I am not a drummer, but a fan of such. I am also a fan of teachers and educators alike and I believe that the most difficult person to educate is one who already deems oneself as educated. Barriers must be hurdled, egos torn down, and habits broken.

RIP, Mr. Gruber and take comfort in knowing that the best gift one can give to humanity is educating others…

Yeah Fred RIP.
I will never forget driving down to the house on Etiwanda St from Santa Barbara every week for a lesson at 1 pm and getting home at 1 am. Hanging out in your living room with some of greats at that time. John Hernandez, Joey Herrick,Jim Varley, Don Ellis,etc. Yeah, what a lesson plan you had. What a system! Some good times when you came up to Santa Barbara. It was a who’s who’s in the drumming world (1974-1977. I will always remember your famous quote when we nailed a technique “hello.”

Such beautiful words from a master wordsmith! Freddie Gruber touched a multitude of lives. He enhanced the art of drumming, and the heart of the drummer. Though his drums are now silent, and the dance has ended, his teachings will live on through the beat of the drum, and the beat of the drummers heart. It is what it is.

Indeed, the professor of the professor. Perhaps Neil will follow in Freddie’s footsteps and show some of todays drummers how to dance as well. Not with cigarette in hand, but with a glass of The Macallan nearby…

REMEBERING FREDDIE GRUBER
By Peter Lambert Smith

I can’t stand the emptiness that I feel in my soul ever since I learned that Freddie Gruber passed away on October 11th. You don’t know how much someone is a part of you until they’re gone. Freddie was not only my drum teacher but he was like a father, a brother and a friend to me. At the impressionable age of 23 when I first met Freddie, he became a major influence on my personality, religious concepts, value system, outlook on life and my musical approach.
I found out about Freddie from Bob Yeager of the Pro Drum Shop back in 1978. I really wanted to play like Buddy Rich and everybody agreed that Freddie was the only teacher with any real insight into how Buddy played.
When I first met Freddie, he had this whole star vibe about him like Frank Sinatra. Hip, Cool and Lean with every hair in place. I had never met anyone like him and I found him intimidating and fascinating. Eventually, he had me sit down and play a little and he said something like “You need work but you can play.”
Luckily, I happened to live only a few blocks from Freddie’s house on Etiwanda Street. So, after I had been his student for a while, I started to go over to his house just to hang out . Freddie loved to share his thoughts and he would teach me about life, religion, politics and women while he did his chores around the house. He taught me a lot about being a bachelor like taking the clothes out of the dryer just before they were completely dry and then neatly folding them and letting them air dry to avoid having to iron them.
I drove him to the NAMM show to see Don Lombardi do his first Drum Workshop exhibit in a 10X10 booth. I went with Freddie to see Dave Weckl’s first seminar in LA at the Musicians Union and sat beside him at The Baked Potato while we checked out this new drummer named Vinnie.
He would let me sit in his living room and listen to records of Stravinsky, Philly Joe and Roy Haynes while he made insightful comments about the music. We would hop in his old Firebird and drive out to Malibu and lay out on the beach for an hour and discuss how the movement of the waves could be applied to drum technique.
But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that dealing with Freddie was like taking a bitter pill. He was from the school of hard knocks and he didn’t pull any punches. But, he always told it like it was and if you could learn to swallow your pride you always benefited from his criticism.
It took me a long time to understand that, the reason Freddie would make his students wait so long for their lessons was because he believed that nothing should take priority over playing the drums.
That meant girl friends, family influences, social pressures and ego. He taught me the difference between “Strong & Wrong and “Light and Right” and every time I left Freddie’s, there was always something he had said that I would need to analyze and figure out.
I feel fortunate that the three years that I studied with Freddie was during a very stable time in his life. Lessons were only $25.00 an hour and except for a month here or there, I would see him almost every week. He really built my technique from the ground up and by the end of my three years we were working out of 10 different drum books. We had gone through the Buddy Rich and Roy Burns books both traditional and matched grip and the Colin Bailey book about six different ways.
In fact, we became so detailed in every aspect of my technique that I became overly self analytical and eventually just had to get away from drumming to sort things out. Year by year, I would take the things Freddie taught me and work on them and apply them to all aspects of my life. Every time a light bulb would turn on I would think of Freddie. Eventually, all the concepts and techniques became a part of who I am and my hands stopped holding the sticks and they became married to the sticks.
If I were to explain Freddie’s concept for holding the stick I would say that the stick is the spirit and the hand is the body. The hand must house the energy of the stick without inhibiting it’s freedom to move and respond.
In essence, drumming is the expression of movement. We hear the beats but we feel the movement between the beats.
Musical technique isn’t something that can be explained or taught. It has to be experienced in order to be understood. Freddie would work with his students until they finally hit the drum in the correct way and then he would say, “Hello! Did you feel that?” His teaching was all about the feeling of playing the drums. Then letting those feelings guide your creativity.
From the early 1990’s till 2010, I saw very little of Freddie. After Buddy died, he didn’t teach as much and he did a whole dance with established successful drummers as more of a drum coach and as a result he gained a lot of well deserved recognition.
But, in January of 2011, I felt a strong need to reconnect with Freddie. I had really gotten back into drumming and I wanted to share what I was experiencing with him. So, I called him, wondering if he still had the same phone number that he had when I use to house sit for him back in 1989.
“Hello?” he answered. “Freddie, this is a someone you haven’t spoken to for a while.” I said. “Well, for me, a while goes back about 60 years.” “It’s Peter Smith, remember me?” “Your right, that does go back a while.
Come on over!”

That evening, I was sitting in the kitchen of Freddie’s house which had not changed in 20 years. Instantly, he began probing me and started his whole, “So, what’s it all about?” routine discussing the meaning life and concepts about the universe and God. This was Freddie’s way of pulling you out of the madness of the Real world and into his creative Spatial world. (He loved Einstein.) It was that night that I learned that Freddie was dealing with serious health problems and he urged me to start visiting with him as often as possible.
Over the past 10 months, I saw Freddie about 6 times and went to his 84th Birthday Party. At each visit, I would see him loosing more weight as his condition got worse and worse. He was angry, and really struggling to accept his fate. After the lifestyle that Freddie had, he wasn’t about to live out his life as some feeble old man and during one of my last visits, he admitted that he had pretty much decided to just let his life go.
It was during that visit that I got my last lesson from Freddie. I was playing for him on the drum pad and he said, “Your sound good, Peter . I built you some pretty good hands.” Then he picked up a pair of sticks and had me go through release and stroke movements with him. We talked about Buddy and his tricky way of playing and I finally asked him, “Freddie, what was Buddy’s secret? What was the trick?” Freddie looked at me and said “Dancing.”
The last time I was with Freddie was about 3 weeks before he passed away and Cindy led me to his room. He was so thin that you could feel his bones when you touched him. About all he could do was lay in bed and sleep so, I sat down next to him and affectionately rubbed his arm. After a while I stopped and he said, “Don’t stop, it feels good.”
I regret not going with my impulse to see Freddie one more time before he passed but, perhaps it was for the best. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to reconnect with Freddie to rekindle our relationship and to get some real closure with my drumming.
My story is just one of thousands of people who had the fortune to know Freddie Gruber. Now that he is gone, I feel a need to keep his wisdom and enthusiasm for the drumming arts alive. All his students have a little piece of Freddie in them and we owe it to Freddie to pass the knowledge he gave us on to a new generation of drummers who will never know the experience of sitting next to Freddie at a drum set and hearing him say ,”Hello! Did you feel that?”

Rest in peace teacher’s teacher

Neil, thank you for sharing your stories and experiences with Freddie Gruber. I never realized what an impact Freddie Gruber had on other musicians until I watched a documentary about you, Freddie and how Freddie made you better drummer(I didn’t think that was possible!) The great jazz drummers like Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa and many others had such a profound effect on the great drummers of rock, progressive styles of music that I can hear the influences of these jazz greats and we can thank Freddie Gruber for it all.

Neil thanks again for enlightening music fans of your experiences with Freddy. He may be gone but his contribution to all things music will live forever.

Sorry to read this. I have been inspired through Mr Pearts own relationship as a student of Freddies and have been teaching drums myself for some years always aware of those at the top end. I am sure he will be missed and yet in some ways continue to be present. Thank you Neil for being a gateway to Freddie. Thank you Freddie for inspiring me to teach from afar.

What’s with the goofy glasses old boy?

Here’s to a life well lived.

R.I.P. Freddie.

Cheers!

Wow, I never met Freddie in fact I only became aware of him by watching NP’s video “A Work In Progress”. I guess I am musically sheltered or focused. After reading Neils piece above regarding Freddy and then Pete Lambert Smith, I became a little emotional. Being a drummer of some 20 years (off and on since about 1981) I completely grasp the significance of Freddy equating drumming to natural rhythms (waves on the ocean), and dancing. I can picture working with him and trying to learn and feel a technique and him suddenly saying “Hello” when you get “it”. In my life I have come from being a scientific atheist, to someone who felt there had to a larger creative force at work, and finally to someone who truly believes we were created as a reflection of that large creative force (god? perhaps.) I know one thing, I really really hope there is a heaven or a post life reality where we can interact with people that so many wish would never have aged, or had to pass away. RIP Freddie Gruber. Tell Buddy I said hello.

Ironically I was just watching the latest Rush blu-ray documentary this morning and was introduced to Freddie. I’m glad he figured out early on what I learned from one if my long-time heirs, Gerry Spencer, that it is incumbent upon all of us to teach the next generation. God’s speed Freddie.

I apologise for making reference to this material, but I’d like to share some comments that were originally posted by the widow of my favourite professor, Dr. Peter Frost. On a memorial page created in his honour, his widow expressed feelings that are echoed in some of Mr. Peart’s warm remarks. In particular, she noted:
“There are so many kind, inspiring, funny and endearing messages posted here about my beloved Peter. I would like to thank all those who enriched Peter’s life and who have shared their experiences of him with us. I would like to share a poem that expresses my feelings at the loss of my soul mate.

This body is not me
I am not limited by this body
I am life without boundaries
I have never been born,
and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
manifestations from my wondrous true mind.

Since before time, I have been free
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are a game of hide and seek.

So laugh with me,
hold my hand,
let us say good-bye,
say good-bye to meet again soon.

We meet today.
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source every moment.
We meet each other in all forms of life.

Thich Nhat Hanh – posted by NF.
In the Dr. Seuss Tale, “Oh the Places You’ll Go” a line notes “No! That’s not for you! Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing”
It seems that Freddie not only found this place, but then, through acts of benevolence and generosity, he helped many other friends find this hopeful pulse too, often within themselves.
I’m grateful that he was so pure in heart and mind that he selflessly shared this gift, thus enabling his grace to beat on in the hearts and rhythms of great drummers. In doing so, perhaps he carved from silence some lessons like those mentioned at the end of Norman MacLean’s “A River Runs Through It”

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. .. I am haunted by the waters.

RIP Mr. Gruber, and thank you too Mr. Peart.