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Sometimes it's the drummer. No, seriously!

Ripley

Ripley

Oct 25, 2010
132
6
Decorah, Iowa
#1
My best friend is a guitar player and fantastic all around kinda guy. We play once a year in a party band and he does a thing with some folks from work on occasion.

Sooo... he sent me this video from an in-house gig a few weeks ago. I love him. He's my mijo. But Sweet Baby James! tell me if you could play along with this impromptu high hat business...

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I'm not kidding. Tap your fingers or toes as the song starts and see what happens as you listen to the drummer.

ETA: My buddy is the singer.
 
#4
He should have been using the pedal and not hitting the hi-hat with the stick. Be more subtle about it. I do think he was trying to keep tempo and the keyboardist lost tempo there for a minute. Just didn't have the groove Sting's version has. Just my opinion. Just wondering if the keyboardist is as 'rhythmically' challenged as my band's keyboardist is?
 
#5
Sounds like they're all off.

Keyboard players are notorious to playing too rubato. It's the nature of the instrument to be flowing and florid.

The drummer is trying to state the time but he's rushing and uneven.

The singer isn't really gelling with what's going on, he's expecting the others to follow him.

The funny thing is, everyone sounds nice in what they're playing. The singer has a nice tone. But there's an empathy that needs to be felt and it requires keeping one's ears open to all that's going on.

That being said, the drummer is the biggest culprit. I'd dump him.
 
#9
DWBass said:
I say it's the keyboardists fault. The drummer was trying to keep tempo and the keyboardist started to rush a bit. He was in his own world and not even paying attention to the drummer. I don't think it was the drummer except for his hitting the hat with sticks instead of playing pedal hat.
Click to expand...

I agree to that.
I listened again. If you listen to the keyboard, sounds like he's rushing it..and the drummer is trying to "keep the beat" and even "drag" a little to slow down the keyboardist.(To know avail...clearly.)

I think there are more troubles than the drummer:
Sounds like the keys arent listening to the drummer or the singer...the singers not listening to the keys or the drummer.

I think the drummer knows this and is stuck trying to "glue" the whole thing back together.


JMO?....


.


But I also agree, (dont recall who said it) the singer should follow the band. (provided they're doin it right ;) )
 
#13
DWBass said:
I say it's the keyboardists fault. The drummer was trying to keep tempo and the keyboardist started to rush a bit. He was in his own world and not even paying attention to the drummer. I don't think it was the drummer except for his hitting the hat with sticks instead of playing pedal hat.
Click to expand...

No really. As a drummer, if you want to move the rhythm you hit on the side of the beat where it's supposed to go. In other words, if the band is rushing, you hit intentionally a bit behind the beat. (If everyone is listening, they'll get it). Just hitting a random beat in the middle of nowhere shows he's as clueless as the rest of them, if not more so.
 
#15
Hmm.. I thought the drummer came in on the wrong beat with the high hat (or wrong part of the beat.) and the song was doomed from the get go. But obviously, he and the keyboardist never found their groove with this song, which is kind of sad.

The keyboardist isn't part of their regular line up and I think he was kind of all over the place. It would drive me nuts as a singer/bassist.

Yeah, that's a guy in a cape; it was a Halloween thing at work. I think... maybe that guy just wears a cape around the office. I'll check on that.
 
#17
Ripley said:
Hmm.. I thought the drummer came in on the wrong beat with the high hat (or wrong part of the beat.) and the song was doomed from the get go. But obviously, he and the keyboardist never found their groove with this song, which is kind of sad.

The keyboardist isn't part of their regular line up and I think he was kind of all over the place. It would drive me nuts as a singer/bassist.
Click to expand...
That's the problem, between 2:20 and 2:26 in the keyboard solo he lost a beat while he was fumbling through a run. Suddenly the drummer is on 1 and 3 instead of 2 and 4. Except the drummer didn't lose it, the keyboard did, and the bass sort of followed the keys. Drummer was just trying to lay down a steady beat amongst the chaos when the keyboard guy shifted a beat.

Sometimes its not the drummer. Tempos were drifting around a lot, but keyboard was the one that trainwrecked that song.
At least from what I heard. Drummer should have used foot vs stick on the high hat as well, but wasn't the worst offender.

Randy
 
#19
Ripley said:
Yeah, that's a guy in a cape; it was a Halloween thing at work. I think... maybe that guy just wears a cape around the office. I'll check on that.
Click to expand...

Upon further review there appear to be two caped crusaders so either it's a vampire based industry they work in, or it was in fact Halloween.

Back to the topic, this is why it's such a PITA to play for musicians. While I fully agree with all the comments concerning a lack of cohesion, most people listening would only hear a very decent vocalist and a rather difficult selection (very nuanced song). Tough crowd I guess.
 

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