Does anyone know what a typical touring year was like for Buddy Rich? I always got the impression from musicians of the swing era that they toured nearly nonstop, playing virtually every day for hours at a time. Wouldn’t a schedule like that largely serve the purpose practice does for less busy musicians?
I think when you get to be a full time professional musician you don’t practice any more, you just play.
That may be true for some; certainly not for me nor anyone of my acquaintance.
Well then, I thought wrong I guess. Or you aren’t catching my meaning.
Or you’re overestimating musicians’ ability to get things exactly as they want them on the first try.
This right here. I’ve been playing bass guitar for 28 years, and for the last 17 years I’ve been playing with the same group of musicians at my church, once a week. Our “rehearsal” each week consists of us showing up an hour before the church service and looking at a sheet of paper with the lyrics of all the songs we’re doing today, with the chords written in. These days, I almost never touch my bass except on Sunday morning. Yet I can play exactly what I need to play on each song. I don’t “practice” (though I probably should), but I know what I need to play, because I know the songs.
Looking at that (I think I’ve seen it before) I have to wonder if Lewis was a drummer in “Real Life”. He actually looks like he knows what he’s doing.
How about Neil Peart playing with Buddy’s band during the “Burning for Buddy” tribute concerts?
Ha! You can’t play THIS without rehearsing!
I’ve heard this many times in interviews with different musicians — when the tour is over, they just take a break and hardly play at all until it’s time to head back into the studio to record a new album. And it sort of brings up what Rush did with their most recent album. They went into the studio immediately after coming off the road. As they put it, “At the end of a tour, we’re at our peak performance level, so why not record an album then?” (paraphrased)
Sure, that makes sense. In a strict sense, I have never practiced - ever. I have never had a practice routine, like I am sure Le Ministre and other classically-trained pro’s have. One where you spend time up front “warming up” - running through scales for voice and fingers, etc. However - my favorite thing is to set up a groove and then alternate between the chords of the groove and lead fills - trying to be the whole sound. Now - at any time, is the most fun groove I am working on going to be one that includes stuff I want to be working on? Sure! New chords, new lead phrases, a new key - whatever. Am I practicing? Of course - in a sideways sorta way.
So - do I think players like Buddy Rich had a structured practice agenda? Nah. But did he practice? Oh, hell yes.
Again, supermodels love being able to claim they don’t pay attention to their diet - and artists think is cooler than cool to never let them see you sweat and claim you don’t really practice.
If I haven’t caught your meaning, my apologies. My reply also sounded a lot bitchier than I meant it. Let me elaborate…
I’m a classical singer - opera, oratorio, art song. Most of my ‘practice’ is based directly on learning the repertoire that is coming up. Absent that (Ha!), it’s still pretty wise to sing with a coach a couple of times a week - total abstinence from singing is actually good for a week or so once or twice a year, but as an habitual practice, it’s not very good for the stamina. It takes a lot of work to get through a whole opera, even in some of the smaller roles, and one often has to learn the next show(s) while doing another. Maintaining a regular routine of practicing is a vital part of vocal health.
It’s also true for all of the classical instrumentalists I know - practice has changed from when they first started on the instrument, when the goal was to learn basic techniques. For most of them, it has morphed into learning and maintaining advanced techniques, usually through repertoire that is coming up. String players have it the worst - they need to maintain their callouses or the tone quality suffers drastically. A week off means a week or two of hating your sound. (I know violinists who sand and file their LH fingertips when they’re on vacation.)
So that’s what it’s like when your career is based on playing music that someone else has written down, and you have to play what’s written, but it’s probably different for jazz and rock musicians, right? No, it doesn’t seem to be.
The jazz musicians I know do various things to stay in shape, including working through unfamiliar chord changes, different time signatures, working with a metronome to expand their comfort zones (playing both faster and then slower than they think they’ll ever have to.), playing with different voicings - it’s all part of pushing their own boundaries.
The few rock musicians I know personally also practice - that’s where much of their new material comes from. ‘What’s next?’ is the question that leads to a new chart.
I think ultimately - there’s a spectrum that goes from performing in public on the one hand, and practicing. Playing, preparation - they all fit somewhere in that spectrum. Semantically, a given musician may resist saying he’s ‘practicing’ for various reasons - ‘self-taught’ and ‘natural’ have a street credibility that’s different from ‘constantly re-working his craft’ or ‘brilliant technician’.
But if Buddy Rich said he never touched his drum kit between shows, never tried something he hadn’t figured out at the sound check, had always been able to play to that level with no teaching from anyone, I find myself very skeptical of that. If he did a bunch of the same things that friends of mine do constantly, but wanted to call that ‘messing around’ or ‘just playing’ instead of ‘practice’, that I find much more likely.
I understand what you mean from your point of view. But artists are highly self critical. I’m one of those people who can’t play a musical instrument no matter how much I practice. I just ain’t got it. What you consider practice, I, and most of the people on earth would see as playing. And I would think it’s like your ending paragraph, it’s just a matter of what you call it. If I wanted to play the drums my best playing would not approach the quality of the practice that Buddy Rich didn’t do.
And where are the drummer jokes?
What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians?
What do you call a drummer who breaks up with his girlfriend?
How do you get a drummer off your porch?
(these all came from a friend who hangs around with musicians)
A drummer.
Homeless.
Pay for the pizza.
And my addition: how do you know when the stage is level?The drummer is drooling out of both sides of his mouth.
I agree he had to practice, he just did not call it practice. I quit playing(bass) for 10 years or so and really had little trouble getting the muscle memory back but I had played so much in my Teens and Twenties there was a lot to fall back on. Now I do some scales, try some licks and generally try to warm up. If I have a new tune to work up I will try to get the parts right but don’t worry about the whole tune until we get the Band together. I don’t call it practice but it is.
Band Practice tonight BTW. We are going to work up “Little Green Bag” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ixrvc-YDI0
Cheers
Capt
How do you know a drummer is at your front door:
The knocking keeps speeding up, and he never knows when to come in.
I heard that one for singers. 
If it’s a tenor, it’s that he doesn’t know when to come in. If it’s a soprano, it’s that you tell her to come in, but she can’t find the key.
I’m afraid there needs to be a version of Godwin’s Law that talks about music threads and Rush.
A guy calls up the musicians’ union and asks to book Buddy Rich for a gig. The secretary says “I’m sorry, sir, but Buddy Rich is dead.”
The next day, the same guy calls the musicians union and asks to book Buddy Rich for a gig. Once again, the secretary says “I’m sorry, sir, but Buddy Rich is dead.”
The day after that, the same guy calls the musicians’ union and asks to book Buddy Rich for a gig. The secretary says “I’m sorry but the call display shows that you’re the same person who called in the past two days. Buddy Rich is dead, sir - why do you keep calling to book him for a gig when you know that he’s dead?”
The guy says “I just like hearing you say it.”
The only missing drummer joke so far:
Why is a drum machine better than a drummer?
You only have to punch the machine ONCE to make it keep time correctly.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
And I mean that sincerely.