Drummers are famous for their hot tempers, and also for being good dancers. Here’s my theory.

The key to good improvised drumming is the precise moment the sound comes out. When you are improvising drumming, you are tracking the structure of the music, anticipating changes, thinking of repertoire and making judgements on creative ideas, but while you are doing all this, there is a sort of fast track conduit from your ears to your hands. In here is a really fast pathway where you are adjusting your physical actions to reflect fluctuations in the tempo, unexpected changes by other musicians, and other emergencies like loss of grip on a drumstick, starting to fall off your seat, or the drum working loose from its position.

Here are the possible outcomes of intending to hit a drum:

• You hit the drum at the right time for your intended pattern
• You hit the drum at the wrong time for your intended pattern, but still on the beat
• You don’t hit the drum
• You hit the drum completely out of time.

Of these, 1 is the best and 4 should be avoided at all costs. The order of 2 and 3 is a matter of preference.

It’s the same with dancing:

• Do a move, great.
• Don’t do a move, fine.
• Half-do a move? Terrible.

The key thing about this is that you get into the routine of making snap decisions. If you hesitate even a moment to reflect, then you end up hitting the drum at the wrong time.

I was in the band for 4 years and we were pretty committed. At a rough guess, 4 years x 50 weeks x 2 rehearsals x 3 hrs x 1/3 of the time playing x 60 minutes per hour x 120 beats a minute x (2 for left hand + 1 for right hand + 1 for left foot) comes to 11,520,000 instances of that decision. Considering every time you do something mentally your mind subtly re-arranges itself to be able to do that thing better, and that I made that call on average nearly a thousand times a day for my whole life so far, that’s got to have done something with the way my brain works.

Unfortunately, this isn’t ideal in some social situations. Irritating oik grabs your bum for the nth time? I feel like pun… oops I seem to have punched him.