Abstract
Since the late 1960s, Bill Bruford has been worldly known as the drummer performing with rock groups such as Yes, King Crimson, and U.K. He also played jazz with his own band, Earthworks, and collaborated with a long list of musicians in recordings and tours. After retiring from the stage in 2009, he became active in the academic field, investigating the creative processes involved in music-making when drummers “do their thing.” In 2016, Dr Bruford earned his PhD at the University of Surrey submitting a thesis entitled “Making it work: Creative music performance and the Western kit drummer.” The main findings of that research are now available in the book Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer, bringing together views from cultural psychology, action theory, and interviews with expert musicians.
For the avid reader who is delving into the book after already having read the thesis, the competence with which the adaptation was made is highly conspicuous. It maintains the scientific density and a vast array of references, making it an extremely well-grounded study, with a crystal-clear presentation in an easy-to-understand sequence of ideas. Within a theoretical framework based on Csikszentmihalyi, Dewey, and Boesch, Dr Bruford developed three new thinking tools to help us understand how drummers perceive creativity on their instrument. First, there are the four dimensions of performance creativity: selection, difference, communication, and assessment (SDCA). Second, he built an artificial construct called the “functional/compositional continuum” (FCC). Third, he created the Integrated Model of the Circulation of Meaning (IMCM). At the risk of oversimplification but for the sake of general overview, these constructs are briefly explained below.
The SDCA model is presented with practical examples of drummers’ thoughts and actions. The selection (S) aspect is based on constraints like musical style and technique demands and determines what musicians play and how they play it. A palette of temporal, metrical, timbral, and dynamical options create the field of choices to be embraced. The differentiation (D) is needed so that creativity can be explicit: there has to be difference from other instances, in this case, what other drummers have played before. Next, that which was selected and differentiated has to be communicated (C). Without communication, there is no way to assess if what was presented can be considered creative. That assessment (A) is made by “gatekeepers,” who in our case are mainly represented by other musicians, especially those who are role models and can exert power to affirm “this is different and it’s significant, therefore it matters.” In the SDCA model, as drummers, “our actions are regulated and shaped by cultural tradition, and take place within a community that mediates and promotes the psychological behavior and meaning-making of the individual” (p. 128).
The second tool is the “functional/compositional continuum” (FCC), which helps us to understand the situations in which drummers usually perform and how that affects the control over the choices they make. In the SDCA construct, everything begins with a selection, but the freedom to make it may be constrained by the drummer’s position on this continuum of control. At the left hand, there is the functional extreme, including performers who play as directed by others with rigid rules and no leeway for interpretation. In this scenario, the musician supplies the expected and never contests the genre or style being played. At the right hand, there is the compositional extreme, with drummers who determine their choices with complete freedom, searching for the unexpected and creating (not only recreating) their own parts. Instead of fixed points on the continuum, most drummers adapt approaches depending on the situation at hand: is he or she performing for a leader, with a leader, as a leader, without a leader, in the studio, or playing live? All of these contexts are thoroughly discussed and exemplified, revealing real-life circumstances faced by the interviewed musicians. It is possible to find creativity in both performance modes. Los Angeles studio drummer Blair Sinta is identified as a professional who dwells mostly on the functional side; jazz extraordinaire Max Roach is the example for the compositional pole. However, functional performance is said to be less supportive of creative expression than compositional performance, in which drummers seek to develop a unique and identifiable musical voice.
The third thinking tool mentioned is the IMCM. This framework is based on the action theory of creativity (ATC), developed by Glăveanu (2013), in which creative action is seen through the cultural psychology lenses. In that perspective, creativity does not take place “inside” individuals but “in between” actors and their environment. Nonetheless, the ATC model does not apply to the performance creativity that is construed “in the moment,” as the work of drummers usually occur. Glăveanu was analyzing the work of designers, composers, scriptwriters, and scientists, domains in which the creative labor takes place away from the public eye and permits a revision of the product before it is revealed to others. Consequently, Dr Bruford organized the IMCM to facilitate the understanding of the circulation of meaning within the drum culture. In his own words, “the model show us how, through action, drummers make meaning of their lived experience by integrating the cultural domain level and the individual level of meaning” (p. 31). Thus, drum culture shapes the mind of the drummer and in turn, her or his actions shape the culture.
The theoretical ideas presented above set the scenario for one of the richest contributions of Uncharted: a journey into expert drummers’ minds. First, Bruford offers his own viewpoints in many anecdotal and authorial pieces of evidence. Second, he realizes in his research that although some of the literature had investigated “what governs the choices and actions” of Western drum kit players, the drummers themselves had not been truly heard. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a group of nine experienced drummers, ranging from Peter Erskine and Cindy Blackman Santana to Mark Giuliana and Chad Wackerman, disclosing their perceptions through a qualitative interpretative analysis. These names are very well known within the “community of practice” (Wenger, 1998) of drummers, and together they built a strong spectrum from which to draw ideas and examples.
Contrary to what one might expect, we learn that in drum performance, creativity is not always welcome or necessary. It was clear that for the majority of the interviewees “making it work” or “getting the job done” should be the basis for a professional drummer, and that means that she or he should always play “what is right for the music.” After that has been accomplished, it is possible to “go further” and find the “something else” that would be characterized as a creative idea. So, although individuation is a common goal for the participants of the research, they believe their primary function is to provide an appropriate performance (time, groove, dynamics, and form) to “glue the music together.” Within their milieu, “drummers think not only as individuals and human beings, but as members of a particular community with distinctive cultural traditions that allow us to ascribe meaning to creative experience, and to circulate and exchange that meaning” (p. 17).
It is also interesting to note that, when discussing creativity in their own performances, this select cohort tended to value more the opinion of co-performing listeners rather than non-performing listeners. The opinions of non-performing listeners (the audience) tended to be regarded with suspicion, while the approval of co-performing listeners (colleagues on stage) was considered a real measure of success. That understanding represents a significant difference from research with classical music performance, in which was shown that the main goal is usually the communication of emotion to the non-performing listener (Juslin, 2005; Juslin & Sloboda, 2001; Lamont, 2012). In general, the interviews depict drummers searching for their individual musical voices, and in order for this to be achieved, they try to avoid what others have done before. On the contrary, drum culture psychology is formed with what elders and acknowledged experts have played in the past and defined as “normative practices.” Hence, the challenge is to learn the tradition and at the same time find your own identity as well.
Uncharted makes it possible to fathom the full spectrum between functional and compositional approaches and how that affects drummers’ actions. That is an enormous contribution to the comprehension of the profession of playing the drum kit. It also represents a substantial contribution to the research field of creativity in music, as it sheds light on that area from a group of expert drummers’ points of view, led by an experienced musician who could build the bridge between them and rigorous scientific thinking. Moreover, it serves a noble purpose of battling against the prejudice that says “unpitched instruments make only noise” and “pitched instruments make music.” The books discusses how this prejudice had its origins in the dualist notion of the body and mind split, how drummers consider themselves “as a breed apart and a breed below,” downplaying their intellect and underestimating their skills, and how Western art music ideology has marginalized players of unpitched instruments, cultivating a sense of inferiority in them. With Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer, Dr Bruford makes a strong movement to valorize drum kit players and display their qualities, the beauty of their art, and the richness of their thinking.