New drummer - help needed with grooves

[chrisobrien54]

Im playing with a new band who write pop/indie tunes. Its the singer/guitarist who write all the tunes and im having trouble fitting decent groves to the music.

Basically its like this - the guitarist plays straight time, up and down chords so the drums always end up a straight dum-cha-dum-cha. Trouble is all the tunes sound like this, and all are played at fast tempo's so im having trouble fitting anything interesting in. I feel like im holding the band back by playing boring grooves all the time. Fills are pretty much a no go because I a; dont want to intrude on the music and b; dont have the skill to roll through the toms quick enough to make it fit in time.

Any advise to a new drummer on fitting interesting groves into quick up beat music?

If you hit www.myspace.com/squaresmusic thats they type of stuff im talking about.

Cheers everyone.

[Wavelength]

Give your guitar player a copy of Ted Reed's Syncopation, and have him work on comping rhythms for a while.

[ilanten]

hey chris.

sometimes there is now place in the music for more then the basic 2 & 4 beat.
what you can do is try playing diffrent pulses on the hi-hat/ride, like qurters 8th ,16th swing or whatever...

but remeber alwyes that the most importent thing is to play FOR THE SONG and support the music!

good luck

ilan

[TitanSound]

I remember a band I was in a few years back and it was a similar situation. If you have a poor song to work with then theres not really not much you can do.

[tezzerii]

Absolutely, ilan - but when very song sounds the same, what do you do? I feel really bored - and boring - when all I can do is the same beat AGAIN!! And worse, if you do try to be creative and different, some bands will say hey, just the normal beat please. Grrr!

[drumbandit]

You don't have to play fast fills, find some slower fills which still fit with the music. Practise playing faster at home with a metronome.

Tom

[chrisobrien54]

The last thing I want to do is ruin the music by overplaying, but my mates come to see me drum, and I want to prove to them Im the best drummer in the world!!!

Whey... maybe not the BEST... ; )

Spose Ill get better the longer I play. Iv only been playing with the band a few weeks, Iv got my third (ever) gig tonight and its close to home so should be a little more relaxed. Hopefully the familiar venue should spark a little confidence and with it some more exciting playing.

[HardcoreLogo]

I agree that if the song is weak, then you might be stuck, and if people in the band are happy with your parts, then your doing something right(lol). As far as dressing up those parts....is the only time you work on the songs in band practice? Maybe, by some means, you can record the guitar and singer so you have a working copy at home.If it's could enough to play along with, even better, but if the timming and recording quality is not up to par, you can still listen to the song as a "listener" and try to transcribe different fills and ideas to bring to practice. Sometimes sitting down with band mates and just really listening to the song the way someone else hears it will spark ideas!
Here is a link to my YOUTUBE site, I have lots of free drum lessons aimed at begginers to spark ideas....check it out, maybe you will find an idea......
http://www.youtube.com/Hardcorelogo

Hope this helps.......