"implying" swing at up tempos

[Caz]

I know there was a really good thread on uptempo ride a little while ago but thought this might be of interest to some people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnGRO_Uu6SY

I suspected that there was some kind of trick to it.. I've been slogging away trying to play the full swing pattern really fast. Does anyone have any good exercises that they can recommend to get started with the "implying" the swing feel part? He doesn't really go into it on this link, though I'm sure he would on the dvd (which is now on my list of things to get when I have the cash!). So far it seems to be mostly offbeat accents with the snare/bass/ride, or off-beat based comping on the snare, and partial bits of the normal swing rhythm being played less frequently on the ride.

I'm quite happy now that I've been enlightened to this little trick of the trade :)

[Garvin]

Are you talking about comping faster? I don't think you wanna comp at high speed as much. It tends to junk up the swing. The actual swing resides in the ride pattern. At uptempo, taking notes out helps move it along, but the feel is still there.

Nice cymbals in this video...

EDIT:

The best exercise would be to set a metronome (or better yet a bassline) to desired tempos and try and hold them for 4-5 mins... John Riley has great stuff for this, but you can find bass tracks a lot of places. Also, the "Turn-it-up-Lay-it-down" Jazz CD is great for uptempo stuff. I highly recommend it.

[jazzin']

I know there was a really good thread on uptempo ride a little while ago but thought this might be of interest to some people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnGRO_Uu6SY

I suspected that there was some kind of trick to it.. I've been slogging away trying to play the full swing pattern really fast. Does anyone have any good exercises that they can recommend to get started with the "implying" the swing feel part? He doesn't really go into it on this link, though I'm sure he would on the dvd (which is now on my list of things to get when I have the cash!). So far it seems to be mostly offbeat accents with the snare/bass/ride, or off-beat based comping on the snare, and partial bits of the normal swing rhythm being played less frequently on the ride.

I'm quite happy now that I've been enlightened to this little trick of the trade :)

Keep 'slogging' away with the full pattern. When you play though, then bring it back to quarters and let the music decide how you 'imply the swing' as such. Listen to the piano comping and play off that with your ride, if you have a pianist of course and listen to the bass line groove, is it back or to the front of the beat? Play off that as well.

But, for comping at the higher tempos, make sure you think in long phrases. It's all over if you're not thinking in long phrases. You'll be playing non stop, little, short, staccato like rhythmic phrases and it will sound cluttered and wrong and it will be very difficult to groove and nothing will flow and swing.

Learn to think in long, half time phrases while the ride keeps the quarters going. That's probably one of the big things to playing relaxed.

Also, and this is always the most important thing, no matter what. Make sure you know the tune, form and the melody and sing the melody to yourself. Then your comping will naturally flow out in relation to the melody and all will be hip.

[ace76543]

i believe the word is applying

[jazzgregg]

i believe the word is applying

No, it's implying.

G

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

He says it all there in the vid. Let the band drive the swing with you! Although Tommy can apparently play the swing pattern very fast and very long, it is perfectly fine if you cant do that yet! Like Jazzin' said, think in long phrases. Notice how, at fast tempos, it is almost like a slow tempo....isn't that just a zen thing?? It is often easier to play very fast temps than medium tempos, because anything you play at fast tempos seems fast, is fast.

At medium tempos, you are dealing with a lot of space, and how to fill, or not to fill, that space tastefully. Very challenging.

Hope that helped some more....

Casper

[Caz]

Hehe, yeah I did mean "implying".. almost in line with "cheating" a bit I guess - I see what you mean about "applying" though. Blatantly Tony Williams and many others can get the full swing pattern sounding great and really fast, but I'm not quite there yet (or even remotely close :) ) But don't worry, it's still on the agenda!

As soon as I saw that link it clicked that this simplified idea is what I see most drummers playing so surely it's good to aim towards that... and for people at my level who can't get through really ridiculously fast tunes at jam sessions this is surely a great place to start. I'm already able to play along with tunes on cd that I couldn't jam along with a few days ago.. that can't be bad. But yeah I'll keep striving to get the full swing pattern together.

Garvin I've taken on board what you said about not trying to comp faster - yes I was doing that, and I'm glad that I've rectified it a bit now!

Playing long phrases and thinking of it like half-time has been a great help. Hehe, I say that like it's been weeks but really, it immediately made sense and made my comping sound less cluttered and much more in context. Thanks, I'll look forwards to getting better and more controlled at that :)

Saying that, I'm still a bit naive when it comes to comping.. I think this will probably come with experience, but as much as I try to be creative with my accents and snare comping it doesn't sound as good as most other peoples' yet.

Jazzin, regarding what you were saying about locking in with the piano when comping - I've heard pianists saying that they try to comp along side the drummer's snare hits... is that something that you strive for then? To try and synchronise the accents with the pianists hits when comping? That would make sense, and would sound much more musical and productive than the usual "just randomly filling in notes on the snare and putting accents wherever". To might sound a bit weird if done to the extreme and ALL the hits where locked in together.

Yep, I'm absolutely into getting the melody for tunes firmly ingrained in my head before attempting them on drums... I always start by learning the tune on piano and playing around a bit with the chord progressions to get the harmony in my head so that I can feel how the tune's moving along. Learning tunes on the piano has really seriously changed the way I feel about jazz and the way I approach playing the tunes on drums - I wish there were enough hours in the day to get amazing at drums AND piano!!!

Thanks for all your advice once again.. I'm off to play Giant Steps at double speed :) hehehe

[Garvin]

I learned my lesson slowly about comping. I think as a drummer, once you start hearing all the cool phrases that a talented drummer plays effortlessy, you start to think that you should be doing the same. What I have found is

A) I'm not a highly accomplished or advanced jazz player, soloist or comping expert. I'm a good listener and capable of massive amounts of swing.

B) Most soloists are hiring drummers as time keepers. If you can comp without messing up the feel, then go for it but don't force things to happen. If all you did was show up with a high hat and ride and kept good time, you'll be called back. If you show up to show off (not implying that's the case here), then prepare to go a long time without your phone ringing.

[Xalky]

I'd even go as far as to say that you could fake that groove that Tommy Igoe did with just the 1/4 notes on the ride and just swing the snare with ghost notes. A ghost in between the ride pattern sounds kinda like a triplet. I'd have a hard time even keeping that ride pattern Igoe does for any long length of time. But the straight ride pattern with a triplet snuk-in here and there and some ghost notes on the snare can give the listener that same feel.

After all, if we're not playing for the listener, then who?

[jazzin']

[QUOTE=Caz;574707
Jazzin, regarding what you were saying about locking in with the piano when comping - I've heard pianists saying that they try to comp along side the drummer's snare hits... is that something that you strive for then? To try and synchronise the accents with the pianists hits when comping? That would make sense, and would sound much more musical and productive than the usual "just randomly filling in notes on the snare and putting accents wherever". To might sound a bit weird if done to the extreme and ALL the hits where locked in together.

Yep, I'm absolutely into getting the melody for tunes firmly ingrained in my head before attempting them on drums... I always start by learning the tune on piano and playing around a bit with the chord progressions to get the harmony in my head so that I can feel how the tune's moving along. Learning tunes on the piano has really seriously changed the way I feel about jazz and the way I approach playing the tunes on drums - I wish there were enough hours in the day to get amazing at drums AND piano!!!

Thanks for all your advice once again.. I'm off to play Giant Steps at double speed :) hehehe[/QUOTE]

Hey man, glad it's going well, but, what I mean is that you listen for what the pianist, guitarist and just everyone in the band is doing and you 'accompany' and 'compliment' them with what you play. The best way to think of it is like language. If someone says something to you, you don't go and then repeat what they have already said back to you do you or try to say what they are saying at the same time? lol, In big band, sure.

So, it's not about playing in sync, though doing that if it falls that way naturally can be hip but that's not what you want to try and do. You want to try and play something that answers what your band members are playing. If they are playing off a little motif from the melody or something like that, then you play a suitable reply with your comping. Always keep your comping simple and sparse though. If you have to think hard what to play then don't play anything, just wait until something natural comes out that needs to be played in relation to the tune and what's happening. That will all just come with practice of course.

Anyway, to simplify, don't try to play in sync. It will sound, as you said, weird and drag everything down. Try to play in response. You're having a musical conversation with your music, so try to make that conversation as articulate, hip and musically relevant as you can.

If you want some good things to start practicing with as well. One simple thing you can do, as long as you have this book or something similar, is to take a one measure comping phrase and space it out over two measures or, even better, four measures.

Either way, I would do the majority of your practice with the full ride pattern. I can't stress that enough. You need to do that in practice and when you get to playing it will be a breeze flying along implying the full ride pattern. Hope it helps and have fun!

[jazzin']

After all, if we're not playing for the listener, then who?

For your bandmates and/or leader to make them sound as best as they possibly can and to drive them to even greater playing?

I know what you mean, I'm just being picky. hehe

[drummmhead]

I know there was a really good thread on uptempo ride a little while ago but thought this might be of interest to some people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnGRO_Uu6SY

I suspected that there was some kind of trick to it.. I've been slogging away trying to play the full swing pattern really fast. Does anyone have any good exercises that they can recommend to get started with the "implying" the swing feel part? He doesn't really go into it on this link, though I'm sure he would on the dvd (which is now on my list of things to get when I have the cash!). So far it seems to be mostly offbeat accents with the snare/bass/ride, or off-beat based comping on the snare, and partial bits of the normal swing rhythm being played less frequently on the ride.

I'm quite happy now that I've been enlightened to this little trick of the trade :)


Get the DVD definitely, but don't forget to get the groove essentials play along books, too. It has this track blown out with all sorts of great parts without the drums so you can play with those amazing musicians. I use them in my teaching all the time with great results.

[brittc89]

After all, if we're not playing for the listener, then who?
Dont start this argument, please.

[Jeremy Bender]

In this video you can hear and see Ed Shaugnessy play an uptempo swing chart. Pay close attention to his ride cymbal... http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/edshaughnessyshaw.html

[Caz]

Ok thanks for that Jazzin, I'll stop trying to follow the pianist! I was never that good at reading their minds anyway...

I'm a bit dubious about practicing comping exercises too much... I did this for quite a while with Chapin's book and more recently with John Riley's Art of the Bop Drummer. I don't want to get into practicing for practicing's sake, so usually tried to practice these along to tunes - however, it's maybe as a result of this that I'm now finding that I play comping phrases that don't really adapt to what's going on in the tune. I'm trying to jam with people as much as possible and can't help thinking that it might be best to put aside these exercises in books and just focus on learning to comp from live playing for a while. Not in a lazy way.. it just feels like the books can only take you so far sometimes.

That Ed Shaugnessy vid is cool.. It's not that fast (well, in comparison to some stuff) so you can see how he's breaking up the ride every now and then. I especially like the part where he accents the bands' hits with his snare just after half way through... tight!

Here are a series of education vids that JazzGreg forwarded me on to.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svco860T110 it's not specifically aimed towards uptempo tracks but interesting for people trying to develop their jazz ride playing.

After all, if we're not playing for the listener, then who?

Hehe, see your point... but I'm just happy if I can keep the rest of the band happy! Then they can hopefully concentrate on keeping the audience happy!!

[jazzgregg]

it might be best to put aside these exercises in books and just focus on learning to comp from live playing for a while.

This is always the best approach once you've got some facility. This is how you make music, rather than just just play exercises, an all too common phenomenon.

G

[Xalky]

Dont start this argument, please.

I didn't realize I was starting an argument. My point was that it has to sound good. How that gets done is largely a matter of interpretation by the musicians and "there's more than one way to skin a cat."

[Caz]

Hey all... I've been working at playing uptempo tunes quite a lot since my first post on this thread. I'm glad to say I just went to a jam session where the bass player counted in something quite fast and it went really well... I was totally conscious of this thread when we started playing it, so decided to try to keep the ride pattern as full as possible and only change it every now and again to break it up a bit. There were a lot of people up - a singer and a couple of horn players, guitar, bass, keys and percussion, so it was kind of like a big band and I couldn't really hear much and I wasn't really sure how to "accompany" anyone, so just kept the ride going fast and as strong as I could until it chilled a bit in volume for the rhythm section solos. So yeah, pretty much just a big fast ride and a hi hat, with a touch of snare and bass drum.. it seemed to do the trick! It didn't seem to need much comping, made my job nice and easy :)

I found something cool on Window's Media Player that's really helping out that I'd like to share.. if you go to Options, Enhancements then there's a speed control setting which lets you speed up and slow down tracks. It's great for building speed on tunes gradually. And is also good for slowing down tunes to transribe them, then speed them up again... they do sound pretty weird slowed down though! But this has been like a god-send for me, so hope it benefits some of you!