Functional Biomechanics In Musical Performance

1:18 What's good everybody welcome back to love music more I am Scoobert Doobert and today I want to talk about biomechanics

1:26 Fancy word essentially what I want to draw is the through line between sports athletics and music because music is actually aHighly athletic activity and part of the reason why I feel that way is I just went to a Nate Smith concertNate Smith is one of my favorite drummers if you're not familiar look him upHe also plays with the fearless flyers.

1:46 I knew him before then promise But that's a really cool project where it's like Vulfpeck. People jam on some tunes entirely instrumental, but yeah Fearless Flyers really cool Nate Smith is really cool his music is awesomeI have actually been sampling his music for quite a while.

2:05 He releasedsolo drum records that he said were free for anybody to use royaltySo I had been I've been doing that for quite a while My most notable use of it is a song called 2020 is overSo definitely check that out if you want to hear some of Nate Smith's drumming combined with my songwriting and playing et ceteraThat's what you get someday.

2:26 I would love to work with him So the reason why I was so inspired to do this episode was one little tiny thing that he did is he was playing eggShaker while he was playing drums first of all super coolAnd then he did a really fast egg shaker momentBut normally the your palm is facing you and you're holding the egg shakerwhen he did the really fast momentheInverted so that the back of his hand was facing his face and

2:57 I did that myself and I realized oh my goshI can play egg shaker way faster that wayLike that like a little rattlesnakeIt's a lot easier and you can do it for longer too.

3:11 SoAll that to say it got me thinking it got me thinking about guitar lessonsIt got me think about my own injury history where I had carpal tunnel for a while and ways thatmusic ends up becoming a Athletic activity maybe not in the you know you get super fit or somethingBut it uses your biomechanics it uses the little ligaments and tiny things that you can do with yourhands and your feet and your vocal cords and

3:41 When you push it to the brink the very edge of your talent you're trying to play something faster than maybe your body wants to play orYou're doing it on the other end endurance. So that's like the speed like the sprinter or the endurance side ofYou want to play five shows in a week. That's super hard. I do not recommend it

4:01 But I've done that I did a I did this a Bee Gees cover band to make money for a while and it wasfour hoursso four one-hour setsWith some breaks in between but you ultimately were playing like about three hours of music at night and you were playingfour to six nights a weekThat was exhausting and and it was something that I really had to start to like think about injury prevention and stretching and how do I lower

4:29 Inflammation in my body. How do I rethink the way that I'm playing my guitar like how hard I'm pressing how fast I'm playingIt kind of forced to me to have to start thinking about these things that otherwise I just you know just play the guitar, you know

4:45 But I think that that unlocked another level of playing for me just reaching the upper bounds of what my body like wanted to do andPushing past it by figuring out ways toEconomize just like Nate Smith turning around his wrist and finding that you can move your wrist faster forward than you can backward

5:06 And then you watch him drum and he's applied that to like every joint in his bodyHe it looks effortless.

5:16 I'm certain it's notbut he's kind of likelikeKung Fu styleDrumming where he moves so fastIt's like Bruce Lee, you know, it's just effortless flow like water You know he's got that kind of energy and it allows him to play the drums really really fast but really really groovySo there's a lot of drummers to play fastBut there's not very many drummers that can play fast and groove where when they go to the fast

5:44 It isn't just to show off it is actually to hit a subdivision or somethingthatChanges or elevates the groove in a funky way like my 2020 is overI think is a really good example of like a really complicatedBut yet funky drum partNate does that better than anybodyLouis Cole also does that but he's like a little more on the choppy sideBut I love him as well

6:08 But yet Nate Smith is like one of my favorite drummers for this reason where it never feels like he leaves the pocketIt never feels like he's making it unnecessarily about him necessarilyHe it is it's his name on the concert. So he's he's having some fun but

6:22 He is very much serving the song and you can serve the song and play fast at the same timeIf you're biomechanics are right because then you have control like what is groove groove in a lot of ways is just dynamicLike how hard or loud or soft you're playing the instrument andcontrolling those dynamics in a way that controls the timbre which is the

6:44 Way that the instrument sounds so like when you hit a high-hat very hard versus very soft.

6:49 It sounds very differentleveraging that within the subdivisions within the the rhythm of the trackIs really cool, especially if you're able to think or feelWhat everybody else is doing in the band on a really high levelAnd the only way that you can really listen to other people and I've noticed this time and time again The best players are able to listen because they're not thinking about playingthe

7:14 People that you can really tell or haven't to lock in and struggle for a song they start only listening to to themselvesAnd that isn't music anymoreIt's not collaborative music anymoreAnd it doesn't sound as good because you're not grooving you're not playing with each other and those littleDynamic shifts and turns that's what creates pocket.

7:38 It is therelative Conversation that's happening that elevates a piece if you ever get to watch

7:45 Like there's YouTube videos of Leonard Bernstein and other great conductors and composers working with

7:53 The orchestra and I think that's another really good example and something that is applicable to pop musicBecause we have musical directors and they do very similar thingsBut talking about articulation like do you hammer that note?

8:04 Like that kind of stuff do you push on this phase or do you lay back on the otherAll of those little decisions add up to emotionAnd it's a lot easier to focus on the emotion and on the arc of the pieceAnd on listening to others if your book biomechanics are rightIt also helps with injury preventionIt allows you to be fast like Nate Smith can and also have longevity

8:28 Also like Nate Smith can you know you can play it again next nightYou don't have super sore muscles or you don't have ten to night is you don't have a carpal tunnelBecause you're not pressing that hard

8:39 You're being free with your movements and intentional with your movements and you're not wasting movementsThat's one of the things that differentiated basketball playersUm, I played a little bit of basketball you know, I'm not greatBut enough to really enjoy the sport and enough to when I had the opportunity to go watch Kobe in personJust notice how crisp the little things were

9:01 Tiny little footwork decisions the way to pivot the way to shake the way to divorce your upper and lower half of your bodyAnd a way that isn't unnatural early to injuryUm, obviously he did lead injury later in his career, but um, theThe decision-making processTo practice the way that he didAnd then have it soak into his nervous system in the way that it did where

9:31 He wasn't thinking about I need to have the right fundamentalSo he just had the right fundamentals and then he was able to combine them in interesting waysAnd the funny thing is that I think that circles back to music theory

9:43 Is when you're butt up against maybe the natural limits of your talent and you want to go furtherMusic theory can helpAnd when people think music theory is you know stuff just for nerds fair point taken agreedIt's also like think about Kobe or plug in your favorite athleteAnd their attention to detail and their practice they didn't just play

10:11 Why wouldn't musicians just play at a certain point you can practice less because you did it alreadyBut when you're coming up and when you'reEspecially trying to like level up or change like best believe if I had to go on the road and start playingHours a night multiple nights a weekI would have to adopt a very different practice schedule and lifestyle just to support that and I'm ready to if I have to

10:39 But it is really hard to be like to or ready non-stopIt is like an offseason on season kind of thingYou do have to summon something different especially if you're doing it night after nightEven with support and I've seen it.

10:53 I've seen it with like the doobie brothers whereTheyShows not to do a lot or they they couldn't do a lot of things in the new city Because they had to be focused on the show because if they weren't focused on the show their body wouldn't be rightAnd there's a reason why a lot of these classic rock acts and stuff they haveMissuses and stuff the travel with them because that's the only way they can keep doing this

11:16 You know one of the saddest moments that I had was I was watching the ventures play at the Del Mar FairThat was really coolBut I've terror they had terrible carpal tunnel and you could just see the pain in their their eyes as they were trying to massage themselves in between songsUm, and you know that comes for us all I'm sure that I will have more carpal tunnel later in life

11:35 It will come back, but I'm trying to do everything I canDecent living and stretching and pacing myself unlike I used to

11:45 You know trying that's part of the reason why I learned multiple instruments too is so that you can have other thingsYou could do within music and still keep doing musicVersus them just like trying to shred guitar all the time

11:55 Those are some techniques and some things that I'm hoping you know, whatever you do be in music orEven if you're just a music fan that wants to like really think about what that band is doing on tourumThey're giving a lot of themselves and their time and their bodies

12:13 And they're having to elevate themselves much in the same way that an athlete doesfor their own seasonsoI hope that that opens some doors and opens some minds as tohow impactfulBeingObsessive about the little thingsThinking about the ways that your body specifically works drummers do this the most but every instrument should think about itThat's some great conversations with podcast guests on the same subject about

12:45 Like doing sports or wrestling or whatever and trying to think more about your body and in the ways that that can double back to your instrument

12:53 And then also like when you reach the limits of something when you your fingers don't want to go fasterYou have to find a way you need the gig that's in the songSo what works for your body

13:07 How can you overcome that and a lot of that's going to be through either creative application of techniquesusing music theory to think aboutWhat what is a way that I could achieve this or technology like delay pedals

13:22 A lot of the coolest things that happen in terms of virtuosity on music come from those moments of like oh crapOr how do I pull this offThat's part of the reason why I like Chopin and all these great pianoComposersThey wrote such intense pieces because they wanted to see you know they they a lot of them were great virtuoses themselvesThey wanted to see like how how seven you pull this off

13:48 What are they going to do? How can we progressThe the instrument itself in addition to music at the same time and a lot of that comes down to techniqueA lot of that comes down to grit and a lot of that comes down to pacing yourselfBecause it's really hard to sprint and have endurance at the same timeWhen you do that you get carpal tunnelOr whatever because your body gives up same thing with an athlete

14:12 You you have natural limits, but you can circumvent those limits through creative application of techniqueBe it intellectual or biomechanical physicalIf you enjoyed this podcastDefinitely invite you to subscribe rated five stars and share it with your friendsIt's the best way for this podcast to grow

14:30 If you want to hear my music you can go to scoobertdoobert.pizza to check it all outandGot some great guest episodes coming up so definitely stick around and subscribeAnd I'll see you next week