Drums and Nonlinear Time

I played drums for over 50 years. The last 5 years that I played was quite often alone. It was at those times that I transcended my physical limitations (I have birth defects on both hands that often made playing drums rather challenging), and the limitations of time. Timing is considered to be the fundamental skill for a drummer, and one that often eluded me. I had the tendency to "go crazy" and accelerate the tempo like an accelerating rocket. I long ago came to the conclusion that for myself, time was nonlinear. I always had trouble aligning with schedules, because I would have five minute hours following half-hour minutes.

In those golden hours playing alone, I found that if initially setting a simple rhythm, concentrating on the timing, I could soon release myself from the need for conscious direction of my playing. The music expressed itself. And when I did listen to myself, and decide on a different direction to take, the act of reverting to conscious thought had no effect on the result. Listening to tapes of myself, it was obvious that time was nonlinear at those transformation points. Where I expected to hear hesitation and a loss of tempo (since that is what I perceived), the tapes captured only an unimpeded flow. The closest example I can give would be Ginger Baker's drumming on "I'm So Glad" (Cream Live) where he plays a pattern with his hands, and than plays it backwards, and than plays multi-bar patterns forwards and backwards. I actually transcribed some of my playing from tape into drum music, and was unable to play it! Guess I was channeling Buddy Rich (but I wouldn't even try to transcribe anything off of "Rich Meets Roach").

First View

I think of a panopticon as a viewing station, looking out on different facets of life. I will try to reflect on those views. The areas of comment may seem disparate. Hopefully the linkages will eventually become apparent.