4 ms·

Are drummers not musicians because they don’t play melodies and harmonies?

earleybird 4y ago
Of course they are, just ask Charlie[0] [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/08/24/charlie-watts-rolling-stones-drummer-mick-jagger/5577698001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/08/2...
ghusto 4y ago
That, is an excellent simile-example (?), and made it clearer for me. Clear enough to say "I don't know!". It feels almost as if the answer is "they are a component of the whole, but not musicians by themselves". i.e. the beat can't be music by itself, but the vocals for example, can. I don't fully believe that though, and am leaning more towards a beat being able to be music by itself too. You can see my dilemma though :P
- 8note 4y ago
  Just practicing the drums can be highly musical: https://youtu.be/SSlEQNoCAXM https://youtu.be/SSlEQNoCAXM Or, I just spent a while whistling a long to take the a train at the end of https://youtu.be/crZ8ALG3tm4 https://youtu.be/crZ8ALG3tm4
- kweingar 4y ago
  I don’t really understand your dilemma. Why are drummers not musicians?
  - bmacho 4y ago
    I guess GP sat down, and thought about it. I do that myself time to time, then I realize that despite to my best efforts I can't defend some common sense ideas, and must accept it as false. Usually hard to even explain. .. just think about it with an open mind, or try to even defend that drummers are musicians. I think most definitions of musicians don't include drummers much more than the costume designers or the publishers. (They work in the music industry, make music better, but can't and don't create music themselves alone.) I lean towards that they are not musicians. Also if GGGP doesn't classify hiphop or rap as music, then the "but the drummers are usually classified as musicians too" argument doesn't work on many levels.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I'd call drummers "musicians" because the drums (which have rhythm) are a necessary part of the musical composition, and the drummer is performing that integral part of the music. What's harder to decide, IMO, is whether a drum solo really constitutes "music". If rap isn't music, then is a drum solo also not music? Personally, I can't stand most rap, but I also get bored with drum solos and usually skip them, even if I otherwise really love the drum parts of the band's other songs.
      - bazoom42 4y ago
        > What's harder to decide, IMO, is whether a drum solo really constitutes "music". That is not hard to decide. Of course a drum solo is music.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        your enjoyment as an individual has nothing to do with musicality but portraying them as related does display reactionary tendencies
        midoridensha 4y ago
        How so? Rap is almost all rhythm, almost no harmony or melody. Drums are all rhythm, no harmony or melody. How the hell is that "reactionary"? It's just a basic fact.
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        are you talking specifically about a rapper without a backing track? that's not a genre, it's an element like a drummer is regardless it's no fact, even the rapper very frequently uses melodic elements. you seem ignorant of it and have no ear for it.
    - kweingar 4y ago
      Either you opened your mind a touch too much or you’re just being contrarian. Hard to tell. I would be very interested to see any published definition of “musician” or “music” in a dictionary that would exclude drums. The comparison of drummers to costume designers and publishers is so weak that I find it hard to believe you actually think this. I am also glad that you brought the conversation back to rap. My original analogy of rap to drumming wasn’t very good, because a huge majority of rap music does have melody, harmony, form, and rhythm, no different than any other genre of music. For reference, this is at the top of the charts today: https://youtu.be/I4DjHHVHWAE https://youtu.be/I4DjHHVHWAE
- omnicognate 4y ago
  There is no dilemma. Rhythm is an utterly fundamental, inseparable part of music. If anything, it's arguably more fundamental than melody (and certainly more so than harmony). Just try getting a computer to play the notes of some of your favourite tunes with equal - or, better, random - duration and weighting if you want to be convinced of that. Also observe that music without melody can be found everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich to the Kodo Drummers, but to exclude rhythm relegates you to the really out there stuff like 4'33" (complete silence) or music composed of randomly timed or continuously varying sounds. We have perfectly good terms to distinguish between rhythm and melody such as, you know, "rhythm" and "melody". Your instinctive desire to define "music" so as to somehow exclude rhythm is simply wrong.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    > Also observe that music without melody can be found everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich Steve Reich would dispute this, with gusto. You can only possibly make the claim that he ever composed non-melodic sound in his earliest years (e.g. "Come Out"), but even then he was fascinated by the implicit melodic signatures of otherwise non-melodic music (realized later in a piece like Different Trains, where he explicitly has instruments play the melody of spoken words).
    - omnicognate 4y ago
      I didn't say he only made non-melodic music. I don't see on what basis he or anyone would describe Clapping Music (which I recently saw performed at a school concert, hence it being on my mind), for example, as melodic.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        Fair enough, though Clapping Music is AFAIR the exception that proves the rule.
- froh 4y ago
  > simile-example analogue - the thing which is compared analogy - the act of comparing in this case you'd use "analogy", as in "this is an excellent analogy ..." the analogue is the musical characteristics of the drums, in reference to musical styles, moving from style to instruments by, well, analogy.
  - ghusto 4y ago
    Thank you! I _knew_ there was a word for it :P
8note 4y ago
When I played drums, I played them melodically. It's not particularly out there, you're just limited on which notes you have available
denton-scratch 4y ago
Old joke: Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A: A drummer.
GoblinSlayer 4y ago
I think drums are more expressive than rap, in comparison rap sounds monotone, but monotone drumming isn't used in music.
parenthesis 4y ago
Roy Haynes is one of the greatest musicians I have ever heard.

Of course they are, just ask Charlie[0] [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/08/24/charlie-watts-rolling-stones-drummer-mick-jagger/5577698001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/08/2...

ghusto 4y ago

That, is an excellent simile-example (?), and made it clearer for me. Clear enough to say "I don't know!". It feels almost as if the answer is "they are a component of the whole, but not musicians by themselves". i.e. the beat can't be music by itself, but the vocals for example, can. I don't fully believe that though, and am leaning more towards a beat being able to be music by itself too. You can see my dilemma though :P

8note 4y ago
Just practicing the drums can be highly musical: https://youtu.be/SSlEQNoCAXM https://youtu.be/SSlEQNoCAXM Or, I just spent a while whistling a long to take the a train at the end of https://youtu.be/crZ8ALG3tm4 https://youtu.be/crZ8ALG3tm4
kweingar 4y ago
I don’t really understand your dilemma. Why are drummers not musicians?
- bmacho 4y ago
  I guess GP sat down, and thought about it. I do that myself time to time, then I realize that despite to my best efforts I can't defend some common sense ideas, and must accept it as false. Usually hard to even explain. .. just think about it with an open mind, or try to even defend that drummers are musicians. I think most definitions of musicians don't include drummers much more than the costume designers or the publishers. (They work in the music industry, make music better, but can't and don't create music themselves alone.) I lean towards that they are not musicians. Also if GGGP doesn't classify hiphop or rap as music, then the "but the drummers are usually classified as musicians too" argument doesn't work on many levels.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I'd call drummers "musicians" because the drums (which have rhythm) are a necessary part of the musical composition, and the drummer is performing that integral part of the music. What's harder to decide, IMO, is whether a drum solo really constitutes "music". If rap isn't music, then is a drum solo also not music? Personally, I can't stand most rap, but I also get bored with drum solos and usually skip them, even if I otherwise really love the drum parts of the band's other songs.
    - bazoom42 4y ago
      > What's harder to decide, IMO, is whether a drum solo really constitutes "music". That is not hard to decide. Of course a drum solo is music.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      your enjoyment as an individual has nothing to do with musicality but portraying them as related does display reactionary tendencies
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        How so? Rap is almost all rhythm, almost no harmony or melody. Drums are all rhythm, no harmony or melody. How the hell is that "reactionary"? It's just a basic fact.
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        are you talking specifically about a rapper without a backing track? that's not a genre, it's an element like a drummer is regardless it's no fact, even the rapper very frequently uses melodic elements. you seem ignorant of it and have no ear for it.
  - kweingar 4y ago
    Either you opened your mind a touch too much or you’re just being contrarian. Hard to tell. I would be very interested to see any published definition of “musician” or “music” in a dictionary that would exclude drums. The comparison of drummers to costume designers and publishers is so weak that I find it hard to believe you actually think this. I am also glad that you brought the conversation back to rap. My original analogy of rap to drumming wasn’t very good, because a huge majority of rap music does have melody, harmony, form, and rhythm, no different than any other genre of music. For reference, this is at the top of the charts today: https://youtu.be/I4DjHHVHWAE https://youtu.be/I4DjHHVHWAE
omnicognate 4y ago
There is no dilemma. Rhythm is an utterly fundamental, inseparable part of music. If anything, it's arguably more fundamental than melody (and certainly more so than harmony). Just try getting a computer to play the notes of some of your favourite tunes with equal - or, better, random - duration and weighting if you want to be convinced of that. Also observe that music without melody can be found everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich to the Kodo Drummers, but to exclude rhythm relegates you to the really out there stuff like 4'33" (complete silence) or music composed of randomly timed or continuously varying sounds. We have perfectly good terms to distinguish between rhythm and melody such as, you know, "rhythm" and "melody". Your instinctive desire to define "music" so as to somehow exclude rhythm is simply wrong.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  > Also observe that music without melody can be found everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich Steve Reich would dispute this, with gusto. You can only possibly make the claim that he ever composed non-melodic sound in his earliest years (e.g. "Come Out"), but even then he was fascinated by the implicit melodic signatures of otherwise non-melodic music (realized later in a piece like Different Trains, where he explicitly has instruments play the melody of spoken words).
  - omnicognate 4y ago
    I didn't say he only made non-melodic music. I don't see on what basis he or anyone would describe Clapping Music (which I recently saw performed at a school concert, hence it being on my mind), for example, as melodic.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      Fair enough, though Clapping Music is AFAIR the exception that proves the rule.
froh 4y ago
> simile-example analogue - the thing which is compared analogy - the act of comparing in this case you'd use "analogy", as in "this is an excellent analogy ..." the analogue is the musical characteristics of the drums, in reference to musical styles, moving from style to instruments by, well, analogy.
- ghusto 4y ago
  Thank you! I _knew_ there was a word for it :P

8note 4y ago

When I played drums, I played them melodically. It's not particularly out there, you're just limited on which notes you have available

denton-scratch 4y ago

Old joke: Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A: A drummer.

GoblinSlayer 4y ago

I think drums are more expressive than rap, in comparison rap sounds monotone, but monotone drumming isn't used in music.

parenthesis 4y ago

Roy Haynes is one of the greatest musicians I have ever heard.