The music in today’s world has changed drastically compared to what it used to be. Instead of having a drummer, most bands prefer to use electronic drums and it really can’t get the job done.

Electronic drums really can’t capture the sound that a real drummer can. There is something specific about what a real drum sounds like that only a drum can capture. Most performers now just have a drum pad that plays an electronic sound that imitates a drum. This just ends up making the music almost choppy and ruins the sound. The sound style of the electronic drums just makes the song sound cheap and very low quality. ‘

With a real drummer, they are allowed to change up the pattern every performance so what you hear on the radio is different than what you hear live. These drummers are some of the best in the world like Chad Smith the drummer for The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Smith has an incredible sense of style and relatively sticks to the pattern of each song but adds his own personal touch to it. With electronic drums, this is impossible. Once you have a pattern in the drum system it stays the same and makes the song feel flat and boring just like driving across Kansas. Drummers such as Smith have been doing this for a long time and avoid the constant looping patterns of electric drums.

If we take a look back to 1959, we see a classic jazz standard song called Take 5, by Dave Brubeck. The drummer on this song was a man named Joe Morello. Morello has a solo in the middle of this song which subdivides the time and tempo perfectly. Morello performed this song countless times and every single time, the solo was different. If this were to be done now by an artist they would need days to prepare a different solo before a different concert and the program would still sound chunky and not as smooth as drummers can. 

Most of these electronic drums are incorporated in rap music with some exceptions. One of those exceptions is Anderson.Paak. He plays the drums himself as he raps to the music. However, most rappers such as Kendrick Lamar or Drake do not use real drums and stick to the easy convenience of programmed drums. One of the worst parts is the fact that when you go to concerts, sometimes the performer will substitute real drums in for their performance so it sounds great live but when you hear it again through a recording, it is the same programmed drums and not the live version with real drums. 

If more artists used real drums, music today would be a lot more interesting and would provide a lot more jobs that are being lost to the convenience of technology. If you ever have the choice, always choose real drums.