Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Is it necessary for pianists learn play drums?

I think yes! The eminent drummer Jack deJohnette said during his masterclass in Jerusalem the following brilliant phrase: "I play on drums like on the piano".Do not even need to mention that J. DeJ. Is a professional pianist.
Between the drums and keyboard there are too many similarities to ignore the drumming skills.

Since you pose it as a question, Nahum, I'd say no, but it does depend on genre too.

Think about, for example, the clav and the Rhodes piano in the context of funk (Hammond too but not so much in funk). What is essential here is not just how to bash out a tattoo but a clear understanding about long and short notes/chords - this is a dimension not required and therefore lacking in drum technique.

The time spent honing paradiddles would be better spent on techniques specific to and required by the instrument.

If you're going to live till you're 300 I might revise that opinion.

We're talking about jazz, pop and rock music? Then it is IMO absolutely necessary - to begin the first lesson not with chords or tunes , but with rhythms. If there is a drum kit - you can start with it, If there is a built-in within a keyboard - you can use it. Piano at the beginning is not the best tool for this; but the melodica perfectly helps!





I think this view is not exact, these qualities have one answer - High hat! Among the percussion, he is the most versatile tool: it has a long and short sounds,   high and   (relatively) low, accented and unaccented sounds and ghosts - sounds; single sounds and complex (like the chord). No wonder that Max Roach played the entire solo only on high hat - I saw him in concert.


Only listen to his melodies!



To paraphrase "The drummer - a musician's best friend!" (Drummers between us, forgive me! - I love and respect you!) - "The drummers learn paradiddles, pianists - groove and accurate articulation of phrases" .

I've been messing around with a piano version of High Heeled Sneakers. Put aside the fact that here and there it's a six-finger job (as distinct from 2 arms!) and that those fingers aren't all playing at the same time. What I'm really trying to do here is to get the left hand to simulate a guitar groove while the RH chunks out some version of the melody and supports the LH groove in the holes left by the melody. I've got two choices.

i) Learn to play the guitar first.
ii) Stick with the piano and figure out how to adapt a guitar riff using skills only a pianist has at his disposal.

Guess what I'm going to choose.

dire tonic , You are a beginner? If not, what is written above  does not apply to you.

The problem is getting a drum set. If I had one I would play.

I repeat : If there is a drum kit - you can start with it, ]If there is a built-in within a keyboard - you can use it

Interesting topic. I do have more trouble with different and syncopated rhythms in both hands at the same time, with some 'pop' songs, compared to most of the classical pieces learnt so far at my level.

How do you solve this problem on the piano?

No, but Stevie Wonder and Mel Torme come to mind immediately (of course Torme was more of a drummer than pianist).

My son is a jazz pianist with classical training. It was a requirement of his middle and high school jazz bands that you had to be a member of the regular band, so he had to find a second instrument in order to play piano in the jazz bands. He chose percussion, and it made him a better pianist and musician in general.

Which pianist has such clarity and precision?

- ah!, so this is a proposal mainly for beginners?...ok, why not. I would expect benefit sometimes but maybe not always? And there's the problem of commitment to one instrument....dunno....

But it's as though he's playing his vibes rather than piano. And it's a party trick.

It is the law?

Vibraphonists often came from either camp. Drums or piano. Hampton was drums I think. He was likely faster as a result, plus he could swing like crazy, but others with keyboard background could also hold their own.

I don't think it is necessary. I also saw mentioned elsewhere, that learning sax should be sought to open the ears. Exposure to other instruments I do not think will be a bad thing, but I do not think is necessary. The draw back could be diluting the targeted outcome ... A man of all trades is a master of none.

That's how I see it too. Ok, only two trades, perhaps, but time is usually not on our side.

I was thinking about Victor Feldman only the other day (one of the uk's rare talents who wisely took himself off to the States). He started out on drums, apparently.

We study the theory, because we need it, not because we want to be professional musicologist . Same with drumming. I thought it was clear to anyone , but turns out that is not.Play jazz and to have a bad rhythm feel just makes no sense.Passes through my hands a lot of such students; and what I can do in piano class?
So to say, the fruits of rhythmic education ...

If you're trying to play a song from one of those commercially produced song books then expect to run into trouble more often than not!

I knocked out lead sheets for a couple of years and had a friend who scored out quite a few of these piano 'transcriptions'. The pay wasn't great so for efficiency his method was like most others doing that job. He'd take the lead sheet (top line, sung melody), add RH chords under the top line where he thought fit/necessary/appropriate. Invent some sort of LH groove based on a mix of what the drums/bass/guitar were doing on the original track. He was fast with notation so rarely bothered to actually put his hands together to play what he'd written, in fact he'd often chuckle gleefully that they were unplayable!

Not always true. Ballads were usually safer but 'rock' and up-tempo pop stuff was often a travesty. A mix of LH and RH ideas that were simply not pianistic. Better to arrange your own!

There are tons of great reasons for pianists to play drums and Jack DeJohnnette, Chick Corea, Lionel Hampton, George Colligan, Stevie Wonder, and others are among them. And it's true that musicians benefit from whatever they do to increase their rhythmic sensibility and ability.

BUT. I'd never attach the words "must" or "necessary" to pianism and drumming as has-to-be pair of things. As a pair, they're not the whole story or the "secret" method. They're just "great" things to do–a pianist who plays the drums is going to learn a lot from that that. A WHOLE LOT as Nahum has said.

So while there are plenty of "name" musicians we can quote who advise "this way of doing it" or "that way of doing it their all examples of a point rather than universals that prove truth. The key is to find "which of the ways" among the "many ways" are the most beneficial of "all the ways." Great musicians find great ways to learn. But is there one way? A has-to-be-do-it-this-way sort of way?

Here's a great video with Steve Gadd playing with Chick Corea. The rhythmic interplay between everyone on the bandstand goes beyond wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vrLAK_CZrY

.... here are videos out there in Youtube land where Steve Gadd talks about Chick Corea's DRUMMING as being a huge influence on him. .... many musicians .... many paths ....

no, pianists don't need to learn to play drums any more than they need to learn to play another instrument. Probably 90% of pianists don't play drums. Who says you won't have good rhythm if you don't study drums?

Interestingly, it seems that quite a few drummers actually play piano, as do musicians of other instruments. Everyone seems to gravitate to piano at one point or another as part of rounding out their musical skills.