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Drummers who blame everyone else for tempo.

#41
oerk said:
I can't really contribute to this thread, because our drummer is awesome, but man, what is it with drummers always having to beat the **** out of their kit?
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When guitards (and bassists) learn that good sound is not based on the volume knob, drummers will tone down.

All too often, the drummer HAS to beat the living crap out of the heads to be heard over knobs set to 11.

Loud != Good.

I have been playing drums in a church setting for a long time. I am a quiet drummer. It was the way I learned and the way I prefer to play. In all those years, the volumes of all the instruments were toned down. The result? Great sound. Great music. And I still have my hearing at less than -2 shift according to most recent hearings tests.
 
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#42
electracoyote said:
Consider rehearsing or learning a song to the original studio recording. Does the drummer on the CD accelerate? Can you influence his tempo? No, because he is locked in permanently to a pre-determined tempo, and it is your duty to lock in with him. Your live drummer should have the same ability and remain just as un-influenced.
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I don't think that's realistic. That studio drummer was likely playing to a click track, maybe with no one else in the room. Playing live is a dynamic situation. If you are playing with good musicians, they will feel and support the pocket. But if you aren't, well, that's definitely not as much fun.

I was in a band where one of the guitarists just could not stop himself from speeding up on certain songs (typically where he also had the lead vocal). The drummer and I (who worked together real well) would try to hold him back like a couple of mules digging in against a tight rope. Sometimes we just couldn't hold him back, and in order to avoid a train wreck on stage, we'd let the tempo creep up. His view was, "it's your job to hold the tempo." (In other words: I can't help it, I'm not taking responsibility.)
 
#43
daveman50 said:
I don't think that's realistic. That studio drummer was likely playing to a click track, maybe with no one else in the room. Playing live is a dynamic situation. If you are playing with good musicians, they will feel and support the pocket. But if you aren't, well, that's definitely not as much fun.

I was in a band where one of the guitarists just could not stop himself from speeding up on certain songs (typically where he also had the lead vocal). The drummer and I (who worked together real well) would try to hold him back like a couple of mules digging in against a tight rope. Sometimes we just couldn't hold him back, and in order to avoid a train wreck on stage, we'd let the tempo creep up. His view was, "it's your job to hold the tempo." (In other words: I can't help it, I'm not taking responsibility.)
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I see your point.

In my view, a good drummer can do a very close approximation of a steady tempo, much like you hear on a CD, from start to finish. I have played with several drummers of this caliber, and I have failed many auditioning drummers who could not do this.

A guitar player who can not recognize that steady tempo and lock in with the drummer is a crappy musician. And that he has that much influence over a band and crucial tempos is a dysfunctional situation, certainly far from the ideal, that needs to be strongly addressed.

IMHO.
 
#47
I'm primarily a drummer (but I do realize the awesomeness of playing the best string instrument on this planet, the bass) and I don't know how hard your drummers hit, but sometimes you do have to hit the drums hard to get the right sound and feel. Unlike amplifiers, drum kits do not have volume knobs and the technique for playing quietly is very different from the one you use when hitting hard. Drums need to be hit a certain way to sound right. But of course, you shouldn't beat the hell out of the drums... you need to leave place for other musicians as well. But people need to understand that it's not just a matter of turning it down.

Anyway... as a sound engineer (studio), I hate drummers who don't hit hard enough (which is most beginners, they always play like total wusses), you never get the right crack from the snare.
 
#48
Just an observation as it's something I've thought about a little recently...

I think in these days of MIDI and metronomes, as musicians we can sometimes get over-obsessed with playing at constant tempo. You know, "locking" and staying with it with no variation at all. You need to be able to do it when you need to be able to do it, sure. :D

But a big part of the feel of a tune is the dynamics, and dynamics can and sometimes should include tempo changes. It's kind of obvious when you think about it. It's okay - in fact it's just great - to lift or ease off on the tempo a little at appropriate points, if it's done intentionally and musically. If it's done because people are just dragging or getting hyper, that's different, of course.
 
#49
bassybill said:
But a big part of the feel of a tune is the dynamics, and dynamics can and sometimes should include tempo changes. It's kind of obvious when you think about it. It's okay - in fact it's just great - to lift or ease off on the tempo a little at appropriate points, if it's done intentionally and musically. If it's done because people are just dragging or getting hyper, that's different, of course.
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+1 To me, that's one of the defining elements of a pocket- a term that folks often ask to have defined here. It's not the only factor, but I think it's a huge part. The thing is, you have to be solid with the tempo to be able to mess with it. It's like abstract art, you need a foundation in the basics before you can deviate from it. This may touch on why some musicians have no sense of tempo, they're trying run before they can crawl, trying to emulate their role models without ever establishing a firm grip on the basics.
 
#50
bassybill said:
Just an observation as it's something I've thought about a little recently...

I think in these days of MIDI and metronomes, as musicians we can sometimes get over-obsessed with playing at constant tempo. You know, "locking" and staying with it with no variation at all. You need to be able to do it when you need to be able to do it, sure. :D

But a big part of the feel of a tune is the dynamics, and dynamics can and sometimes should include tempo changes. It's kind of obvious when you think about it. It's okay - in fact it's just great - to lift or ease off on the tempo a little at appropriate points, if it's done intentionally and musically. If it's done because people are just dragging or getting hyper, that's different, of course.
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Well put!
Go see a band that plays everything full on all night.
Pretty boring after half a dozen tunes, at least for me.
Dynamics make the music come alive and feel fresh every time it's played, especially if you change it up slightly each time.
It's far more interesting to play as well as listen to.
And for live playing, you have to be able to adapt on the fly.
I've never played a night where some mistakes weren't made, and sometimes they can be fun and interesting.
 
#51
Me best experiences as a bassist are when the drummer lets me be the time keeper and he stays in charge of the beat patterns. As a bassist I have much better tempo control than almost any drummer I have worked with. I'm not trying to coordinate 5 or six pieces of machinery at the same time. It's mainly just my fingers. I don't have to worry about landing on the beat after rolls. A smart drummer listens to the bass player. Or uses a metronome.
 
#53
caeman said:
When gui****s (and bassists) learn that good sound is not based on the volume knob, drummers will tone down.

All too often, the drummer HAS to beat the living crap out of the heads to be heard over knobs set to 11.
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I find the opposite. The drummer is the volume knob for the band. As a bassist I have to match volume with the drums. Some drummers force me to invest in monster amps & speaker cabs just to hear myself. I have played gigs where I stopped playing bass & no one even noticed bec the drums & guitar were so effing loud. If the drummer knows how to control their volume, everybody can turn it DOWN. Bashers dont listen to the band . They're in a private fantasy land in a stadium in their mind.
 
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#55
N.F.A. said:
I also play the Free song in a band and would know where to come out of the solo even if there was no drummer.
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Same here.

Except that there is a drummer and he suffered a major failure in his time keeping.

This is how I see it:

In this instance, the drummer was the root cause of the problem with the transition.

For whatever reason (he probably lost his place and doesn't want to admit it), he failed to hit the drum roll at the proper spot to cue the section change.

That failure caused everyone else in the band to assume that the drums would continue for a couple more measures, resulting in the entire band failing to transition to the next section.

My band used to cover that song and that drum roll is huge. It's also iconic to that song. You don't just leave it out because you "feel like doing something different".

Also, that's a lot of measures for some musicians in a typical, hobbyist type cover band to keep track of. It took me about 20 years of steady playing and gigging to learn to accurately count measures subconsciously, where I always know where I am in a song without having to actively think about it, but frankly, that's asking a lot of the amateur, weekend warrior musicians from your local cover band.

That being the case, it's primarily the drummers job to make sure that everybody knows when a transition is coming by providing appropriate cues, including visual cues.

To fail to play a major transition cue that everyone in the band is expecting to be there is a significant screw up.
 
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#56
hbarcat said:
This is how I see it:

In this instance, the drummer was the cause of the problem.

For whatever reason (he probably lost his place and doesn't want to admit it), he failed to hit the drum roll at the proper spot to cue the section change.

That failure caused everyone else in the band to assume that the drums would continue for a couple more measures, resulting in the entire band failing to transition to the next section.

My band used to cover that song and that drum roll is huge. It's also iconic to that song. You don't just leave it out because you "feel like doing something different".

Also, that's a lot of measures for some musicians in your typical hobbyist type cover band to keep track of.

It took me about 20 years of steady playing and gigging to learn to accurately count measures subconsciousl, where I always know where I am in a song without having to actively think about it, but frankly, that's asking a lot of your typical 4 or 5 piece local cover band.

That being the case, it's (usually) the drummers job to make sure that everybody knows when a transition is coming by providing appropriate cues, including visual cues.

To fail to play a major transition cue that everyone in the band is expecting to be there is a major screw up.
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Yep. And it should be obvious that the drummer did the two-bar roll in the original recording precisely to cue the guitarist and bass player. (For an example of an end-of-solo train wreck, see 3:30 in I Can't Quit You Baby on the first Led Zeppelin album. Page gets confused about where he is; Bonham rescues him.)
 
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#57
My boyhood friend was a drummer and we played together for a number of years. Eventually I met some great players and invited him in to play with us. For some reason as soon as we were with guitarists /keys / vocals he seemed to always speed up. The band was good and we progressed, but I was eventually asked by the others to can my best friend one day. We got in a new drummer with a jazz background and were lucky to never have had that issue again. I felt horrible but the guys were right , he always got too excited and always strayed from the pocket. Only when we were playing stump the drummer/ bassist ( jamming basically) could he keep a steady beat. Great guy, good drummer .. but ...
 
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#58
As a freelancer. typically unrehearsed, I don’t take any arrangement for granted. I’ve played that solo with any number of measures, depending on the band. It is a guitar solo. If you’re playing it regularly with a rehearsed group, I would think you’d rely on the guitarist to play an ending descending riff you all recognized (visual cues wouldn’t hurt), and you all need to be on your toes. In live shows, Free played that solo for many, many measures - I doubt they were counting.

Keeping time is a much longer topic; lots of threads here to jump on :).
 
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