Here's a great video with drummer extraordinaire Greg Bissonette describing the drum groove that he's developed to make sound checks go a bit faster. The idea is to give the engineer everything he needs to check each of the drums and cymbal mics, but in a musical way.
I've found that almost all experienced session drummers have a similar groove or routine that goes way beyond the boring 20 minutes of "Give me your kick drum" while the drummer bangs away on just a single drum. While some of that is necessary, everyone appreciates a groove that more closely simulates a song rather than an exercise.
Here's another topic that I feel is important enough to deserve cross-posting with my Music 3.0 blog. Below you'll see a video called "Dublin Grooves - Ricky O'Neill" from drummer Ricky O'Neill, who'splaying in front of the landmarks of Dublin.
Ricky plays great and the video is very well made, so what's missing? Let's look at some basic search engine optimization that could've happened very easily which might've made a big difference in the number of views the video eventually gets.
1) There's no contact info anywhere on the video. At the very least, I would've put a screen at the end with a website, email address, Facebook and Twitter info, and another screen for the film maker. Both Ricky and the film maker potentially missed calls for gigs at most, and followers and friends at the least. This was the perfect marketing tool that never really became one and therefore missed a golden opportunity.
2) I never would've known Ricky was playing in front of Dublin landmarks had Ricky not told me via email. This video could've been a lot more interesting with a lower third or info key screen identifying each place, plus that info could've been used in both the description and keywords (see #4 and #5 below).
3) I would've titled this "Ricky O'Neill Dublin Drum Grooves" for the keyword phrase value. "Drum Grooves" has a stronger keyword value than simply "grooves" since it's more focused and precise. "Dublin Drum Grooves" even more so.
4) Take a look at the YouTube page for the video. The description of the video gives you some basic information, but reads more like the back of a DVD rather than a description of what the video is about. A 200 word description (at least) with the phrases "Ricky O'Neill" and "drum grooves" sprinkled in 4 or 5 times (about 2 percent) would've been more search engine friendly.
5) Take a look at the tags. There are too many to begin with, and they're not focused enough. The ones that could've been used are "Ricky O'Niell," "Dublin Drum Grooves" (if the titled were changed), "Curtis Morris" (the film maker), "street drums" (after a quick search with the Google Keyword Tool), and maybe "Irish drummer." Having tags like "jojo" and "excellent" and "drum kit" are a waste of time since they're not descriptive or granular enough to make a difference in search ranking.
Don't get me wrong, I really like this video. It's really well made and Ricky's playing is solid enough that I'm sure he'd get calls for gigs - if someone knew how to find him. Like I said before - opportunity lost.
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