Drummers that suck!

[tplyons]

Sorry, rant time.

Few weeks ago I got my drumset and have been working diligently to finish my music room in my basement. The walls are lined with instruments, and I'm getting my drumset where it's comfortable for me and not too bad for others. Word got out that I was looking for someone to jam with and one of my good friends says hey, after school we're gonna jam.

So I'm all kinds of excited, finally going to christen the "studio" and jam over old stuff, new stuff, but out of these two morons, neither knew how to jam. Try it from the guitar down and I join in, and the drummer is just sitting there, thinking. So we try the other way, from the drums up and he sits there for five minutes "thinking" of a beat. Guess what, it's the same as all the other "different beats" he's done tonight.

Okay, he can almost keep a beat, he's the guitarists' best friend, but he crossed the line after moving around ALL of my drums, putting the ride where my 18" crash is, moving the splash to where the crash was, and moving my hi-hat to the other side of the room. Apparently people with double bass pedals don't need hi-hats right? So he finally comes up with a "beat" the usual bass on 1, snare on 2 and four, and a BD roll through three and four. I tell him to try something else, something new. So I get a roll on 1, snare on 2 and four and a single kick on three. Yay, some variation!

Anyway, I ended up reaching over MY drumset, to get MY double bass pedal out of there, to force him to do something different. Even when the guitarist and I broke into something funky, it had a BD roll. Something jazzy had a BD roll too.

We finally got something decent out of him, the classic "boom-tsh-boom-boom-tsh" and I was happy, we jammed and finally had something good going on. He lost the groove after about sixteen bars, and this was the best thing the three of us had ever done.

Last time I jammed with these two, they invite me in to work on two songs of theirs. Lo and behold, I rearrange their drum parts, restructure the songs and they don't credit me in their work. Thats okay, but when their other bassist buddy steps in to play my lines and he takes credit for them, that's when I care.

Not only couldn't the drummer keep a beat, he wasn't spontaneous, have the balls to improvise, or have any variation whatsoever, he had the nerve to move around EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF MY KIT!

I threw him out and ate Taco Bell.

[IvanMike]

LOL

Lemme tell ya, a good drummer is worth whatever it takes to keep him in the band or jamming with you or whatever. I would gladly lick their boots. Ok, maybe that's a bit much. I've played with a bunch and i can think of three that were just fantastic. In one case the rest of the band sucked but i enjoyed every minute of being in his company. I played with a lot of good ones, and that was always a pleasure too. But a bad drummer? I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.

[scorpionldr]

straight up. my friend is a guitarist turned drummer, and I thank GOD that we actually have a drum beat going along even if we don't have a guitarist in the mix yet. crappy guitarists and crappy drummers for me=totally pissed off. Every day I'm just hoping someone will come along that knows HOW to play their instrument, cuz honestly, It's like throwing away time to get things done when they don't

[Adam Barkley]

Originally Posted by tplyons

Sorry, rant time.

Few weeks ago I got my drumset and have been working diligently to finish my music room in my basement. The walls are lined with instruments, and I'm getting my drumset where it's comfortable for me and not too bad for others. Word got out that I was looking for someone to jam with and one of my good friends says hey, after school we're gonna jam.

So I'm all kinds of excited, finally going to christen the "studio" and jam over old stuff, new stuff, but out of these two morons, neither knew how to jam. Try it from the guitar down and I join in, and the drummer is just sitting there, thinking. So we try the other way, from the drums up and he sits there for five minutes "thinking" of a beat. Guess what, it's the same as all the other "different beats" he's done tonight.

Okay, he can almost keep a beat, he's the guitarists' best friend, but he crossed the line after moving around ALL of my drums, putting the ride where my 18" crash is, moving the splash to where the crash was, and moving my hi-hat to the other side of the room. Apparently people with double bass pedals don't need hi-hats right? So he finally comes up with a "beat" the usual bass on 1, snare on 2 and four, and a BD roll through three and four. I tell him to try something else, something new. So I get a roll on 1, snare on 2 and four and a single kick on three. Yay, some variation!

Anyway, I ended up reaching over MY drumset, to get MY double bass pedal out of there, to force him to do something different. Even when the guitarist and I broke into something funky, it had a BD roll. Something jazzy had a BD roll too.

We finally got something decent out of him, the classic "boom-tsh-boom-boom-tsh" and I was happy, we jammed and finally had something good going on. He lost the groove after about sixteen bars, and this was the best thing the three of us had ever done.

Last time I jammed with these two, they invite me in to work on two songs of theirs. Lo and behold, I rearrange their drum parts, restructure the songs and they don't credit me in their work. Thats okay, but when their other bassist buddy steps in to play my lines and he takes credit for them, that's when I care.

Not only couldn't the drummer keep a beat, he wasn't spontaneous, have the balls to improvise, or have any variation whatsoever, he had the nerve to move around EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF MY KIT!

I threw him out and ate Taco Bell.

I feel the same about guitarists who only play Dropped D power chords. What is the point of being able to play if you can't improvise, create/add, and adapt to the music to some extent?

I have a weirder story.

I jammed with a couple of guys and I go all the way across town to get to their practice space to find out the guitarist only has a seven string, which he detunes; yay. I only have a standard tuned four with light gauge strings so matching his tuning (Dropped A down a complete step) is not an option. Initially jamming was hard as these guys only play loud and I am more of a groove oriented bassist; these guys couldn't groove if Carter Beauford and Eddie Hazel were their respective fathers.

Finally I called out a simple progression that we both could jam out and played with that for about 15 minutes, but after every complete progression the drummer would suddenly change time signatures and do this lame drum beat. Not proper notation but you get the idea

Kick Kick Kick Kick Double Kick (Repeat)
(Rack Tom) (Floor Tom) (Snare) (Crash) (Snare/Tom Fill)

The guy couldn't understand how weak the beat sounded, or understand that dirty looks we both kept giving giving. All in all a bad jam session that got better the more we played, I figure with a few more jams, and a properly tuned bass we could actually improvise together well.

[The Golden Boy]

Originally Posted by tplyons

I threw him out and ate Taco Bell.

"Now that's what I call a sticky situation!"

[tplyons]

Originally Posted by The Golden Boy

"Now that's what I call a sticky situation!"

More like stinky

[The Golden Boy]

It's from a South Park "flashback" episode where every ending of every scene is changed to include the kids getting ice cream, and the phrase- "Now that's what I call a sticky situation."

for example:

Cartman's Flashback:
Dr. Mephesto: "Cartman's father is John Elway."
Cartman: "All right!"
John Elway: "Come on son, let's go get some ice cream."
Outside the flashback:
Cartman: "Now that's what I call a sticky situation."
Stan: "John Elway's not your dad, it's your mom because she has a..."

Replace Ice Cream with Taco Bell and that's my stupid thought process...

OK, so it was a stretch...

[Squidfinger]

This makes me think of something. I'm friends with these group of people that play together, I guess you could call them a proto-band as they have no originals and have no name. The drummer was always their weakest link. He wasn't horrible but he just always seemed to play the same stuff over and over and had some minor timing issues. Then he goes to jail for 6 mo's over some drugs. When he gets back he as chops and groove coming out his arse!!!!!!!!!!! What did he do in jail???????????????? Maybe he just needed a break?

[uglycicles]

Originally Posted by Squidfinger

When he gets back he as chops and groove coming out his arse!!!!!!!!!!! What did he do in jail?????????????????

Hmmm. 1) goes to jail. 2) grooves come out of arse.


I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

[Squidfinger]

Originally Posted by uglycicles

Hmmm. 1) goes to jail. 2) grooves come out of arse.


I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

D'oh! I guess I walked into that one.

[vbass]

Originally Posted by uglycicles

Hmmm. 1) goes to jail. 2) grooves come out of arse.


I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

Lawl.

[Da LadY In Red]

Bahahaha ^

[Diowulf]

LOL...


I play with a friend (drummer) and brother (guitarist). Me and my friend seem to jam great together. But Me and my brother have problems jammin' together, and it gets really anoying. He plays his riffs that he already made up, and I improvise. Whenever I come up with something decent, he changes the riff. I think he doesn't even think about the jam, and just wants to practice his riffs.

[Mellem]

I don't see what's wrong with scrapping the drummer all together. I haven't jammed with a drummer in quite a while, and guitar + bass + piano is way cooler. IMHO drummers aren't very necessary for the creative song writing/playing process, and they tend to make things too loud and muck it all up tempo wise.

I guess that doesn't help if you're in an actual "band" and not just screwing around, but what can you do.

Does anyone know what those hourglass-shaped african drum things are called? I played in a group with one of those once, with no drumset, and that was a pretty amazing experience.

[msquared]

You're probably thinking of a talking drum. It's hourglass shaped with heads at each end connected by long strings. You're supposed to hold it under your arm and play it with a curved stick, so that when you squeeze it the heads get tighter and it changes the pitch of the drum. Very cool instrument.

[tplyons]

Either that or you're talking like a djembe. I love those, planning on getting all kinds of tribal drums (djembe, congas, bongos) soon.

[Mellem]

Originally Posted by tplyons

Either that or you're talking like a djembe. I love those, planning on getting all kinds of tribal drums (djembe, congas, bongos) soon.

Yeah, that's what it was, a djembe. It's crazy how much you can do on that little thing... sounds a lot like a talking drum, but no stick.

[tplyons]

Yeah, my band director had one, and a bunch of sax players had a little drum circle, with me on the djembe. Man was that cool!

[IvanMike]

woah now!
drummers add a huge amount to the songwriting creative process. There are plenty of groves and lines i never would have thought of if it hadnt been for drummers interjecting different beats etc into the mix.