Tonight I sat down for the traditional hour of COPS on Fox. Even though the show adheres to a strict pattern and is heavily edited, I still really enjoy watching. As I learn more and more about the profession, I notice more and more things about what I see on the show that I didn’t before. For example, I just learned this past week what it means to double-lock handcuffs; tonight I saw it happen for the first time on TV, even though I previously had watched handcuffs being double-locked on the show a dozen times or more.
It’s a lot like percussion. As a drummer, I notice so much more about music that I listen to than I ever thought possible. This is both a blessing and a curse. Being a drummer is a curse because I can no longer just listen to music and enjoy it (unless it’s the Beatles). I hear the drums. That’s all. I interpret the music from the perspective of a percussionist, no longer just a listener.
This phenomenon is beginning to happen to me with law enforcement. As I watch COPS, I now see the officer taking notes on his hand because he forgot his notebook that night. I see the slight tremor in an officer’s hands as he attempts to double-lock handcuffs after a fight with a suspect. I wonder to myself why the nameplate is attached to the pocket flap rather than just over it. The little details that are lost on the average observer are beginning to stand out.
These days when I listen to a song, especially if it’s funk or jazz, I think about what I would play if I were the one with the sticks in my hand. I listen to the groove, the breaks, the fills, the accents, and make a note to try them out myself later on. Similarly, these days instead of watching COPS for entertainment, I think of every segment as a training video. It’s a bit of a bummer because I can remember watching the show and just wanting to drive fast with the lights on.
