Drummers' timing and how it affects your playing

[Peter Squire]

i been playing for a long time, and the guys im with now are bit green. i learned the timing lesson long ago, but the drummer im with now has that "push'n'pull" thing - see, he's basically in time, but he dances around being over, on, and behind the beat.

i basically taught him the difference between how you attack the "one" (as i call it). Lately he's been better, but I do agree that a drummer needs natural rhythm, but so does a bass player....

just my thoughts

 

[Aussiephoenix]

I was wondering how everyone else developed their sense of time- were you lucky to start out with a rock-solid drummer, or did you gradually realise drummers' flaws over time, like I have?

Hell no, I started off playing with this kid who had a lot of heart and he triend real hard, but couldnt help but be a ****-arse player...

Dude couldnt keep a beat going with precision for over 4 bars... that was bad and good for me, as I decided I couldnt accompany him so, I started concentrating less on the drum groove and more on the guitarrist's melody... I believe this actually forced an improvement on my own timing... like we're playing and I'll notice that the drummer has fallen out a little, but manage to keep my rhythm steady so as to force him back on track again.

Now, I have this other drummer that is pretty good, and it was tricky starting to "follow" the drummer again, but its better as I can rely on him for a steady beat, and after my playing around with soloparts or off-beat stuff, I can easily fall into step with him.

 

[RicPlaya]

Bands live and die by the quality of the drummer. You can have great guitars and vocals, bad drums = the band will suck. I have seen sub par singers and guitars with awesome drummers and they rocked.

It all starts with the drummer. IMO the most important piece of the band.

 

[nicoli]

Bands live and die by the quality of the drummer. You can have great guitars and vocals, bad drums = the band will suck. I have seen sub par singers and guitars with awesome drummers and they rocked.

It all starts with the drummer. IMO the most important piece of the band.

I'll agree that a bad drummer ruins a band, but there's no way they're more important than the singer. If the vocalist is doing a poor job, *everyone* in the venue knows it and talks about it. If the drummer is doing a poor job, I believe that's more something that players will notice more than the general public.

 

[theblackshade]

If any band member's playing is really bad, people in the audience will generally notice, with the exception of a bass player drowning between two ENGL stacks and a really overcompensating drumkit, played by king kong on steroids. I've been there but I wont go through it again.

 

[Sergio]

The dummer in my old band never really had problems with timing, unless he was doing a fill or something. He wasn't to good at fills or blastbeats, yet he tried to do them often. Also, whenever we would jam on a new song idea, he would always try and change the tempo. Of course, everyone in the band followed him, but if I could just keep playing the in the same time signature at the same tempo as before. Needless to say, the drummer would get pissed about it every once in a while, but it really showed me how much influence I could have on the music as a whole, as far as having people follow what I'm doing instead of just the drummer.

 

[fivesecondzero]

I've had pretty good fortune to play with good drummers lately...at the start of my career it wasn't so. Its amazing how when you get a good drummer playing the bass seems as easy as breathing. you don't have to concentrate or play babysitter as i've seen it called. I also love it when a drummer has alot of finesse and really lets the music breathe and allows me the room to play around the rhythm and really compliment what hes doing w/o staying exactly on his beat.

good drummers are hard to find sometimes....try not to burn your bridges with them lol...

 

[scheissmacht]

my band writes songs by just jamming and recording everything we play, sometimes the drummer (7 years experience) will go get a beer or make some noise with something else and the guitarist will jump on the skins (less than one year of self taught drumming)
He's getting better but most of the time I simply can not continue playing, it's just too bad.

 

[Zombass]

I've played with some pretty good drummers in the past but now I'm playing with a guy who has been playing for only 3 years. He's pretty talented but he's in the stage of 'annoying fills' and 'not really listening to anybody else' but he's steadily getting better. My timing is pretty much on the dot, his isn't sometimes, very frustrating

i know exactly how you feel, my current drummer talented but is not so good with the timing, and he will keep tryin to do fancy fills when it isnt particularly needed and going over a few beats or under and screwing up the timing.

 

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

in this month's Sound on sound magazine, there's an interview with uber-producer (and bassist) Trevor Horn-
he mentions how when he bought the first Synclavier sampler/sequencer, he found the sequencer's timing to be terrible, so called up the manufacturers-
he asked how accurate it was- they said "perfectly accurate" at first, until when pressed on the issue they admitted it was accurate to "within 200 milliseconds" which made Horn laugh- saying he knew people who could tell if something was 1 millisecond out- they said that was impossible, and to name someone who could;
Horn mentioned Chris Squire (Yes bassist)

eventually Synclavier tightened up their sequencer's timing accuracy.


on another note, does anyone play drums also, either seriously as a second instrument, or informally switching with their band's drummer in practices for fun?
any observations on how they lock with the rest of the band?

 

[RicPlaya]

on another note, does anyone play drums also, either seriously as a second instrument, or informally switching with their band's drummer in practices for fun?
any observations on how they lock with the rest of the band?[/QUOTE]




Yes, I started out as a drummer. The biggest problem with drummers IMO is that they don't understand they also carry the tune with the drum kit. It's not just playing a specific beat to a BPM, a drummer has to play the tune with his/her kit. If a drummer does that then it's almost impossible to get off tempo. A drummer must hear the song and what the other instruments are doing and play with everyone on the same page. As a bassist you have to understand what the drummer's beats are for specific parts of the tune. Whatever the drummer does he has to stay within that framework, so if you stay within that framework also then it will all work out. I guess the bottom line is understanding what the other instruments are doing within the tune you play (just like playing with guitarists you must know the notes that are being played, you must also know the beats). For example if a drummer is playing a straight forward beat, bass drum on 1,2,3,4 (quarter notes). Snare on 2 and 4 (half notes), HH on the 1,2,3,4 (quarter notes)..if that drummer goes into a drum roll if the bass plays quarter notes or half notes you will be fine. What I try to do is indentify when the drummer improvises the root hits and stay within that since I am picturing the drum beat in my head when he goes off on a tangent. But the drummer should understand the basic guts of the tune what the guitars are doing, and the bassisit should understand what beats the drummer is doing in the specific parts of the song in order for everyone to to keep it glued together. Bassists get together with your drummers and just play some tunes together with no other guitars. Listen to what the drummer is doing and make sure the drummer is paying attention to what your playing. You will hear what you can get away with while still being locked into the drummer. The drummer will hear the bass which 95% is the guts of the song, this way he can play as an instrument and carry the tune keeping in mind what the bass is doing to keep him on track. You will find the spots that don't sound right immediatley and smooth things out. You both will have an understanding of what each others doing. In order to lock onto a drummer, you must know what the drummer is doing during any part of a song, It's not hit or miss it's a calculated process which takes time and understanding of the bass guitar and drum relationship.

 

[Doug Parent]

cowsgomoo has an excellent approach in my opinion, instead of making the drummer "wrong" for his mistake, he made him "right" by contributing to what he was doing, albeit wrong.

In my 25 years of playing, I conclude a drummer or any other player for that matter including myself being "out of sync" is hard on other players.

I look at "time" and "tempo" as things the band members should broadly agree on, thus an "agreement" Often we don't know or don't realize we're doing something (tempo, rythum, being out of tune slightly) different than someone else, but it's 'assumed" we are and its a hard pill to swallow when we find out we were wrong about our own perceptions of how or what we are doing. We (or other people) assume they are always "right" including drummers. Taped rehearsals I find are great to settle any arguements about whats going on. I think other musicians such as guitarist or keyboards have less a spotlight on them and thus get away with equally rough timing at times. I know I have personally really sucked at times and it was MORE obvious with an unskilled drummer.

Another observation, drummers who are energetic and positive people doing well in life have better time than those who are constantly having problems and are negative individuals.I think skills, and time perception, and all perception depend on how well a person is in command of their overall enviornment and their communication with it. I use this has a measure when considering working with others. just my two cents.

 

[Joe Nerve]

I agree that the drummer has the most important job. A crappy singer/frontman can pull it off - when the drummer sucks, everyone feels it, the band just sounds like total garbage - and nobody in the audience knows why. You can have the greatest singer, guitarist and bassist on stage - if the drummer is bad, the band is bad, and nobody knows or cares why. Lots of bands did well with really bad singers. Red Hot Chili Peppers for one.


As for playing with bad drummers, I think it's been one of the most helpful things for my playing and groove. It's a whole lot harder to lock in with a drummer that's all over the place than with a great drummer. It's no fun either - but unfortunately I've had to do it many times. It forces me to concentrate a lot more and I think it's great practice. The downer is they make YOU look real bad and there's no way around that. When I do play with really solid drummers I'm in ecstasy. It feels as though I'm on automatic pilot - like no matter what I do it's gonna be really tight. I love that feeling. I love not having to be concerned at all with what the drummer is doing - just being able to play and know that it sounds phenomenal.

 

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

Another observation, drummers who are energetic and positive people doing well in life have better time than those who are constantly having problems and are negative individuals.I think skills, and time perception, and all perception depend on how well a person is in command of their overall enviornment and their communication with it. I use this has a measure when considering working with others. just my two cents.

I've also found a correlation between drummers' personalities and their timing and consistency-
the drummer I've dissed already in this thread was/still is a very insecure person- he was desperately trying to impress anyone listening/watching- and always nervous when recording or at gigs, or even when playing tricky things in rehearsal.
this had an unsettling effect on me and the guitarist too-terrible when recording.
a shame as he had a great instinct for drum parts to fit the songs (albeit sometimes too busy)

 

[nottswarwick]

I was a drummer before anything else. I think the drummer is the conductor of the band, leading the changes, shifting the feel from verse to chorus etc. Good drummers are born, not made.

You have to feel the music inside you, know where it is going and how to take it there without thinking about it. You look at everyone, all the time, give them confidence by stroking them along with little cues etc. You listen to everyone, all the time and go with/take the music and feel where it wants/needs to go.

None of this has anything to do with mind-blowing technical competence/chops, whatever you want to call it. I use(d) a good quality 4 piece kit, single BD pedal couple of cymbals. I am not in the least bit flashy or technically outstanding, but I can play MUSIC on the kit. If a tune needs a push/pull in tempo, it should happen naturally - if done right and subconsciously, Joe public will not notice - hell, the band will not notice (bass excepted) the shift in speed, other than that it feels "right".

Now I am on Bass, my role is different, but I still find that I conduct things and help the music from one section to the next - I cannot help it, it is inside me. What I do feel is that when you stop "thinking" about and noticing what the drummer is doing, then you are well on the way to getting it right as a bass and drum unit. You find you have played for a while and not even noticed the drummer - you know you are on to something then!

So many drummers are not "musicians". I am actually a classically trained percussionist and classical guitarist. I have a natural (although not always metronomic) sense of rhythm. Thus I play music and play for the music.

 

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

interesting interview with Darryl Jones in Bass Player recently-

Invalid Link Removed

in the last 4 paragraphs he mentions drummers' timing - compensating for Charlie Watts' loose feel, and also making the best of a bad situation with a drummer.

my brother (a guitar player, but hasn't played in bands for years) saw Velvet Revolver play live recently and said he didn't like Matt Sorum as he was too tight, like a metronome!
goes to show that some people appreciate looseness.

I've been learning more about drums and have been getting to grips with drum programming- I don't have a good enough PC to run BFD (or any good drum program, it seems- got to upgrade), so I've been pasting individual drum sample hits into ACID, which actually works pretty well- I'm using different samples of the snare and each tom to simulate left and right hand variations for rolls.

-a lot easier to play to than when we used a real (sloppy) drummer.


also, a friend who used to play drums at school before I took up bass has got a drumkit again and resumed playing.
on at last getting round to the jam we never had back then I was surprised by how bad his timing is-
which I never noticed in the old days.
-showing that a sense of time is something you develop through practice, I suppose.

 

[addylewis]

The thing that annoys me about bad drummers is that its up to us bassists then to keep the WHOLE BAND in time, which can be annoying when the one who's supposed to keep the beat cannot even play a simple 4-4 beat with a half-bar fill in the middle without something throwing him (and consequently, the rest of the band)) off time

 

[spectorbass83]

on thursday I depped at a jam at a rehearsal studio for a quite well-known session guitarist's (and also bassist) new project (the now ex-singer of my covers band fronted his previous project)-

he, the second guitarist and the drummer all have loads of experience touring, recording and doing TV appearances too with several name artists, and it was an intimidating prospect, to say the least-
the bassist who usually works with the drummer was busy touring with another band (Weapons Of Mass Belief, if anyone in the UK has heard of them).

also having to pick up bass parts off a CD on the spot was tricky-
however, what surprised me was how easy it was to play with the drummer, whose timing was flawless (despite him also having to pick up the song parts on the spot too)
even playing Muse "hysteria"-style 16th note basslines was reasonably straightforward.

it got me thinking about all the times I've had to put up with less than solid drummers (not to mention a drummer with an attitude problem too )

my covers band drummer has pretty good timing, but sometimes falls out of time during fills (although he criticised my timing a few times- i blame monitoring problems...).


I was wondering how everyone else developed their sense of time- were you lucky to start out with a rock-solid drummer, or did you gradually realise drummers' flaws over time, like I have?

My drummer's timing is not perfect..it has improved but he does speed up/slow down sometimes.. I also noticed that he keeps better time with faster/up beat songs.

Since I did not have the luxury of playing with a clockwork drummer, I had to develop my sense of timing by playing along to a metronome or simply popping in a cd and playing along to my favorite song. Obviously the timing of the drummer will be perfect since its on cd.

Also, when playing basslines I try to tap my foot or heel, this is such a simple exercise but is very effective.

 

[5intheface]

I've played maybe a couple other drummer, but for the most part I've played with the same drummer for four of my five playing years. He's a huge Zappa nut and loves Terry Bozzio, Vinnie Coliuta, Chad Wackerman, and guys like that. I didn't realize how strange he played until I played with a guy who wasn't doing polyrhythems and odd fills and a million notes and stuff and just keeping time with occasional fill and I couldn't do it!

It took me forever to get used to both style after that.

 

[Blues Cat]

You suck when the drummer sucks. This comes from a drummer of 25 years w/6yrs experience on bass.
I can go places I didn't know I could go w/a solid steady non busy drummer. I bet if you asked a drummer w/ a weak, busy foot where he lives he would say an apartment.