Listening outside of your instrument
In my experience, any musician can fall into the trap of only listening to their particular instrument for inspiration. There are a number of advantages to listening outside of your instrument, particularly for drummers.
1. Rhythmic genius isn't drum specific
As I mentioned in another post, the jazz musicians who have made the biggest impact on the music all had really deep rhythmic vocabulary, regardless of their instrument. My favorite example of this is the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. If you haven't already, check out his classic solo on "St. Thomas" (starts around :55):
Did you hear how he took that little two-note idea through all those hip rhythmic variations? I have a whole exercise from my forthcoming book devoted to this solo, and you can easily see how Sonny's style of playing could translate on to the drums.
