Drumset As A Manifestation of Time
—Drumset As A Manifestation of Time—
Really gets the blood pumping, doesn’t it? Anthropomorphic cylinders of wood and metal chopping at the air, extracting from it the savage, unflappably elusive beast of time. Watch the drummer next time you see one play; you’ll spot the phenomenon if you look hard enough. Though a word of caution: they’re a bit excitable, drummers. You’ll lose them in the Quasidimension if you’re not careful. Just like Peter “James” Bond and the “flash of green light”.
Almost a decade ago (wild how time flies—pun intended), I was reading a lot of Hawking and Einstein and, on the fiction side, Arthur C. Clarke, (and pretending to understand everything they were talking about) in an effort to ground the Quasidimension in some sort of reality-based plausibility. The Junk Disko Universe was in its fledgling phase. (Those early stages were good fun because there was so much potential and I was learning—or trying to—learn about the beginnings of the real universe and how time played such an integral role in its inception—and continues to play one in its expansion. ) Hawking, in his A Brief History of Time, treats time, Like Einstein, as non absolute. As a fourth dimension linked to space, i.e., space-time. So, time can pass differently for different people in different conditions. *Cue the man traveling at the speed of light and his static observer. I like the train analogy: You’re on a train platform; your friend is on a train. He’s got a flashlight shining on a mirror above him, which reflects the light to the mirror directly below. The train’s moving away from the station super fast—like at the speed of light. SoL is a constant, so it moves at the same speed for both you and your friend. To him, the light’s traveling at a normal speed. But to you, still standing on the platform, the light’s traveling a longer path to hit your peepers—it takes more time, even though the light is moving at the same speed for both of you. Thus, the theory goes, time is not absolute. Hawking continues on to posit that ever since the...
...dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.
And this, like everything, is finite. We have an expiration date. We have only a certain amount of time to do all the things we want to do or to satisfy our deepest desire to know the secrets of the universe. Time is unyielding. It’s not only the judge; it’s the executioner. It’ll be there when we die, just like it was when we were born. Some want to defeat time, or at the least stretch it as far as it can go. (I’m not sure how I feel about an earth-bound immortality.) It might just be a fool’s errand, trying to conquer time. Some things, I think, are just not meant to be discovered.
We can, however, decide what to do with the time that is given to us. The venerable Gandalf the Gray, like Hawking, acknowledges the pressure-based imperative inherent in time. We can still do things—great things—like inventing a broadcasting device that publicly shames people who litter as soon as they perpetrate such a morally deplorable act. And better yet, we get to decide how we spend our time. But to achieve such genius, we need to be purposeful and good stewards of the time we’re allotted. We ought not to waste time. That would be, well, a waste of time.
We drummers are such stewards. We’re charged with an almost impossible task. Something we share on a very primordial level with our cave-dwelling ancestors: We literally measure the time. We bring it to life; we manifest it with our feet and with wooden sticks. We establish bars and infuse them with notes—notes that sometimes elongate and syncopate and modulate. All of this in service to the mighty goddess of time. Sometimes we lose the time—a paradox in and of itself—and it’s scary. Probably the scariest thing that can happen to a drummer (besides disappearing into a flash of green light, of course). But if we’re brave enough, we can have it recaptured. Seal it inside our groove pocket. Keep it for as long as we can. Manifest it.
Perhaps that’s why so many physicists are after us.
Keep your eyes open.
-Taylor
P.S. I also love drumming because you can be super creative with your instrument. Not only in what you play, but how you arrange your kit. I’ve had lots of fun setups over the years. I think I’ll have a future post just about that.
TJH -- 05.12.2025