When you've been playing on some of the biggest stages in the world for decades, you tend to pick up a thing or two. Luckily, we had one one such musician with over 40 years of experience—the legendary drummer Steve Jordan—stop by our Chicago studio to lay down some beats and wisdom.
The man who played with everyone from The Blues Brothers to the Saturday Night Live Band to the John Mayer Trio touched on a range of topics: finding your signature drum sound, understanding the "ocean of distance" between quarter notes, and more.
One of the most useful bits of advice is one of the first points Jordan touches on in his evolution: approaching music without the preconception of a beat. When discussing how he came up with the rock-solid foundations of his work with John Mayer Trio, Jordan responds:
"As I've grown as a musician, I stopped thinking in terms of beats. When you're a drummer, you think, What beat am I gonna play on this song?, or whatever. You haven't even heard the song yet! And you're gonna try to figure out what beat you're gonna play on it!? That's like the most unmusical thing that you could do."
From there, he elaborates on the need to approach the music without a beat in mind to serve the song.
Watch this bit of wisdom and more in the full video.