Hi Janek,

Thanks for your insight on how you've worked with grooves and practiced good time on bass.

Did you ever go through a stage where you occassionaly had to play gigs with drummers for the money, but their time (subdivisions and overall tempo) just sucked beyond belief?

I assume at the level you've achieved now you don't need to worry anymore but it would be reassuring to know you once had to put up with bad time from drummers and battled away regardless!

Any tips on dealing with them? I've worked on playing behind and on top but i know one guy that takes off even if I play literally an 8th note behind! - i.e. - donna lee ends up at 380 bpm which to me just isn't musical! Maybe you can still solo at that speed....

Is there no solution and the best advice is to keep practicing so you get to a musical level where you don't have to do gigs with sub-par drummers to pay the bills?

peace

J

J,

well there were times when I first started playing that I played with some drummers with terrible time. I'm not sure it bothered me as much as it might do now as my time probably wasn't that happening in the beginning either.

I'm at a point now where I can pretty much pick and choose who plays drums on the gig, or whether I want to do the gig or not which is nice. But if I do end up in a situation where the drummer is less then helpfull with the time.... I tend to start figuring out ways that I can still sound as good as possible without letting the guy effect me.

you bring up the point of a drummer rushing and ending up playing a tune at 380bpm, and saying you can't solo at that speed. What you mean is that you can't play 8th notes at that speed. Now playing 8th notes at 380bpm and soloing have nothing to do with each other or being musical at all. playing that fast is just a function, and quite often not a particularly musical one. If I found myself in that situation I would make a concious effort to play whole notes, half notes, and maybe triplets and be as musical as I could within the boundries of my physical technique. And if you can make something musical out of a situation that might appear to suck, you are growing as a musician, and your skills of interaction are moving to a new level.

And of course, if you like drummers with good time, you should really go and find some and strive to get to a point where you don't have to worry about who the drummer's going to be.

I hope this helps.

Easy,

Janek