heard a fill, we've both heard a fill like that on some pop tune, we'd all be a little bit
like, well, that's unique.
– That's fresh. – Yeah, but that's just 16th: (drum beats and cymbals clash) Because you're using the whole drum set with this less, more dynamic, and breaking up the rolls. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) Ha, I messed up there,
but there it is again. – Well, you were improving it. – We're just sitting here going like oh, I'm gonna play these odd phrases, and this is how you get
to a space in my opinion, where it doesn't matter what kind of music you're playing,
or time signature. So if you wanted me to play an example of odd time version? – Yeah, let's do that, yeah. – Okay, so here's a seven version. So, seven's an odd time
that people like to play in both jazz– – [Host] Rock. – Prog music, prog rock, or whatever. So: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) When you're playing in seven, you hear the 16th notes and rests. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) Just thinking along those, that's…
Beginnings of that kind of thing of subdividing and playing
over the bar, and– – Beginnings, just begin there. But what kind of an exercise did you do or could you recommend to students that want to get into this, and, just to get free with those 16th notes? Kind of like what you did there, I guess? – Well, that was more, I guess, an advanced version of playing seven, and that's an, and we're talking about
improvising within them, and not just playing
figures you've worked out and doing whatever, but again, I would say just starting very simple, and just playing note values like if you're playing 8th: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) If I'm playing in seven, that a simple version of 2-3-4-5-6-7: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) And what I would try and do, personally, is try not to repeat myself a lot because sometimes you can get into a zone: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) because I'm not really
playing my artwork right now, I'm preparing myself on some level.
So I'm just moving around the drums and trying to think in those values. The same thing when I did the 12-8 thing. If I'm playing 4-4, just playing swing, that becomes more of an art thing when I'm trying to play some
jazz versions of whatever. Right now, just this idea
of moving around your drums and experimenting with different touch. That's really how you can start to break down the barrier
of mysteries of improvising. – I love it. So you set a couple parameters, and then just free form 16th
notes with rests if you can. – Yeah, 8th notes, triplets
of values of those things. Use rests, different phrases,
you make sure you use space so it's not just a stream
of 16th notes going around. (drum beats) Now that's its own challenge which I used to do as well which is no rests. And that can be a thing. (drum beats and cymbal clashes) There was a full– – So when you're doing this– – even amount of bars.
– How do you prevent
yourself from stopping when your ears freak you out? You know what I mean? I don't know if this ever happened to you, but I remember doing this many times, and I would hit a cymbal, and I would not expect it, and then it would stop me from playing, or it would throw me off where I would take an extra, you know. – That's that trial
and error like you said if you're used to hearing
something a certain way, that's the whole ideas,
we're jumbling up the roles within the kit, we're exploring. – While still keeping that 16th note. – While keeping it going
and of course if you hit a cymbal in a space with your left hand where you usually are, whatever, and you've got an accent going there, this is a perfect opportunity to be aware that you can control those moments, not be messed up by them, and try to repeat a
moment that messed you up.
I know what you mean, though, as simple as if you're doing triplets, and you start do the main
values of four there: (drum beats and cymbal clashes) or a five: (drum beats) Any of these values, it can
definitely mess with your ears. It's one of the great things that a lot of great masters
use, is this sort of– – To an illusion. – Illusion, and polyrhythmic illusion, and all these other things, by using rests and
accents, and odd groupings. These things all are
developed by just continuing these beat basic streams, and then experimenting within them. And then, of course, this
idea of the rubato version, or just playing a drum piece, which we can do at the end
if you want to do that. – Yeah, let's do that at the end. The couple last things that
I want you to touch on, one of them is the dynamic challenge, too, 'cause you were just
moving around the kit, but you also were using a
lot of dynamics in there. So how do you practice that? How do you get that
into the mix of improv? – Well, again, this idea that oftentimes when people are doing exercises where they're reading accents.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to realize that an accent to
me is the hill and valley, to anyone I suppose,
it's really what creates the shape of great syncopation or of all music, obviously, it's
the basis of all phrasing. And so the idea that how
do you get to that space either when you're working on things where you're accenting a ride beat and then you've got a figure
you're playing with whatever, and you're working on
something maybe academic. My thing was always that we have to find a way
for the drums to sing, to speak like a musical instrument 'cause it is a musical instrument. So often, I feel like it's an instrument that hovers around the space of, and this by no means is
damning anyone's approach, but, it hovers in the space
of not fully explored a lot of the time in the
most popular cultural spaces.
Of the greatest shredding
drummers that show up at the festivals and go (mimics drumming) and blow people's minds,
as brilliant as that is, and as fun as it is to listen to, and I dig it, too, and it's
fun to do if you can do it, and it's cathartic, and
it's all these primal, human element that goes into
what's so great about drums, at the same time, it's like, think about what's
possible versus just like what's possible is how fast you can play on a double pedal, like double
stroke rolls on the double. It's like mono dynamic
avalanches coming at you with spraying a bunch of… You know what I'm saying. – I know what you're
saying, I like that, yeah.
– Instead of all the idiosyncratic corners and unswept places, if you will, in rhythmic language that are possible, not only that you could
use in your compositions, and use whatever music you're playing from the most banal pop music to the most insanely, stressfully academic, and also, deeply spiritually cathartic
music that there is, and I don't mean to
say that, first of all, not that all pop music is banal, but I'm saying we all know
there's some banal pop music where the drum roll– – Yeah, I think we get
what you're saying there. – The drum position is like,
hey, this is what it is.
– Timekeeping. – There's an artwork
to be able to do that, but there are little things that you can bring a personality to, and some of the heaviest
rock drummers as we know, the ones that are the Mount
Rushmore of rock drummers which most people agree on, they all, to the letter,
brought something personal, and some sort of approach
that left the norm. Whether it just be an absolutely
ridiculous feel or touch, or definitely ideas you didn't hear before these people arrived, and they contributed to the pantheon of the great drumming and pop music. And I'm talking about in
the 60's to John Bonham, to, you start a list of them all.
Stewart Copeland and people like that where there's one and onlies. You know what I mean? Well, there's a lot of room
for that still, I think. – Interesting, yeah. – And even with… The commercialization of everything, there's still this space that drummers can inhabit to really state, claim a space in the music that takes it to another level, and there's so many
incredible drummers out there playing the big pop gigs,
and they're all masters, but I'm not sure how deeply personal.
You know, my opinion is like I'm not sure I can sit there and go oh, that's that. I mean, a lot of it is just
this impersonal mastery whereas maybe if we encouraged a little bit more
tasteful experimentation, and also to remind ourselves that this an artwork that you're working
on, and you're a musician. You're not just someone that's
just blasting these things, – Absolutely. – That this is a musical instrument, and that you have an imagination, and you have the ability to hear music in these instruments. – Well, it also separates
you from other drummers, too. 'Cause, yeah, I can hear
Dave King in his playing. It's a personality that
you have on the drums, and I can hear, you can hear
John Bonham in his playing, whereas if you're just
structure playing in the beats and the patterns that you
need to play a timekeeper, and a drummer, not really a musician, it really doesn't separate
you from the rest, right? – Yeah, and there's, like I keep saying, there's a great artwork, as we all know, to being that person that
goes in and does the job and nails it, and is the working thing, and then you roll into whatever drum showcase festivally thing, and you blast a bunch of insane chops, and everybody goes insane, but at the end of the day, the contributions to
the artwork of drumming, there's a ton of room
for people to be thinking about ways to incorporate that musically, not just in your practice
space, and not just in jazz, and not just in these
things where you feel oh, it's jazz, so there's a
lot more room to be whatever.
Well, there's spaces
everywhere in all music. – Yeah, big time. – And so when I think about improvising, I don't think about improvising
just within the jazz canon. I think about improvising and ways I can use it within everything
because I play all music, or at least not just improvising, but at least taking tonal
qualities from my improvisational explorations and using them in regular beats, or if I'm
playing in a hip-hop thing, and I'm thinking, well,
what if I put a towel on my floor tom, and I muted
my snare a certain way, and I played my hi hat a certain, someone like Chris Dave, for
instance, who's a master at– – Master at that stuff, yeah. – Manipulating that
sort of Dilla time warp, temporal time fractures of like whatever, and that's caused a way that people are listening to that music. That's changed it. And I think that… there's tons of room in all music for that no matter how, I suppose just encouraging experimentation is really important, and I
think that's just the more time you spend just searching
and listening to yourself, and using your imagination, I think improvising starts to come up, just like any other language.
Just like being able to play drum line. Just like being able to play great modern country music, or whatever. – Totally. Well, just the way
we're talking right now, where it's all improv,
but we're so comfortable in our own language that
we're able to do that. – That's exactly correct. – And, you need to get to that
stage on the drums, right? – I think it's important, yeah, I think that no matter what
kind of music you're playing, you don't have to be relegated to this, and here we go again, the same anonymous masterful drum solo, or the same masterful just blowing through
things and do whatever.
– Yeah, yeah. – And ultimately, though, who are you, and what do you have to say, and what can you bring to this family, and what can you bring to
the evolution of the music. – [Host] Very cool. – And in jazz, the same,
it's not like everybody playing jazz out there is
ultimately blazing some trail. You can be incredibly
proficient and hireable in doing all these
things, that's wonderful, but there is always room
to try to contribute to this language, and I
suppose I'm interested in humbly attempting to try and– – I love that, though, yeah.
– To at least search for
something that's personal. – Big time. Well, that's a whole topic. I'd love to do a podcast
with you at some point, man. Just stress you on that topic alone, but we're running low on time here, and I want to wrap everything
up in terms of improv. For takeaway for the
students watching this, because there's a lot of great quotes, and great information here, but what are some
takeaways that we could do, and we could use to start
bettering our improv? I know you've already
talked about a lot of it, but maybe just recap. – Well, I suppose, number one, just putting yourself in a safe position of experimenting with, like I said, simple relationships to a quarter note, or a feel. If you're playing some
just jazz ride beat, and you can give yourself the
structure of a tune you like. If you like Thelonious Monk,
those are very memorable tunes. They're typically 32 bar forms or 12 bar blues' or whatever, and you can just play a nice ride beat in different tempos, play
waltzes, play in three, play whatever, and give
yourself the parameters to improvise within those situations.
You're not necessarily just playing time, you're exploring a little bit. I mean, you're playing time, but you're not playing piano
trio time or something. You're experimenting, you're playing solo, but you're playing within that parameter. Different tempos, different whatever. So you can start with those structures, or you can start with zero jazz structure, and more of just like I was doing there of like, oh, well that kind of language, it's got almost a West African language with the 12-8 feel, and
all these other things. But I'm really an improviser. I'm not sitting here saying that I'm a guy that understands the
nine million year history of West African drumming, whatever. It's more like I'm an American artist which means I hear things, I try to have an honest
relationship with those things, and I try to attribute
them to my life experience.
– [Host] Right. – I use them within the avant-garde. I use them within improvised settings. I use them within moments of frantic creativity. I try to draw upon what
I've heard in my life from electronic music
to jazz, to whatever, and I try to use it as an
improvisational language. So it's the same thing
if I'm sitting down, and I'm doing these things. If I'm just exploring on the drum set, I'll give myself that parameter, and then I let myself have free reign, dynamically, my touch, everything.
– Love it. – So again, recapping, sometimes if you have 90 cymbals, take
'em all away and have one. Give yourself limitations. Play only your base drum when you have no hi hat foot anymore, or just hi hat where
the base drum would be. Pushing yourself to hear
the rolls change, you know? – Yeah. – I mean, it's incredible
when you think about someone like even Jim Keltner, something where you have snare
drums positioned everywhere, and what that immediately does, while you're playing you've got two deep tuned snare drums,
tight tuned snare drums. – Now that's a great way
to improve your creativity. – Absolutely. Mess with your setups, yeah, absolutely. Then you'd say someone like Jim Keltner, who's a master studio musician, master drummer of all levels, but Jim Keltner isn't a, he doesn't go out and
play 100 dates a year of progressive jazz music or whatever.
He's someone, but who uses, I feel, and I don't want to be presumptuous, but there is an
improvisational spirit there. There's just like these fills or these things that come out. They have it, they have a
personal idiosyncratic quality that belong to him, and that's why he's on the highest level of those things. It's like a masterful use of
taste and color, and whatever. And it's messing with those systems. Well, what if I have a snare
here, and a snare here, and a snare here, and I've
got shakers taped to me, and I've got all these other
ideas that are deeply personal. Well, that shouldn't end
with just Jim Keltner. There are so many spaces we
all can be contributing to and sometimes we need to free ourselves from the fears of leaving that nest of like, well, this is a
comfortable space historically.
I've studied all the masters
and I know what to do here. Hey man, if that's your role
in life, that beautiful, but there is room, I keep
saying, to personalize it and to try and contribute
something out there. – Very cool, man, very cool. I love this stuff. We filmed the chorus
with you earlier on today for all of you guys
who are Drumeo members, and if you're not, go and
check out drumeo.com/trial, and give it a try because
we filmed a great chorus in developing your
sound for jazz with you, and you talked a little bit
about this stuff in more depth, but thank you so much, man.
We could go for another hour, I'm sure, especially when we're improving, but, (laughing) is there any last things you wanted to say before we wrap up, and then we'll get you to play
a solo in a more rubato feel. – Sure, that'd be great. I don't know, we covered so much today. I'm almost at a loss other than I'm still, I think anyone that cares about improvising and pushing yourself
out of comfortable spaces, I think that it's just as important to, that no matter where you're at, never consider yourself finished, and rely on things you
know you can do well.
We all do that on some level. Everybody does rely on
certain comfortable spaces, and that's okay, but, I think
it's just really important to continue searching for a
dramatic element in the music, and that again, elevates
it to some other space. I suppose there's nothing more human than a certain level of
vulnerability and frailty, and I think that when that
enters your art realm, people can relate to that, no matter how intellectual it might be, or no matter how abstract. When there's a human
being going for something, everyone can get behind that idea no matter what you do in your life. – It's relatable. – It's relatable, and
it's relatable to the idea we might not get out of this, and there's something
beautiful, vulnerable, and humble about that, and so I just think no matter where you're
at in your development from the most masterful drummers ever, I have to say that I think on some level that level of mastery can be
a little boring, you know? – Interesting.
– You know, it's just sort of like– – Yeah, yeah, okay. – I mean, who wants to
hang out with the most unbelievably nailing it, I don't know, I'm interested in those– – Is that why I don't
have any friends, Dave? Is that why? – Yeah, me neither. – Yeah, I wonder why
that's what he thinks. – I have to rethink that idea. (laughing) Because no one want to hang out because I nail everything so hard. (laughing) I don't think I nailed much today. I'm gonna have so many friends when I leave here, it's unbelievable.
– We'll find out in the YouTube comments, I'm sure, how many friends we have. – This guy doesn't know what he's saying. Who is this lunatic? (laughing) – That's so good, man. Hey, thank you so much, buddy. – Alright, thank you. – We're gonna wrap it up there because time is of the essence, but if you guys like what you saw here, come to drumeo.com/trial,
check out the whole course. It'll be up in a couple months from now if you're watching this
lesson live, that is, and make sure you follow Dave King online, daveking.net, or on
Instagram at the googlebully, or just @googlebully, and
check out his YouTube channel, which he hasn't updated in a while, but there's 60 great episodes from his RATIONAL FUNK persona. – Yeah, that's a persona. – We'll leave it there. (laughing) Okay, then I'm gonna head out the room. You're gonna play us out with a solo– – Sure.
– Free time, right? – Sure, yeah, it might
incorporate elements of time here and there, but we
won't think about that. I'm not thinking about that. – Improv it, and take your time with it. – I'm gonna, this one's gonna
be about 45 minutes long. – [Host] Perfect, alright! – So anybody who tunes out,
you're not keeping it real. – (laughing) Yeah, I love it. We'll see you guys a
little later, bye bye. (bell ringing) (cymbal chiming) (drum beats and cymbals clashing).
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