I'm probably wrong. Playing over 40 years but that means nothing. I always felt the DRUMMER set and kept the tempo in line and the BASS set the groove. I'm in a yuppie band and the drummer is always consoling me to keep the tunes from running amok; I tell him it's his job. Any advice?
It's shared responsibility, but IMHO there is nothing you can do to hold the tempo back if the drummer decides to run away with it, and refuses to accept any responsibility for time.
Ironically what you need to do is the opposite of what you will probably do. If the drummer thinks you are dragging, he/she will push the beat ahead and this will often cause the tempo to increase. You would think that if you pushed the beat the drummer would perceive you as rushing and pull back, but usually they just go with. If this is your situation there is nothing you can do.
What this seems to indicate to me is many drummers like to play tunes at a faster tempo than they are counted off at. There have been many times where I was playing a bassline in 4 like Johnny Be Good or Roll Over Beethoven that eventually get so fast that I have to start playing in 2
. And of course the drummer really thought it was grooving.
For about 6 months I was in a big band where the leader insisted time was the responsibility of the bass. Of course time was all over the place and the drummer rushed like crazy. The band leader kept getting on me, and there was nothing I could do to hold the drummer back. Eventually things changed and he started getting on the drummer. At that point time started settling down a bit again.
The problem with saying the bass owns time is it's not very clear where the ictus is. Since drums are a percussion instrument you hear the attack and the ictus is very obvious. With bass where people perceive the ictus can change depending upon where that sit in relation to the polar pattern of you bass speaker and also how you have the mids and treble adjusted. If they are in front of the speaker and you have the treble cranked up, players will perceive your ictus towards the front of the beat. But if players sit to the side of your speaker or you use a fairly dark tone, they will perceive your ictus way behind where it actually is.
Some players don't even really listen for you ictus. One of the last drummers I played with insisted that I use a big fat bassy sound. He wasn't keying off my ictus at all. Instead he was keying of the way the notes bloomed.
In order to maintain a good feel and a constant tempo, you and the drummer must agree on the size of the pocket. The pocket is basically the difference in where you place the beat versus where the drummer places the beat. The pocket should be constant within a section of a song, but may vary significantly from one song to the next. You may play ahead of the beat in one song and behind the beat in the next. Agreeing on the size and shape of the pocket is challenging and complicated by the fact that the drummer may not perceive our ictus where you are actually placing it due to the reasons I covered earlier.
In one way I would say the pocket can actually vary within a section of a song. The idea I am thinking of has to due with the rhythmic symmetry of measures. With some styles of music everyone plays right on the beat and all beats are perfectly even. With other styles the rhythmic symmetry may be slightly out of round. For example it's common and creates a really deep settled, groove with some styles if the drummer lays back a bit on the snare hits (beats 2 and 4). Course laying back might mean the drummer just doesn't rush beats 3 and 4. So the pocket may vary a bit within a measure, but the symmetry of each measure should be consistent.
