Drummer Thomas Pridgen Breaks Down Drumming Scenes from Movies | GQ

[Music] do you touch my drum set nope this movie might be the most non-authentic and the reason why i say it is that drumming is all about beating you're never gonna know if someone hits a stick and it's a dent in the stick unless you don't play hey gq this is thomas pridgen and this is the breakdown [Music] first up whiplash not quite my tempo here we go five six [Music] downbeat on 18. okay here we go immediately when i watch whiplash i laugh because the tempo he gives them is so short it's like no one can catch a tempo if it's that shirt because it's like you need a little bit of time to like get your little dance on to get the like tempo right and he gives them no time so [Music] you're rushing here we go the conductor is like loki hazing this guy and i've been hazed by music directors a lot of times people tell you that it's for your own good yeah he's only on you because he knows you're good and you can do better or whatever but sometimes it's crazy because you don't really know what people think you're just thinking that they hate you and when you're in um school bends everyone comes from different dichotomies they come from different places and you're all just trying to blend in and playing the music together that's all it's about so i think this is a perfect example of trying to understand other musicians on stage i came in on suicidal tendencies i came in on thundercat came in on mars volta and all these things are so different from each other but i've had to come in as a person that's learning the music trying to channel this sound which makes a lot of times trying to understand what people want much more difficult here we go okay i think he was counting the music in seven so a lot of times you play music usually music is in 4-4 timing so i'd be like one two three four one two three four one two three four so i think he wanted this song to be in seven so he was one two three four five six seven one two three four five six seven he was counted as seven eight so he wasn't really explaining that in the the best form but i don't think he was explaining anything so the the drummer is just so nervous he's just gonna do anything okay i've never had anybody throw anything at me but i feel like people probably wanted to let's keep going hold on why do you suppose i just hurled a chair at your head neiman i i don't know sure you do the tempo were you rushing or were you dragging when a artist or musician says you're rushing or dragging they mostly mean that you are speeding up the beat or you are laying behind the beat you can still play in a certain bpm and still play behind or above the beat but he's losing his mind on this drummer and everyone else in the room is quiet and i wish they would help him because he's getting abused i don't know start counting five six seven four damn it look at me one two three four one two three four one two three no now i'm confused i don't understand if the is the problem that he is speeding up the beat or that he is not playing in four this is confusing me because most times musicians when they play with drummers they always expect the drummer to keep the time and they never keep time they always just rely on the drummer so if the song is speeding up and it's starting to race they blame the drummer and so with this part tempo and time signature is not the same thing time signature has to do with how many beats a song has in the phrase it has nothing to do with how much the speed is or how fast it is or how slow it is so i feel like they're kind of blending in two different aspects of music and at this point as a drummer you're just completely confused because this guy is just he's just hazing you at this moment i've been with some band directors that have been pretty extreme sometimes i think musicians are perfectionists and they don't even know what they like and so i think that's kind of probably what's going on in this clip because i feel like he doesn't really know what he wants because we just saw this music change from 4-4 timing to 7-7-8 timing and now he doesn't want him to play in seven eight time and he's done with him what does that say quarter note equals 215. count me at 215. a one two three four one two three four cry the part where he asks him to count tempo is really strange to me because as a drummer i have never been able to just spot on or say where 100 bpms are or 160 we know around about where it is but we don't know for a fact where those tempos are so when he starts freaking out about tempo that's a little bit off from how i've done my life most musicians we like to ask each other you're like how do you feel it where do you think the time should be it's not like muscle memory tempo reading tempo is not the same as um reading a chart he's on this man's ass watching him just take it and just keep trying keep trying keep trying keep trying to do it is another thing that a lot of musicians who really want to do and it makes you thick-skinned i've been through this in the gospel world i played with snoop dogg and felt like i was getting haze but i've dealt with this and i feel like in some levels this made me a better musician oh my dear god are you one of those single-tier people do i look like a double rainbow to you when he started getting into this guy's like emotional state i've had artists try to get me angry in the studio and try to force me to play things multiple times that kind of set me back because i've been there i feel like this kid maybe had a lot of talent and he just was trying to like push this wheel out of him or maybe just being like that in some level he thought was forcing him have the will to be like such a sick musician it didn't seem like he hated him he was crazy abusive but it didn't seem like he hated him next up wayne's world so this clip is really funny because it's kind of like what happens in drum stores when professional musicians walk in you see this new item and you just want to try it out definitely go in the drum store and then like now it's more about if the drum set is like tuned and it sounds you know really good and they make you want to you know keep sitting there he sat there and he was like yo i liked it he's like this kind of feels good he starts tapping around and he notices he's like okay he was just happy and i know that feeling because you a lot of times you like being on a drum set is or being on any instrument is somewhat a relief the waynes world drum set is bigger than most drum sets most people play maybe a six piece at most you know a lot of people play smaller drum sets but he's playing like you know four times up three floor toms two floor toms two bass drums that's more of a early 90s late 80s rocks you know metal setup now there's a few drummers who play those setups tommy aldridge from white snake used to play a kit that was yamaha big times big long times those are called power times now starting to be defined by genre of music that you play i like it when i see that many drums i feel like i could be more melodic having that many drums when you go to drum store you rarely ever see a drum setup that is fully set up where you can see multiple drums so i know i know that feeling [Music] i think when creating a drum solo the thing that's most important is connecting with the people who are listening to you most times you hear drummers with other musicians so when you hear a drummer and he's playing by himself it's really cool to connect with people and you have so many different sounds you can start a drum solo off real quiet so people have to really pay attention to what you're you're playing and then you can build it up and you can make people rock i like um drummers that make drum solos have hills and valleys because i want you to lead me off a cliff and make me want more like question and answer you'll play one thing like blah blah blah blah blah blah crowd crowd crowd crowd crowd and you know carry on because the drums is one of the instruments that plays the whole time during the show the drummers who get the most you know praise are the ones who can captivate the audience in a deeper level than they've captivated than before it's all about hills and valleys and making it interesting for the listener [Music] he mixed up the drum solo from toms to symbols he was like really into just like playing this kit and he detached from being in a place and i think that's the beauty about music is that you can kind of like detach from reality a little bit i've had people ask me how long i practice and i never really think about it because it's like like i'm doing it out of love i feel like he can play in some level that he has some knowledge of drums because like there's just just a way just the whole um intellect and authenticity of the whole video in the movie i think those guys have some understanding of instruments some of the craziest drums those i've seen is like mickey d from motorhead takes a really great solo travis barker takes a crazy good solo tommy lee used to have this like cage that in the air it will raise in the air and will flip upside down so the drummers are playing upside down and that was pretty amazing to see that but i've seen some drum solos from guys people don't know that's just all about like chops and not about drum gimmicks chops is a drum term for intellect or like skill you have on the drums that guy got chops so meaning he's been practicing and he's been building his skill drummers definitely have set solos that they play every night but you might have one idea that you start off with a couple different drum grooves that you play as like beats that people can vibe with but most times most drummers are improvising ideas that they have on a drum solo because they want to impress the crowd drummers are in the back so when the drummer gets his time you want to lengthen it you want to make sure it has some diversity and something that is memorable [Music] wow next up this is spinal tap he exploded on stage [Music] just like that it just went up he just was like a flash of green light you know several you know dozens of people spontaneously combust each year it's just not really widely reported this spinal tap video is hilarious because this spinal tap video reminds me of just all the bands that have had eight drummers and i've been part of that i've played in bands have had four drummers every time you see them do an interview they have like some story about some drummer because people ask it's decadent of just like the times because people try to keep these bands together for so long even having multiple different musicians if you look at like black sabbath you know having multiple singers you're looking at bands that the drummer was the most famous person in the band and now they have a different drummer good drama great look good drummer yeah good job what happened he died in a bizarre gardening accident some years back the drummer is usually just the most lit person you know the person going out partying the most you've had drummers like keith moon driving rolls royces in the pool steve moon was blowing up everything drummers like john bonham just getting wild they're mocking keith moon and they're mocking them john bottom and just the earlier drummers and so a lot of drummers have you know took on this persona is getting you know real crazy and i think that drummers have a mysterious thing to them because they're not speaking most times you have to have some kind of quirkiness to be a drummer it's kind of funny hearing stories with drummers and things they do because i think drummers are the most interesting part of the the band usually that is what's authentic is people who are acting like rock and roll and most people at that moment didn't want to be in the interview so you know the drummer is the most rock and roll because he's not at an interview next up bohemian rhapsody now i want you to clap on the third beat this is completely authentic of an idea and a situation that could definitely happen as musicians because i know the power of people working together this is not far-fetched i think they came up with this idea and this music and this beat at a time where no one else had it this is all about creativity and timing some songs like start off with guitar some songs start off with the drum pattern sometimes it could be a melody a lot of times with bands that's this is actually the fight of royalties and publishing who started the song they're so crazy what's going on you know if you're on time i'm a performer darling not a swiss train conductor the way freddie mercury walked into the clip he could have been a dick but he was open he's like oh let's hear it out i think um coming with the sound has to do with you guys spending time together you have to build a sound you have to work on the the bass player and the drummer locking together when i mean locking i mean sounding like a cohesive unit the thing about drum drum beats in general is they just move the crowd and they make people dance in different ways [Applause] this is really cool because it showcases how important like even as basic of a beat is that it can move mountains he tapped into the most prehistoric thing that we have musically was just something that was super just bare minimum across genres across the cultural they know everything about this tune and it's mainly about because it's you can anyone could do it you know you need those being a musician you want to make sure you don't just like cater to yourself because you'll make music people will never listen to so you try to understand what your audience likes and who is coming to your show your audience is very important i think this might be to the most degree of most songs where you just like the crowd is going to do this man i don't think i've ever felt freddie mercury type of crowd participation when i have been on stage where the crowd has participated that connection where people are singing and playing the same thing is so spiritual because that's the reason why music even exists because this is a therapeutic thing people go to these shows to escape their real life you want to be able to be a part of the whole crowd and especially if the music is uplifting and it all can be like oh god because that feeling is like that feeling is something you can transcribe next up that thing you do [Music] as drummers we a lot of times get yelled at for being speeding up or being too fast or counting the song off too fast or too loud this is kind of wild because the drummer's just like yo i'm a play i don't care about what's going on the drummer is usually in control over the tempo most times yeah if you want to play a song a little bit faster you can push it you know but i think he was he was pushing a little bit too much and the crazy part about it is that he was the most hyped person on the stage and the audience like you know gravitated towards his energy the audience matches the drummer's energy more than it matches the guitar or the singer's energy as a drummer you controlling the tempo you can you can make people speed up if you're speeding up too much you'll have a guitar player or singer telling you to slow down and they might do their hands in the tempo they want which is annoying and embarrassing as a drummer but um this is just a thing that ends up happening on stage oh come on that's too fast now a lot of the musicians and a lot of artists they play shows with click tracks and backing tracks you have a click track that counts you in and everything a lot of bands when they start playing with click tracks everything starts sounding like the record when they play live and a lot of people like that because they can hear the song the way it's been promoted on the radio playing two click checks has started to be a huge thing so pretty much 95 percent of them artists that you know across genres are playing to click tracks to make sure the tempo is straight what i liked about his drumming is that he was playing traditional grip and traditional grip for people who don't know is when you play your hand like uh like this like not match grip is when your hand is straight but traditional grip is like this where it's an older style of playing and so i appreciate that he was playing traditional grip and a lot of the older drummers like charlie watch from rolling stones he played traditional grip traditional grip was um was invented because of marching drums was was tied around the neck and so the drum was so close that you could play this hand like this but the stick was elongated right here and so they play like this i think he definitely got some drum lessons from somewhere for him to be playing and looking that good his hands look loose he looks like it's not foreign and to play traditional grip it takes a little bit of time you have to spend a little bit of time to get the strokes i can tell that he spent his time learning how to play drums and i appreciate that next up drumline so the thing i like about drumline is i like the idea of southern historically black colleges and drums and that i really liked is that watching the idea of a drum battle a drum battle consists of two opposing drummers or drum crews playing the coolest chops that they possibly can you always want to do something new [Music] i never personally played marching band drums but i grew up in the drum battle culture people shedding and playing drums next to each other so this is the world that i come from and it's all about chops it's all about speed and technique it's all about creativity and i think that's what has inspired this last generation of drummers to be honest with you you know hbcus drum lines i think they take it to another level because they not only are proficient in technique but they also play music that's on the radio so you might hear a drum line playing ludicrous people love that because when you get to see you know football players all hyphy and you hear the drumline come out with not only are they playing but they moving and they dancing i just appreciate the whole aspect of a drum line and i wish personally that i was a part of it but i never got to be a part of it i just watched from afar i think the difference between marching band drummers and drum set drummers is coordination mainly because a full drum set requires four-way coordination and usually people who are playing a snare drum or bass drum or toms they're only using two limbs but i think the idea of groove and you know energy is the same one thing that has to be factored in is the size and the weight of the instruments like carrying a bass drum you know it could weigh 30 40 pounds so these guys are moving around at hot temperatures so it's a lot of physicality to you know planning full uniform and also playing this crazy you know technical stuff i wouldn't want to put one above each other because they both are strenuous and difficult nick cannon in the clip definitely look like he can play and someone showed them how to play what i liked about the drum lines in this clip is the dynamics it makes the the music more creative and makes the listener more engaged because you're not just doing one thing the whole time nick was throwing in a bunch of different combinations of rudiments a rudiment would be like a traditional pattern that you play on the drums to loosen up and to create and build technique drumming rudiments is essentially a scale for drummers you know how piano players have a scale the drummers have a scale and it's called drum rudiments so one drum roll rudiment would be like a double stroke roll which would be um two beats on the right two on the left so it'd be like this that's a double stroke roll and then another drum rudiment would be like a paradiddle and that sounds exactly how you're playing it paradiddle paradiddle paradiddle paradiddle right and so you can mix those up so you could be like double double double double double paradiddle so when you build these ideas up it creates control you create um rhythms and you you can create technique in which that you can play things that are outside the box of just a beat the main thing about drums is that you're trying to get all four limbs to be completely mobile by themselves so yeah that's the good thing about rudiments the marching band snare drums are different from regular snare drums on a drum set the martian snare drums have a super high tension so they're like they're super tight where snare drums that i play and regular drummers play they're more like loose and they have some vibrant kind of like tone to them and they have kevlar snare drum heads like kevlar from the bulletproof vest [Applause] i haven't been in a situation where people were so mad about playing other people's drums that it just launched them into a complete tirade mainly because a lot of times you want other people to play drums with you because it's a good event or thing to do with other people but if you are like step brothers and you're like rubbing your balls on your own that could probably be a bad situation so i think it depends on the relationship you have with this person but if you know them and y'all kind of seen each other before it's kind of like oh okay you're gonna play my drums well now i'm gonna play your drums but he took it in a level of disrespect i think he wanted to punch nick cannon before cause nick cannon was probably grilling him on the snare drum for me i want to win fair and square so i'm not going to punch you to win next up step brothers in step brothers when you see the padding on the wall it's indicative of people living next to other people so it's like you the hardest part of being a drummer is that you are a drummer and you live next to other people who are not drummers so a lot of times you have to soundproof the walls or you play in the basement you got to play at certain times so your neighbors don't lose it um so like watching step brothers and just seeing like you know sound sound reinforcement on the walls is indicative of you trying to be a professional drummer i think the toronto steppers is all right i don't think it's a best way or a right way to twirl sometimes you'll even be doing twirls that are not real where it looks like it's tutorial but it's not a real twirl the art of twirling sticks is one of the coolest art forms in drumming if you can manage to not do it too much most times people only twirl on drum solos that's like part of drum soloing is you need to bust some some crowd please and twirls twirls and throwing this stick in the air are close to the same type of energy hey man do you touch my drum set no this movie might be the most non-authentic and the reason why i say it is that drumming is all about beating so it's like you're never gonna know if someone hits a stick and it's a dent in the stick unless you don't play most drummers are not really that you know crazy about other people playing their drums usually drummers are just like in the energy of anybody can play it so this is a little bit unauthentic unless you just really despise a person which goes to the movie you know the people who measure between the symbols and the the snare are sound like engineers sound engineers always are measuring they always are trying to figure out if the right mic overhead is the same height as a left hand overhead from the circumference of the drum throne these guys are nuts drummers are way less into that we mostly just want to play drums when you start measuring things and looking if the stick has a chip on it you start getting out of drum zone and you start turning some other thing wristbands are a thing because your your arms sweat and if your arms sweat then your hands sweat and then now the sweat is on your sticks and sticks are falling out of your hand and when you play show after show after show and you play long nights you play harder you start ripping your hand craziest thing i ever did was super glue my whole hand so i can get through shows because my stick was so ripped up now they have sticks that are not even made with wood they have sticks that are made out of aluminum and they have sleeves that are supposed to cushion the shock of the sticks hitting your palm we're in 2020 and we have never seen the world like this where you going i'm going upstairs because i'm going to put my nuts hat on your drum set okay the worst thing someone has ever done to my drums is just start straight up throwing them in the crowd i was on tour um and the singer just kept throwing everything in the crowd at first it was cool but then he wouldn't like he wouldn't talk to me after a while i don't i don't remember what i did to make him stop talking to me but fans will be trying to run out with like a 20-inch symbol which is this big they try to run out the front door and security be like you got a symbol i win a whole tour playing like a mitch match bass drum most drummers want to smash their drums we all want to be like green day or like trey cool and people who have smash drums but some of these drums are really nice and they sound good so it's like smashing them i don't know if i want to do that next up the mambo kings baby [Music] let me just say tito puente legend straight up legend and i appreciate watching him and the thing that i like about afro-cuban music is that everybody is involved in this aspect of creation creating music and so i love watching afro-cuban players and the music and the dancing and the food and so this clip encompasses all that sitting in in clubs is really an art because you have to be able to blend in with other musicians who have been playing the whole night they've been playing the whole night and you come up cold after a drink and you walk up there and you try to do your thing so tito is a legend and he lets him come he's my up so when someone brings you up there and you have some kind of gift and you know what you're doing y'all could have a conversation and so we talked about drum battling earlier but this is not a drum battle they're having this conversation and they're you know he'll play one melody tito play one melody and that is what i like about drummond even more so than any other aspect of it is that i just like that we all can sit around and we all can have this conversation no matter how good you are you can be playing on your legs no you could be playing a tambourine my grandmother would take me to clubs and um people be playing and they'd be like tommy come on stage tell me come on stage and i'll come on stage and play with all these other musicians and that's kind of how i got my whole big break and so to just watch a movie encompass this idea is so important because that's how musicians grow and that's how other musicians inspire other people to meet musicians they're like i want to do that i want to get on stage and be able to get up there with tito puente and that is what is so cool about music is that people can just work with each other and experience things with each other i have such a deep love for afro-cuban drumming and timbaland a tembali is a drum that's mostly used in afro-cuban in salsa music settings it's a high-pitched drum made out of brass sometimes steel related to a snare drum with thin sticks that are played and thin heads you don't see that drum in america that much it's an island drum from puerto rico or cuba or in that area but the timbales also have bells so they're playing bales and they're playing these two drums one is tuned down and one is tuned up so and it's really high and they hit the rim i play timbales a little bit with the you plant it more lighter and more finesse tenbali's have a lot of um consistencies with playing jazz music rock is about brute force kind of speed like jazz and salsa it's about finesse and how to be like sharp and like it's sexy it's like a it's different thing tembali is a really delicate and light i never met him but he's a god and he'll just be in a movie shoot with tidal pauliente just playing with you it was supposed to be amazing because he's so sick next up vice versa [Music] i played in the mall and i just know that energy of playing in the mall and it'd be so loud it was the mall the mall is not set up for acoustic music i have experiences where you are you go out and you start playing music and you don't know who around you also plays music and i think it's pretty cool [Music] i've been at malls or shopping areas and you just be like wow by people and i feel like this clip is a lot about that you never know what you're going to see you go outside and maybe this kid is playing keyboard in 2020 that's what i actually missed the most i miss going out and not knowing what you'll see at a mall like i miss them all i mean we can't go to the ball we can't hang out this clip is isn't decadent of just people normal people having a little bit of music talent just a tiny bit of musical talent and coming together and having a jam session like my friends we have these jam sessions that'll you know start at nine o'clock and we'll end it two and the club will close and then we'll go to another spot and we'll play from three to seven and we'll wake up whenever we do and do it again that's the joyous thing about being a musician and jamming is about technique and vibes you can change a gem by just the energy you come off with and think about jams that are so dope is that you don't never know who's gonna play so you might have some guy who's a real novice musician playing with a a virtuoso or you might have a guy who is um you know only plays one style of music and he plays maybe classical piano and now he's playing in a hip-hop setting it just also goes with just how diverse music is in it as a whole jamming most times is good because you get to sharpen your chops you get to work with other people you get to meet people you get to you know most times jams happen at times you're not expecting to play this clip makes me hopeful for like just the future the idea of like the first real concert we all can like dance next to each other and it's not like this it was something to people moshing and and stage diving and and pushing each other and sweating on each other and just like be human you know thank you guys for watching all these clips with me thank you for tuning in to the breakdown peace

Channel: GQ

Views: 1,759,941

Keywords: the breakdown, breakdown, drumming, drumming scenes, drumming scene, drumming movie, drumming movies, thomas pridgen, thomas pridgen drummer, thomas pridgen drumming, thomas pridgen interview, whiplash breakdown, whiplash movie breakdown, drumline breakdown, drumline movie breakdown, thomas pridgen 2020, thomas pridgen drumming scenes, this is spinal tap breakdown, bohemian rhapsody breakdown, drumming breakdown, drummer breaks down, best drumming scenes, gq, gq magazine

Id: 0Vw1iYAc-sE

Length: 34min 24sec (2064 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CrashAnt]

He looks different with the short hair and glasses. He seems to have chilled out a bit too maybe compared with his TMV days. We know the singer who kept throwing his drums into the crowd was Cedric haha.

[u/alano134]

This is really neat, as a non-musician and huge movie fan. Thanks for sharing!

[u/cloud52ab]

Really fun video