The relationship: Bass Drum-Bass!!

[FunkyMan]

"Hey you sould always follow the bass drum".... I've always heard this from many drummers I've played with, in fact, this is true but how far?

I play mostly in a Funk-Fusion band, and my role as bassist (as you all know) is to be very carefull with the groove, and usually the bass lines are always repeated respecting a basic pattern so I KNOW what i'm playing and how. But then comes the drummer and yells at me: "Hey you sould always follow the bass drum"

So I get ready to pay attention to his accents on the bass drum, and what happens? he NEVER keeps a steady rhythm!!!! , always changing accents, in fact I have seen this in many drummers,they seem to forget that they must keep those accents!

After rehersal, we were talking about that, and we differ in our opinions, I said that we are not machines and that sometimes the accents don't always match perfectly, he said yes, that must always be so

Then i told him that I watched what he did and he was never 100% stuck to the bass, he denied it, and then the discussion continued etc...

What do you think of this? I've heard enough rhythmic music and the bass is not "always" with the bassdrum...

[lowphatbass]

With groove/dance oriented stuff(I do a lot of Neo Soul/R&B) the kick's got to be solid and consistant, accents are fine, but the "pattern" must stay consistant. This is pretty much true with almost all vocal music where there' dancing involved.
Push and Pull between the Bass and Kick is fine, it builds rhythmic tension and when they lock-in later the union is more appreciated. Of course it must be tasteful and appropriate.
There's really no set rules as far as the relationship between the Bass and Kick are concerned as different types of grooves feature different feels/tempos/etc. It just has to work.

[slowburnaz]

"Always" with the bass drum?!

That leaves a lot of room for expression, now doesn't it? I guess it depends the type of music you're playing, but in most cases I'd say that to have your drummer insist that you never *not* follow the bass drum is a bunch of crap.

Bottom line is, there's no hard and fast rule. The main concern is if it grooves or not.

[slowburnaz]

Originally Posted by lowphatbass

With groove/dance oriented stuff(I do a lot of Neo Soul/R&B) the kick's got to be solid and consistant, accents are fine, but the "pattern" must stay consistant. This is pretty much true with almost all vocal music where there' dancing involved.
Push and Pull between the Bass and Kick is fine, it builds rhythmic tension and when they lock-in later the union is more appreciated. Of course it must be tasteful and appropriate.
There's really no set rules as far as the relationship between the Bass and Kick are concerned as different types of grooves feature different feels/tempos/etc. It just has to work.

Ha! Right on, lowphatbass! I guess we posted at the same time. Great minds think alike, eh?

[jumon]

Originally Posted by FunkyMan

So I get ready to pay attention to his accents on the bass drum, and what happens? he NEVER keeps a steady rhythm!

If he can't keep a steady rhythm (which is the hard way), you'll keep it then ! (which is the hard way)...

In order to fully understand & master all the subtleties of Groove & Pulse, it is necessary to methodically work on accents & subdivisions. So a good way to reach such level is just to practice with designed methods for Drummers.

Books like -Stick Control by G.L Stone- are highly recommended for all Bassists.

[JohnMCA72]

Originally Posted by FunkyMan

"Hey you sould always follow the bass drum".... I've always heard this from many drummers I've played with, in fact, this is true but how far?

I've heard this a lot, too, & from a lot more than just drummers.

The big problem I have with it is that there's a presumption that the (kick) drum is always "right". As the rest of your post points out, that isn't the case (at least not the "always" part).

As a bass player, who works at the intersection of melody, chord, & rhythm, I think I'm in the best position to determine the groove. That kick drum should be "following" & accentuating what I do!

Of course, it works both ways. Bass needs to have a certain consistency of pattern, so that the point where the kick accentuation is needed can be predicted by the drummer (as you also noted).

[bassybill]

"Playing with the kick drum" is an ambiguous phrase and, I think, the source of a lot of confusion. It could mean:

a) the kick drum and the bass should be playing in a complementary, rhythmically supportive and musically pleasing way.

Or it could alternatively mean:

b) the kick drum and the bass must play in a way that most of the notes played on either one must always coincide exactly in time with a note played on the other.

It should normally be taken to mean a), in my opinion. Insisting that it actually means b) is ridiculously musically restrictive and that's why about 99% of great music would not meet this "requirement". Hence the confusion - some people assume that it means b) and then wonder why that something that's supposed to be a necessity doesn't actually work.

[Raymeous]

A long time ago I used to listen to a band called Crimson Glory (big hair metal band) and their bass player litterally followed the bass drum. Blip - - - Blip Blip - - Blip - - - Blip blip... short little stacatto hits without a single sustained note. It was the most boring bass playing ever and his bass tone was super thin as well. The harmony guitar work and song writing was really good though.

[Scatterblak]

Originally Posted by FunkyMan

"Hey you sould always follow the bass drum".... I've always heard this from many drummers I've played with, in fact, this is true but how far?

I play mostly in a Funk-Fusion band, and my role as bassist (as you all know) is to be very carefull with the groove, and usually the bass lines are always repeated respecting a basic pattern so I KNOW what i'm playing and how. But then comes the drummer and yells at me: "Hey you sould always follow the bass drum"

So I get ready to pay attention to his accents on the bass drum, and what happens? he NEVER keeps a steady rhythm!!!! , always changing accents, in fact I have seen this in many drummers,they seem to forget that they must keep those accents!

After rehersal, we were talking about that, and we differ in our opinions, I said that we are not machines and that sometimes the accents don't always match perfectly, he said yes, that must always be so

Then i told him that I watched what he did and he was never 100% stuck to the bass, he denied it, and then the discussion continued etc...

What do you think of this? I've heard enough rhythmic music and the bass is not "always" with the bassdrum...

The rhythm section is a single instrument that takes 4 hands and 2 legs to play properly. Forget the hard and fast rules, but somethings gotta give if you're expecting a high percentage of your notes to be composed of attack and tone (drums and bass working together). I imagine you could quantify the relationship with a lot of rules like 'always follow the kick' (Which we do, a lot of the time), but there are a lot of others - 'always play the same pattern in the same passages if you want the bass to follow your kick' seems high on the list.

Sounds like you need a new drummer --- if you get the right guy™, you won't even need to have this conversation - it'll all just happen. I've been playing with my drummer for 10 years now, and I can even follow his fast tom fillls at this point - I just get a feeling they're coming, and when he goes, I go and we're almost always together, all the way through, unplanned, and you can't beat that feeling. There are exceptions to every rule, but most of the time, finding the right drummer is like finding the right woman. Except harder. Once you do, though, it's easier to keep a drummer happy than a wife.

You can check my drummer out here:

http://www.littlequeenrocks.com - click 'Video', and scroll down. There's a video of him recording a song called 'How Can I Refuse' with a click, and with nothing in his cans except me and the guitarist. After the print, I posted the video for fun, but removed our audio and put Heart's original track with it, just to see how close he was.

[jumon]

Think i'm in love with Amber...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Very nice Band.

[jumon]

Originally Posted by Scatterblak

if you get the right guy™...

lol...

You got it ! Brilliant.

[bassybill]

Scatterblak - that video of your drummer is great, it really made me smile. He's spot on!

I don't play in a trib band myself, but I can appreciate the hard work it takes to get that close to the original. I bet if you saw Heart live, their own drummer would not bother about matching every fill on the original track note-for-note. That takes some doing.

He also looks like a drummer who's been taught his rudiments properly to me. Makes all the difference, in my opinion.

Just out of interest, how did you make sure the click you used synced so exactly with the original?

[Scatterblak]

Originally Posted by jumon

Think i'm in love with Amber...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Very nice Band.

Amber is quite single, 27 years old, and Little Queen is her first band.

[Scatterblak]

Originally Posted by bassybill

Just out of interest, how did you make sure the click you used synced so exactly with the original?

Man, he's kind of a rain man type drummer. He tapped it by hand to get it into the ballpark, and then tried different increments at 1/10th of a bpm until he found the right tempo to go through the tune (Heart used a click as well, apparently, or so he tells me). He also tried different clicks, and explained that different clicks would 'crawl' away from the tempo over the course of an entire song! I didn't buy any of that (not sure if I do now), but his results are always good. I'll tell you some more fun stuff about him - when we were first putting the band together, he made sure he had the same size shells as Carmassi, and the same color (The kit in the video is the studio kit, not Phil's performance kit); then he was dissappointed to find that he couldn't quite get have Carmassi's hi-hat tone and Derosier's hi-hat tone, so now he has two hi-hats on his kit - one for the 70's stuff, and one for the 80's stuff, basically. A week before recording the video, he called me on vacation, and asked to talk to my wife -- he was out shopping for a shirt, and wanted to make sure he got the same collar type and color as the shirt in one of the dream boat annie concert shots he had.

It's a challenge playing with this guy, but I wouldn't have it any other way; I can count the number of mistakes I've heard him play in ten years on two hands, and if *you* make a mistake, he heard it, no matter how tiny it was. He makes you a better player by just setting the bar of 'good enough' so high. Plus, he's a good guy (he and his wife are my daughter's godparents).

We may need to have a thread discussing the capture, care and feeding of the right drummer.

[foq1978]

Originally Posted by bassybill

"Playing with the kick drum" is an ambiguous phrase and, I think, the source of a lot of confusion. It could mean:

a) the kick drum and the bass should be playing in a complementary, rhythmically supportive and musically pleasing way.

Or it could alternatively mean:

b) the kick drum and the bass must play in a way that most of the notes played on either one must always coincide exactly in time with a note played on the other.

It should normally be taken to mean a), in my opinion. Insisting that it actually means b) is ridiculously musically restrictive and that's why about 99% of great music would not meet this "requirement". Hence the confusion - some people assume that it means b) and then wonder why that something that's supposed to be a necessity doesn't actually work.

I wish this was short enough to make it my signature.

I've had so many fights over this in previous bands... I even made a tape of songs where bass and bass drums did not coincide 100% of the time. And it didn't convince them!

[bassybill]

Originally Posted by foq1978

I wish this was short enough to make it my signature.

I've had so many fights over this in previous bands... I even made a tape of songs where bass and bass drums did not coincide 100% of the time. And it didn't convince them!

Hah! The more you think about it, the more dumb it is. There's a point in a tune where a particular note on your bass would be just perfect, all on its own - but you're NOT allowed to play it there because there's no bass drum beat?

Anybody with ears should be able to tell that this is completely ridiculous. BUT apparently there's some who can't.

[bassybill]

I thought an example might help - the kick and the bass are playing together absolutely PERFECTLY in this track. Is there an exact match in phrasing? No. Of course not.

http://www.billygreen.pwp.blueyonder...%20Beyonce.mp3