Influences Out of the Blue?

 I discovered something curious last year.  As a dilettante drummer I've taught myself many of my favorite drummers parts at different times in my life for my own edification.  I want to know how things work, and the process of learning always has knock-on effects in other fields, in ways that are never predictable.

 I remember after going through my nascent period of learning guitar, going through the wringer of all sorts of complicated guitar challenges, I one day put on a Pink Floyd record for the first time while holding a guitar, and discovering yes, I knew how to play just about everything spontaneously.  I had been listening to Pink Floyd most of my life to that point, and it was no surprise that I could play all the parts almost instantly and of course intuitively knew them. 

  When I'm listening to music I'm not trying to focus on any instrument per se.  But kinesthetically I have muscle memory for my limbs to play drums.  The drum beat corresponds to the limbs that would be used to play the drum beat.

 Guitar parts, yes, I know how to play whatever it is I'm hearing.  Drums I can't naturally reproduce on a super technical level, hence the learning bit mentioned above.  If I hear something that I'm not sure about how it's reproduced sticking and feet-wise on drums, I might be compelled to break it down and figure that out.  I might not be able to execute it at full speed, but that's not the point: I want to know how it works.

 I was/am also a super big ELO fan.  I realized last year that I already know all of Bev Bevan's drum parts from their record _Out of the Blue_.  I could probably scratch by in an ELO tribute band if given a week or so practice.  I know all of the fills and breaks, accents.  It's imprinted. 

 I've written about "mainlining" music before.  I love the _Out of the Blue_ record, I think it's perfect.  I've listened to it over and over for weeks when I was a little kid; I subconsciously absorbed the drum parts even before I could technically play drums. 

 It dawned on me not only did I know all of Bev Bevan's fills, but that my preferences drumming wise are very influenced by him.  He has a fairly pervasive 16th note swing, and a spartant post-Bonham, post-Ringo drum fill style.  This rhythmic sense translates to guitar: it's my right hand.  My rhythmic influences that affect how I play guitar are not just guitar players - but drummers as well.

 So two takeaways:

1) You can be influenced by things outside of guitar, whether you know it or not.

2) "Mainlining" your favorite music is educational.  It's necessary as far as I'm concerned: listening to the same song 10 times in row allows you to listen into it with much more awareness of detail than you'll ever have hearing it once one day, then maybe a week later, a month after that.


If you've never really listened to anything intently before - it's not going to flow out later.  If you've only listened to one thing intently - that WILL flow out, and it will be limited and one dimensional.  People look to music theory to circumvent this, but the reality is that you are what you eat. 

So listen to your favorite music, over and over and over and over until you're not sure if you're tired of it.  Listen some more.  Come back to it.  You're empty otherwise.