By Steve Holmes

In Part 1 of this interview I asked Dave about musically adjusting priorities as he progressed in his drumming. In part 2 we were driving to a rehearsal space to shoot some video (that I’ll be posting soon). The resulting conversation was a lot of fun:

A mp3 of part 2 is available here.

Dave DiCenso: The rudiments are our words. Our vocabulary words. You can be a master at reciting our vocabulary words but until you can hear them in the context of something, they’re virtually useless to you. It’s a huge point I try to make. That’s what gets people over the hurdle of sounding like you’re pasting licks on top of the music.

Steve Holmes: Checklist style.

DD: Yeah, exactly.

SH: And that’s an easy trap to fall into . Especially if you’ve put in a lot of time learning a cool lick, or a cool phrase. You look for an opportunity to play it.

DD: Yeah. That’s a mistake of youth. That’s a huge mistake. Because that’s not music. That’s like having a conversation, and you have a cool word that you just looked up in the dictionary, and you’r e just waiting for an opportunity to use it. And it’s not always going to be appropriate.

SH: (in a sarcastic geek voice) That’s very parenthetical of you Dave.

(Laughter)

SH: I don’t even think that was the right context. It was the first big word I could think of right then.
It’s interesting because the other side of that, and I would like to think this is a good sign for me because I have soloing vocabulary stuff I’m working on, but I don’t find myself playing it a lot either while I’m improvising, or playing music. Because the situation hasn’t occurred to where it’s a good time to orchestrate this figure using the new sticking, or that fill would sound good here.

DD: That’s because out of the thousands of words that you and I have already used, besides your cute “parenthetical” word. We’re using words like “it” and “and”. Very common vernacular. And that’s what life is.

SH: Although “vernacular” is kind of a big word..

( Laughter )

SH: See! I caught you!!

( Laughter )

SH: No I totally get your point though. Again: red, green and blue are usually what get ‘er done.

DD: Right! Right.

SH: That’s great that you learned how to make the color “magic turquoise”. Where ya going to paint with that color?

DD: Where you going to paint with it?

SH: Right, where ya going to paint with “magic turquoise”?

DD: Yeah man.
This is a communal effort. Life and music. And you’re “magic turquoise” is not gonna find much…

SH: Although “magic turquoise” is pretty cool. I mean, from a drumming stand-point. It’s all about the context..

DD: I’m just pointing to you saying you haven’t found much use for these…that’s because you’re only going to find so much use, you know what I mean?

SH: The reason you make “magic turquoise” in the first place is not to use in a musical setting. It’s to play something cool. You don’t learn the “blush-da” so you can use it on a pop gig. I learned it because I saw Steve Smith do it in his old DCI videos from the late 80’s. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Then I saw one of the teachers at M.I do it, and I immediately stopped him had him show it to me. It’s just about being Fonzie.

DD: Haha right!
You know what’s helped me tremendously? Look at the Blush-da, or any other rudiment, as a figure. Most people use the blushda as a dotted-8th note figure. How many times can you permutate the dotted-8th note? Two times. So, if you’re thinking in shapes, and not minutiae, not the micro-space but bigger space, like shapes. Then, that stuff becomes much more easily integrated. Adaptable, because you hear it from a musical place. You don’t hear a quarter note and say “I could fit a blushda here.” You hear a figure, and you know that a blushda fits into that figure. And maybe aesthetically, the blushda will be cool. Maybe aesthetically, something else would be cooler in the space of that shape. To me it’s about hearing the shape, not the rudiment.

sings a four bar groove with a generic dotted-8th figure on the 4th bar

DD: Now, intellectually I know that a blushda would have fit there. Aesthetically? I don’t know. It depends on what else is going on in the context. I don’t know man, sometimes talking about this shit, it doesn’t have as much weight in words as it does in my head.

SH: No I get what you’re saying. Even if the figure is perfect for the fill, it still would sound a little forced.

DD: It comes down to individual taste, and Aesthetic values.

SH: You know when you play that stuff? On the fade out. When the song’s fading out. I love when that happens and you turn it up and hear some more aggressive cool stuff!

DD: Another level of that is, say the blushda is aesthetically appropriate there. Maybe you don’t want to play it on the figure. Maybe you want to play it off the figure. Then make sure you’ve worked on your blushdas starting..

SH: Starting on the “e”…and not only on the downbeat.

DD: On the “e”, yes!
And it’s like you just “mobilized” that word. It’s much more easily adaptable.

SH: And at that point it feels more like we’re playing music, as opposed to the kid that just learns the sticking. He’s not going to be able to function in the capacity that we’re talking about. But if you approach it from a musical standpoint, or a compositional standpoint then you can do that. And maybe have the discretion to realize when it’s not working.

DD: Maybe a final layer on what we’re talking about: You can play the blushda starting on any 16th note space in a measure. Now, can you hear around it? Can you hear the rest of the band playing on the downbeat? There’s ..so much joy in that. Rather than your ears shutting off to what the band is doing, you latch on to the quarter-note, and your figure. But you can’t hear the context. Then it’s not as enjoyable, and the pocket may become suspect. Because you can’t hear the context.

SH: It’s hard to hear that stuff in real-time. That’s another challenge.

DD: I think that’s one thing that will keep us going for the rest of our lives. Getting better at that. There are still times when I have to shut my ears off because I can’t handle hearing everything at the same time that I’m speaking. It’s not often, and I don’t ever want to be in that state, but I’m still limited in that way to a certain degree. I’ll be working on that for the rest of time.

Steve drums on the steering wheel for a bit

DD: Yeah man.

More steering wheel 32nds notes….

DD: Whoa!

SH: That’s the paradiddle stuff I’m working on.

DD: That’s amazing dude. I can’t do that with my hands.

SH: Oh stop it

Dave drums a little on the dash

DD: Wow not even close. You must have sick wrists.

SH: It’s all about doubles.

Steve does a Double stroke roll on the steering wheel..
Dave joins in on the dash

SH: That’s because you’ve spent more time on the kit and I’ve spent more time on the wheel!

(laughter)

SH: So you’re like “Man I’ve been gigging all my life I don’t have good steering wheel chops!”

(laughter)

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Thanks to Dave DiCenso for taking the time to do this interview.