Drummers who don't count?

[Bassngtr]

I am a drummer first, bassist second. IMO anyone can learn how to drum, but you are either a drummer, or you are not. You either always know where 1 is (not from counting, but from feel) or you don't, or have to think about it.

I (almost) never count during a song no matter which instrument, except for maybe a count-in to start. I've very often said what the OP said to other band mates ("this song starts on the & of 3..."). 99% of the time the other folks just look at me like I have 4 heads.

 

[Slevage]

When we were auditioning drummers, I learned that a lot of people own drum sets.

Not counting is fine-----not being able to feel where "one" is----big problem.

 

[turf3]

... I've very often said what the OP said to other band mates ("this song starts on the & of 3..."). 99% of the time the other folks just look at me like I have 4 heads.

Well, I hope for your sake these bands aren't trying to play anything more complicated than thump-WHACK rock and roll. What do you think would happen if you introduced an extended tumbao section with just bass, where the bass NEVER plays on one?

 

[kevindahl]

I only count when learning difficult rhythmic phrases. Live, very rarely.

 

[Hambone70]

Just when I get the urge, a thread like this pops up and makes me so glad that I'm no longer in a band!

 

[Pocket Dave]

I don't care if a drummer can "count" as long as he intuitively knows where 1, 2, 3 and 4 are.

Accenting with a cymbal crash on 4 when needed to "reset the table" for a guitar solo, new vocal verse, whatever, is basic drumming 101. If yours can't get that, no matter how he arrives there, then yes, he's got bigger problems than simply not counting out loud in his head.

 

[pepj]

Just when I get the urge, a thread like this pops up and makes me so glad that I'm no longer in a band!

Well, yep, with a drummer like that.
I must have been lucky, the worst musical drummer story was on a session when drummer played the killer groove. It made the song. When we played live he had no recall of it and we got something else at the same bpm.
He is still on the scene and plays great, but I dont do those gigs with him to find out if he still has this retention issue. If its a jam band gig, he kills it.
Ain't nothing wrong with his fills, groove or chops, I just think we happened on a specific learning type issue.

 

[Jimmy4string]

I like this @Jev1 guy -he is willing to do what it takes to help out this drummer.

 

[Jev1]

OK, so the first post was about the tune needing a crash on 4 of the measure just before a change, and drummer can't get it, keeps hitting on the 1 of the next bar. Could be two things happening here: 1) he doesn't really KNOW when the change is so he can't anticipate it by one beat (that's losing the song form) or 2) He knows very well when the change is happening, but he can't reliably place his hit on 4 (that's about losing track of the beats within a single measure).

The way for him to practice this, of course, would be to come up to that hit and say to himself "1-2-3-BAM!" (We'll leave aside motivation for now.) If he's not clear where the change is, then he would need to go "1 - - - 2 - - - 3 - - - 4 - - - 5 - - - 6 - - - 7 - - - 8-2-3-BAM!" to place himself in the right place in the song form AND in the right place in the bar. Other than real exotic rhythmic styles, a few times through with the crutches and any competent drummer (or other musician) won't need to use the crutches to be in the right place at the right time.

Why can't he do this? Well, he's probably never been taught how to practice, for one. Getting yourself in the right place at the right time is something that has to be practiced, and you have to know HOW to practice it. I'd bet there's some oppositional-defiance there, too, some of "well, I don't need to know all that fancy-pants theory stuff", which of course means it's going to be very difficult to bring him along.

I'm betting his problem is he doesn't know how to fish and doesn't want to learn.

I see a lot of the oppositional-defiant stuff with adult players who don't have a tool they need to play something correctly but don't want to acquire the tool, either.

You are exactly right. Thanks for not only pin-pointing the issue but also giving me a means to provide practice to correct the issue.

I also need to be able to communicate with the drummer what needs to be done and when... and it's that communication issue that brought the counting issue to light. I appreciate the comments from others too that point out eye-contact and body language etc can help out with that, and we do face each other in our rehearsal space, so that's something that I can work on to help it all work out as well.

 

[Raman]

I count EVERYTHING, all the time..

I do to. It's at the unconscious reflex level for me. I cannot listen to or play music without counting unconsciously.

As a kid, I was enrolled in a professional choir. The very 1st thing they drilled into us was counting. I always considered it an essential ingredient to coordinating musicians together. You want everybody to have an internal metronome so they're all tight together, and to be able to count in order to anticipate attacks, emphases, chord changes, etc.

One of my biggest frustrations in later years was when I tried to play music with friends who were very creative and inspired, but who had always made solo music and never developed that internal structure. When we tried to improvise together, they would change chords anywhere without warning, or didn't when it was time. I just don't know how you can coordinate musically without that. And especially so for the rhythm section!

 

[patzilla83]

Being able to count and having good timing are prerequisites for being a drummer. You can't have one without the other.

IMO, if someone doesn't have some sense of natural rhythm, I don't think they should be playing drums (or bass).

 

[Pocket Dave]

Being able to count and having good timing are prerequisites for being a drummer. You can't have one without the other.

IMO, if someone doesn't have some sense of natural rhythm, I don't think they should be playing drums (or bass).

I dunno. They can be playing drums or bass, just maybe not in public yet. In a lesson room with a good teacher maybe.

 

[51PRI]

How do you know when a drummer's at the door?

The knocking speeds up.

It's usually our BL who speeds up songs, or tries to. I can often feel the drummer holding things back.

...Matters become worse when you're trying to explain things to people who don't have a grasp of the common terminology....

I hear you. One of the guys in the band didn't know what "stage right" and "stage left" meant.

This. I'm a drummer first for 25 years and if you don't know the song you can't really "wing it" UNLESS YOU'RE PAYING ATTENTION and following the band. Many songs you could probably wing it if you just listen to the progressions/dynamics that are in play, even if you don't know the song.....

Back in our band's period of doing any and all requests, even if we didn't know the song, someone requested an AC/DC song. The BL picked one on his tablet and took off. I had never heard it, and I'm playing bass. I had NO clue and I'm pretty sure, since he was trying to read the words AND the chords, the BL made some mistakes on it, too. It was a train wreck. Times like that are when/why I like the band to be well rehearsed.

This right here. As I said much earlier, counting is easy and we all learned it in grade school. In order to count effectively through a difficult passage you have to do a few things:
1) You have to listen to the music and figure out where your problematic passage is.....

Our drummer has a problem in that weird 5/4 (or 2/4) measure in "Willin'." At first it was a train wreck but he working on it, counting it out, so now he plays through it, but he doesn't play it right. That part feels staggered the way he plays it. We had a sub drummer Saturday night who played it right. I turned around and yelled "YES!"

 

[pedroims]

I think this is normal, most of the drummers I have played with can count whole notes but have zero ideas how to count subdivisions. One day, I tried to explain to the drummer to play 8th notes in the kick and drum: 3 - AND... he had no idea what I was talking about.

 

[J Posega]

I've played with drummers that don't always play the same parts, which is obnoxious if you're going for a specific groove or sound, but at least they were in sync with the band.

A drummer that doesn't count sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Whether you're counting explicitly or internalizing the beat and song structure, the band has to be in sync.

 

[patzilla83]

I dunno. They can be playing drums or bass, just maybe not in public yet. In a lesson room with a good teacher maybe.

You can teach someone to count, but someone either has rhythm or they clap on 1 and 3.

 

[ERIC31]

I've almost always been in cover bands (pop, rock, 80s etc) so all I need from the drummer is for him/her to know the songs well, 1-2-3-4 stick clicks or hi-hat at the proper tempo (and keep it there) and away we go. I'm not a flashy player, I get in the groove and lay it down solid. It's not rocket science but unfortunately there are some so-called "drummers" that can't do it right. ‍
I'm also from the rehearse rehearse rehearse school BEFORE taking it out live!! If it's not tight, it's not right.

 

[Road Hat]

Paraphrasing Les Claypool, when they were recording Oyterhead with Stuart Copeland of The Police, he said that Copeland never played it the same way twice, and it was tricky to record with him.

So I guess sometimes it's about who the drummer is that counts.

 

[GBBSbassist]

Am I being too narrow minded? You can play melodies without an understanding of theory.. but I still think understanding intervals is super important. I just always assume people who feel the beat are feeling a count of some kind.

Probably.

 

[SoonerBill]

Paraphrasing Les Claypool, when they were recording Oyterhead with Stuart Copeland of The Police, he said that Copeland never played it the same way twice, and it was tricky to record with him.

So I guess sometimes it's about who the drummer is that counts.

I would think if it's Stuart Copeland it could be different each time but would be on time and it would work.