How Writing Music Tripled My Drumming Skill in Only 4 Months

In January of 2016, I was in a unique position that provided an interesting opportunity.

I was doing music full time, which consisted of teaching lessons regularly and playing gigs every weekend. I was doing some extra music-related work regularly also, but I had a good bit of down time during the day - especially mornings. My wife and I had just gotten married a few months before, and we were living pretty cheaply in our tiny 450 square foot apartment. (If you’ve ever watched some of my oldest videos, you’ve seen a glimpse of that place. Most of the time we don’t miss it.)

I was honestly getting a little bored, because I couldn’t just practice drums all day (#noiseconstraints!). Lessons didn’t happen til afternoons and gigs didn’t happen until evening. How could I spend the first half of my day wisely so that down the road I wouldn’t regret this time in life when I was blessed with so much spare time?

I decided to put myself to work at something new that wasn’t drums.

Now a month or so prior, I had a conversation with a guy whose buddy was a musician. This friend of his had written some instrumental music, and a popular TV show picked it up. He ended up selling the rights to four pieces of music for $25k apiece, and he instantly had a career as a composer. That story played back in my mind over the coming weeks, and it was especially at the forefront when I cruised into the boredom of winter 2016. Hmmm… I could totally be a composer. I wrote music all the time as a kid! What if I write a bunch of stuff, put it out there, and somebody picks it up and pays me for it? I was now aware of how potentially lucrative this line of work was.

Could I succeed as a composer? Might as well try! I had nothing to lose and a whole bunch of time to spare.

I grabbed my old childhood keyboard from my parents’ house, plugged it into my laptop, and started recording into Logic any ideas that came to mind. My goal each day was to get the gist of a new piece of music down each morning, then I’d work on fleshing it out a little more in the afternoon before having to take off for lessons or gigs. I treated this whole process like it was my new day job. I’d wake up, eat breakfast, and be “at work” by 8:30 or so writing music, and man would the time fly by! I would suddenly realize it was 1pm and I’d forgotten to get hungry. I became so absorbed into whatever I was working on that I would totally lose track of time.

I was fascinated with different sounds, and I even invested a little money in an orchestral sample library so that I could program a realistic orchestra. Most of the music I was writing felt like Hans Zimmer or Harry Gregson-Williams - very cinematic, emotional, and epic. I always loved movie soundtracks, and I became even more interested in this style of writing while I was in music school in college. The skills I learned in Orchestration & Arranging class were really coming in handy now, and I hoped they would pay off. Literally.

Within three or four months, I had built up a pretty significant library of compositions. Some were 30 seconds long (great for a quick commercial soundtrack!), and others were closer to four or five minutes (great for a movie scene!). I could clearly see at this point that my work had gotten better and better over those months, and I was almost ready to scrap most of the January work since the March and April pieces were so much better. Regardless, I had some quality work I was proud of that I was ready to present to the world. I really, really wanted to make this my new career. But there was something else I had to do first.

Now I want to pause for a second, because I promised in the subject line of this email that I would share with you how writing music made me a better drummer. It really did - because of a number of things.

1. I had to think about every part, every instrument, and how they all worked together to create the piece of music. This is what every musician is supposed to do! We’re supposed to listen to everything, gathering up the information in our creative ear so that we can structure our parts accordingly. This is often ignored, though, because so many musicians don’t really listen. As I was composing, I had no choice but to listen!
2. I was becoming very in tune with tension and release - contrast in music. I was simply writing what felt right, but I was learning to emphasize the moments of tension and of release. I was creating huge dynamic changes that reflected the mood of the piece, and this very directly translated to my ability to “feel out” the dynamics of songs I played on the drums.
3. I learned how to create parts based on something else. Here’s what I mean by that… One of the exercises I made myself do was create my own custom soundtracks to commercials I liked. I wrote music for fun for a Royal Caribbean commercial, an Audi commercial, a Lowe’s commercial, and several others. (I was basically building a demo real of my “soundtrack work.”) Doing this taught me how to synthesize an existing emotion (what was going on story-wise in the commercial) and figure out how to support that with the music. That’s a hugely underrated skill to have as a drummer! This helped me to really feel the story of a song and know exactly how my parts might help tell that story.
4. I got way better at playing drum fills. Sounds random and crazy, right? As I would finish a piece of music, I’d notice “holes” in places. Sometimes that space is good - sometimes even needed. But other times you need to fill the space with something - “ear candy,” as producers often call it. So I developed a sense of where to insert little extra riffs or flairs from various instruments. I quickly realized that I needed to take this same approach when playing songs on the drums. Listen closely for empty space needing to be filled, then add the right fill that reflects the story of the song (echoing point #3!).

Discovering all of this on my own was very exciting, because I technically already knew these things. However, I’d never really dug that deep into experiencing and absorbing all of that. In other words, I had the book-learning but not the actual experience. Writing music gave me the actual experience, and this helped me a ton in the recording world, too, when it came time to craft drum parts for songs. If you're new to these concepts and you'd like to dig a little deeper, check out this free e-guide on the topic of song-learning. This will really get you rolling quickly.

Ok back to the story…

I really wanted to figure out how to make composing my career - my “day job” if you will, so I went to work learning about the industry…

I started doing research on the commercial composing industry, finding out how to build contacts and get started career-wise in the TV and film industry. How do you land your first movie soundtrack? How do you pitch your music to advertising agencies creating commercials? How much music do you need to write to ensure you can make enough money doing this?

Well… as you can probably guess, I got a hefty dose of the sobering details of the commercial soundtrack industry. First off, you have to know the right people (sounds familiar, right?). Second, you’re competing with thousands of other guys out there wanting to do the same thing. I found out that many composers were working for free because so many would compete for the same low-budget-movie-soundtrack. In business terms, the supply waayyy outweighed the demand. Then you’d have just a handful of folks who’d work their way to the top. These are guys like Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Randy Newman, Thomas Newman, Trevor Rabin, and a few others who are practically household names. And those guys had been doing this for decades and decades!

So that was it. My temporary new dream crushed, the harsh reality of the real world now weighing on my shoulders.

But that created a huge turning point in my life career-wise and skill-wise. I mentioned all the ways that those 4 months made me a better drummer, so I don’t regret that time spent in the least bit! I came out on the other side a better listener, more musical drummer, and a much more creative voice in bands I played with. My playing became more professional and song-appropriate that year, and I got so much better at recording. I understood the story that songs tell, and my parts better supported tension & release, as well as the melody. Thanks to those 4 months of hard (but really fun) work composing, I came out on the other side a more mature drummer.

BTW…

The additional turning point that happened in 2016 was one you’ve felt the effects of. I decided to find a new hobby to fill those freelance mornings, so I started a YouTube channel in November of that year. It’s safe to say that if composing hadn’t ultimately been a failure, The Non Glamorous Drummer would not exist. I’m glad I had the time to launch a channel and later a business, and I’m really thankful for the opportunity to still be doing this nearly 4 years later. It’s been a fun ride.

God Bless, and Stay Non Glamorous, Everyone!

Stephen