There Are Things I Purposely Don't Do

There are things I purposely don't do, because others, like Lê Quan Ninh, Tatsuya Nakatani, Michael Zerang, or Eddie Pévost do: rubbing cymbals across the drum head, blowing through the cymbal mounting hole, bowing small, hand held cymbals, etc. While I admire them all greatly, these are their ideas. I have tried to come up with my own. And that's something important to me. As I have said before, we all start out by copying others, but then at some point, we need to come up with our own ideas, either modifying things we have stolen, or devising new ones. 
Ninh scraping cymbals…

 I won't say that I haven't copied an idea from someone else. I have, lots of them. But I've always come up with my own variation on whatever I take from someone else. 



Tatsuya blowing…

 There are things I do that I have later found others doing. I've had people ask me, “Did you get that idea from X?,” where X was someone I was not at all familiar with. There are only so many ideas and techniques out there, so parallel development is a natural part of the Universe.


Michael Zerang scraping sticks…

 For example, I've been using a horizontal bass drum since about 1979, first with a 20", more recently with a 26". I've been putting small Gongs & cymbals, little percussion items, and found objects on my drums for ages. These were ideas I just found interesting. Later, I found other drummers, like Eddie Pévost, doing the same things. It seems you can't keep a good idea down.
Eddie, being Eddie…

I have to admit to being a very late comer to Eddie and AMM. There were just never on my radar. After I discovered them, it was like, “We do similar things. That's cool.” But we also do a lot of different things, or the same type of things in much different ways. 
Me, doing what I do…

 Maybe it's just me, but I really feel it's important to find your own path, your own voice, your own way in this musical and artistic world.

 ~ MB
Deconstruct Yourself





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