Locking Bass and Drums

[dirtychinchilla]

I'm getting a lot of flack from my drummer at the moment for not locking in with him, or in reality, not even listening to what he's playing. I'm the first to admit that I know next to nothing about drums and find it difficult to understand what they're doing.

Before anyone else says it, he's not pushing me to do exactly what he wants, but he's trying to encourage interaction between our instruments.

Problem is, I've always been so focussed on guitar and bass that I've never thought about drums. I appreciate that the kick drum and I should be intertwined, and that maybe we need to accent each other. But I just can't get it.

The way the music tends to work for me is if the guitarist is playing a riff, I might play the same to add more meat to it, or simply play the root notes or something similar in the background. I'm much more comfortable with the guitar/bass interaction.

Has anyone else struggled with this like me, and if so, what have you done to resolve it? If I can master this kill in lockdown that would be awesome, and I would be able to come out of the other end showing him that I've listened to him and adapted.

Any tracks I could play along to, for example, would be extremely useful to me.

Yours in ignorance,
dirtychinchilla

 

[Mushroo]

Learn to read & write drum notation (it's not hard) and transcribe beats by your favorite drummers. Better yet, transcribe the drums on one staff and the bass line on another staff, so you can see how they line up with each other.

Or how about this crazy idea: learn to play drums! I always try to show up early to band practice and spend a few minutes jamming on the drum kit. I'm no Neil Peart but learning some simple rock and shuffle beats has made me a better bass player.

 

[tonym]

I completely relate. I found this book/cd by Ed Friedland to be extremely helpful - "Bass Grooves: Develop Your Groove & Play Like the Pros in Any Style". It's about how bass & drums interact to create rhythm. It has an 'anatomy of a drum beat' section, teaches you how to construct one, and then has exercises on how the bass & drum patterns interact. It helped me understand how the drums work, and taught me to hear the bass & drum together. There's the usual "Look Inside" preview on Amazon so you can check and see if this might be helpful.

Good luck!

 

[AGCurry]

The way the music tends to work for me is if the guitarist is playing a riff, I might play the same to add more meat to it, or simply play the root notes or something similar in the background. I'm much more comfortable with the guitar/bass interaction.

The bassist is a member of the rhythm section. The drummer is a member of the rhythm section. The guitarist and/or piano are members of the rhythm section unless and until he/she plays a solo or lead break.

The key to making music successfully with others is understanding one's role. Spend time (a lot of it) listening critically to, and deconstructing all kinds of recordings in order to understand a) each player's role in the piece, and b) what they are playing to fill that role.

Making rhythms interesting involves each player doing different things. The rhythm guitar player will most often dedicate himself to upbeats, where the bassist and bass drum will concentrate on downbeats. That's an oversimplification, but it's a good place to start.

Back when I was a pup, I didn't understand these things; everyone just played what he felt like playing. My band imported a good guitarist from L.A., and at the first rehearsal, he cried because we were so bad and he didn't have the money to take the bus back to California. But the good thing for me is that (until he could return home) he patiently explained these things to me, and we spent hours listening to records and deconstructing the way the different musicians played together.

 

[mambo4]

"Locking in" level 0: when the kick plays , you play.
Level 1: leave space for the snare hits
This is not the end all be all of locking with the drums
But if you are unused to paying attention to the drum part
It will force you to begin listening and responding to your drummer

The first weapon is listening. To advance in locking in, you are choosing which drum hits to sync up with and which to play against. This means You have to know the drum part very well. Whether you can play drums or not,you must know what the drums are doing. To lock in you need to know your target.

The other weapon in your arsenal will be stylistic knowledge. The bass and drum part together often can define what style of music is happening. When you learn a new style, learn both bass and drum parts ( learn the whole rhythm section if you can)

The final weapon is learning to read rhythm notation. It is most useful path to understanding rhythm.

 

[Malcolm35]

Some time with the videos on how to play drums should get you a little closer to understanding how to lock with the kick drum. Not to learn how to play a drum kit, just to understand how the rhythm signature can be divided, i,e, how many ways can a 6/8 beat be played. You and the drummer should play the same way, so you need to be able to hear what division he is using.

Stand back by the drummer and watch his kick pedal. Seeing the rhythm as well as hearing the rhythm helped me. Plus I decided to ignore his fills and stick with the basic beat.

I also sing the tune under my breath with the lead vocalist, this also seemed the help.

Some of that should help.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the suggestions. I feel like the first thing to do is for me to virtually learn the drums, or at least learn some of the fundamentals.

If I could afford that groove book right now I’d get it!

hoping to make some priestess this week with your help.

 

[Bassndrums73]

I just bought a drum lock-in pedal. Done deal.

 

[kevindahl]

A brave question to ask on a open forum. Would you care to share some audio of you playing with a drummer or some kind of percussion? Some have given great suggestions. IMHO, knowing drums and what they do is good but in reality "timing and groove" are the main points to becoming a pro.

A little story..many moons ago I was playing in my first rock cover band. We were all young 19 to 21. One weekend our guitar player had an older buddy who had just come off tour and was visiting. He asked if he could bring him up. We played Tush and I had a holy crap moment. The guy's timing was infectious, I mean he drew you into his rhythm. He probably thought we sucked but I sure enjoyed that 3 minutes.

So you must ask yourself, do you have great timing? are you in the pocket? do you groove? can you play a mean shuffle? These are the things you must learn. Knowing what the drums do in the purdy shuffle is cool but can you play to it?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I just bought a drum lock-in pedal. Done deal.

If only. This is certainly a case of all the gear, no idea. Although I'm not the worst bassist ever, I am deeply mediocre.

A brave question to ask on a open forum. Would you care to share some audio of you playing with a drummer or some kind of percussion? Some have given great suggestions. IMHO, knowing drums and what they do is good but in reality "timing and groove" are the main points to becoming a pro.

A little story..many moons ago I was playing in my first rock cover band. We were all young 19 to 21. One weekend our guitar player had an older buddy who had just come off tour and was visiting. He asked if he could bring him up. We played Tush and I had a holy crap moment. The guy's timing was infectious, I mean he drew you into his rhythm. He probably thought we sucked but I sure enjoyed that 3 minutes.

So you must ask yourself, do you have great timing? are you in the pocket? do you groove? can you play a mean shuffle? These are the things you must learn. Knowing what the drums do in the purdy shuffle is cool but can you play to it?

Hah is it brave? Just being honest! I don't have any audio of myself and a drummer only. I've put up a live instrumental from my band below if you'd like to check that out. It's not a good recording but hopefully it'll give you some sort of idea.

That's great, he must have been a really good drummer. At least you made it 3 minutes!

My timing is alright, I can hold a tempo if I need to and I am certainly aware of when the band's tempo is sliding. I've had to pull it back in a number of times. I can say, reasonably confidently, that I don't feel like I'm in the pocket or that I groove. I've never even thought about playing a shuffle....

 

[kevindahl]

Nice playing! It sounds like you are locked it pretty good. I can't offer much feedback because I think the bass line is doing pretty much what it's supposed to do in a song like this. If I was looking through a producer lens there might opportunity for change in your bass starting 1:55 and locking in to the fill at 2:49. Appreggios, ocatves, melodic lines, upper range with the drums are just some examples.

It can be challenging when we find a part we like playing and then are asked to change it or adapt it. Because in our minds it sounds fine already. I would ask your drummer specifically what part of the song is he not "feeling" it with you.

Intro
A section
B section
solo
Breakdown
outro

This way your not wasting time working on parts that your drummer feels are working. Thanks for sharing!

 

[JRA]

nice playing!

if any musician asks me to play something different than what i'd 'naturally' play, i always ask: "can you sing it for me?" whether it's a note/pitch issue or a rhythmic issue = it's always easier to reproduce/imitate when you hear it first!

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Nice playing! It sounds like you are locked it pretty good. I can't offer much feedback because I think the bass line is doing pretty much what it's supposed to do in a song like this. If I was looking through a producer lens there might opportunity for change in your bass starting 1:55 and locking in to the fill at 2:49. Appreggios, ocatves, melodic lines, upper range with the drums are just some examples.

It can be challenging when we find a part we like playing and then are asked to change it or adapt it. Because in our minds it sounds fine already. I would ask your drummer specifically what part of the song is he not "feeling" it with you.

Intro
A section
B section
solo
Breakdown
outro

This way your not wasting time working on parts that your drummer feels are working. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! This particular song has been around for some time and I think the drums were probably formed around the guitar, at which point the bass was added. So perhaps that's why it fits so well. I'll have a look at that section, but do see what you mean.

I like the idea of breaking down the song. It's actually something I find a little difficult in the current band, but it may not be impossible

nice playing!

if any musician asks me to play something different than what i'd 'naturally' play, i always ask: "can you sing it for me?" whether it's a note/pitch issue or a rhythmic issue = it's always easier to reproduce/imitate when you hear it first!

Thanks! Good idea, thank you

 

[Depth_Charge]

Couple bands to check out that might help...there's a theme, you'll probably work it out...
Muse
Black Sabbath
The Living End
Cream
The Police
Nirvana
Green Day
Jimi Hendrix Experience

Good luck

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Couple bands to check out that might help...there's a theme, you'll probably work it out...
Muse
Black Sabbath
The Living End
Cream
The Police
Nirvana
Green Day
Jimi Hendrix Experience

Good luck

All bands I'm very familiar with other than The Living End! I'll check them out, thanks man.

 

[chaak]

 

[jusca]

I just bought a drum lock-in pedal. Done deal.

what is a drum lock in pedal??

 

[Bassndrums73]

It’s a figment of my imagination.

 

[Drumdialogue]

The first thing I would do is try to learn to play drums. Ask to switch instruments with your drummer once in a while at practice. It might sound terrible, but this role reversal eventually helps both parties to understand the role of either instrument.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I'm getting a lot of flack from my drummer at the moment for not locking in with him, or in reality, not even listening to what he's playing. I'm the first to admit that I know next to nothing about drums and find it difficult to understand what they're doing.

Before anyone else says it, he's not pushing me to do exactly what he wants, but he's trying to encourage interaction between our instruments.

Problem is, I've always been so focussed on guitar and bass that I've never thought about drums. I appreciate that the kick drum and I should be intertwined, and that maybe we need to accent each other. But I just can't get it.

The way the music tends to work for me is if the guitarist is playing a riff, I might play the same to add more meat to it, or simply play the root notes or something similar in the background. I'm much more comfortable with the guitar/bass interaction.

Has anyone else struggled with this like me, and if so, what have you done to resolve it? If I can master this kill in lockdown that would be awesome, and I would be able to come out of the other end showing him that I've listened to him and adapted.

Any tracks I could play along to, for example, would be extremely useful to me.

Yours in ignorance,
dirtychinchilla

Bass is simple yet intircate. Subtle yet vital. The drummer controls the entire band. The bass is the song. Everything else...EVERYTHING else is just filler.. icing in the cake. Try jamming with just the drummer. Play the songs, just you and him, and see how it feels. Bass is a feel thing. Bass and drums, drums and bass. Thats the groove. Guitar merely accents, highlights, and expands on that. So do keys, strings, horns, etc., and of course vocals. You two are the meat. Evrything else is simply potatoes.