Quote:
Originally Posted by UPSTROKE
This may get some people mad at me but I feel like I would like to get a dialog started on this subject. I'm new to this site, so I may be way out of line. But, I'm finding some harsh criticism of young drummers just starting out.
Those drummers among us that have been playing many, many years may have forgotten how we sounded at 13, 15, or 16 years old. We had big dreams & ambition for our musical future. We also, fortunately had a lot of energy to pour into playing drums. It was also a great way to relieve some of the frustration of events going on in our lives. These young people today are trying every bit as hard as we did to become great musicians and leave their mark on the planet. They don't have any where near the musical market selection that we did, but they just keep working at it anyway.
It is my philosophy that we have a responsibility to reach back and help any and all of these upcoming musicians of the future in any way we can. Wouldn't you have really appreciated that when you were at that age? What they need is confidence, encouragement, and positive assistance. Telling them that they are no good will help and encourage them how???
A positive attitude mixed with a lot of care, patience and guidance will be worth a lot more for all of us.
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But see the problem with the above comment was that this poster stopped practicing what he preached the moment anyone questioned him on his own point of view. Several months ago I was told by someone that I was getting flamed on this site by some guy named givemethebeat, who was pretending to be some great older expert of drumming, but was saying ridiculous things that essentially amounted to unaccountable nonsense. Now I've been flamed before of course, but I usually make it a habit not to allow the really dumb stuff to get by, especially on a smaller forum where 2 or 3 guys can sort of take over and run the comments into the ground for weeks or even months. When I got here, that's exactly what I saw.
During my time dispatching givemethebeat (who had apparently caused a stir here for awhile with several posters) I noticed over to the side how UPSTROKE was getting more and more irked that people were'nt paying enough attention to him. But instead of letting me take care of an issue quickly he decided to interject his POV regarding decorum, and forcefully.
Truth be known, this poster had no idea whatsoever of forum based decorum and instead tried to assert himself as the voice of moral authority for this website. I had also seen him try this with little success at another site, so I knew that his lecture had nothing to do with educating me, but everything to do with people spending more time with him. When an older musician pulls that with a younger guy the light switch just goes off, and all the flowery prose in the beginning is of no consequence.
After all teaching is a profession, and you have to learn that just like you would drumming. And if a guy comes here and has age thrown at you to blanket all these obvious things, then see ya later. Moreover, the issue is compounded by rarely seeing skillsets or even faces associated with Internet conversation.
Therefore young guys often ask...Does this older musician know what he is talking about? Is he trained? Can he actually play? You would be very interested to know that most of the really opinionated older posters on drum forums refuse to post their own work and browbeat you for even asking about it.
Now why do you think that is? Well, not being able to play is just one answer. There was a guy recently exposed on a hostile forum to be 15 years old when he had been slamming his peers for 2 years pretending to be a 45 year old music teacher. There's another over ay MXDP who has been doing the same thing except much worse for close to 4 years. He's just now about to get his come uppance.
Sure, if UPSTROKE lived up the road from me and I had seen him play and knew some stuff about him, then sure I would be willing to overlook some of the eccentric stuff, same as he would most likely overlook my foolish opinions that he didn't like. But when you come to these Internet forums, it's just not the same. There are too many people making it up on the spot for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with music.
Bottom line...if you want to lecture on a drum forum, you have to attempt to understand the dynamics of the place, provide polite evidence of your expertise, post a little music yourself, and go with that. Your own personal world seldom translates well behind a computer.