Today I had the opportunity to watch the introduction of Benny Greb - The art and science of groove. He is a famous drummer and very good educator. He is also the author of The language of drumming.

In that introduction, he talks about what groove is and explains the myths that exist around it. He uses the following example of the misconceptions about the topic:

Well, is not as simple as that. Technique you can practice, but groove you can't. See, I've been blessed with great feel. Solid time-feel is a gift, either you have it or you don't

He responds to those statements:

If it is gift, I didn't have it, but I worked on it, improved it. Having a great groove is not a gift, it is a skill, but more specifically, a combination of learnable skills.

Then, he continues with:

We'll approach them from all the different angles and specific exercises and tools in each area that are all must-have elements of groove. At the end, all of them will serve you intuitively. And when you need to tweak something or troubleshoot you'll be able to zoom in and work on each of them separately. Become an expert that will diagnose and know when and why something isn't working. And then have tools available to fix it.

That resonated with me. He is one of the bests because he can analyze in very deep detail all the aspects involved in drumming and is capable of isolating them in practice. I completely agree in that approach towards a discipline. It is the only way to be the best you can be. That approach gives you an intuition that you can use subconsciously but without losing the capability of switching to a conscious approach. That is true not only in drumming, also in software and I bet in any available discipline.