When the Drummer is Right and the Band is Wrong

As drummers, when the band makes a mistake do you go along with them or do you stay the course and make them adhere to the correct structure?

For example, over the weekend I was playing a show with my Zeppelin cover band and the singer and lead guitar player started a chorus four bars early. I couldn't hear the rhythm guitar player or the bass player to know if they also jumped ahead, but I decided to stay the course and didn't transition into the chorus for another four bars. Fortunately the vocal part drops out as soon as the chorus begins so the only thing the audience really should have noticed was a change in the guitar part.

So which is it? Do you join in on the mistake and guide the band moving forward, or do you make them come back to you?

At a gig I try to cover other's errors by going along with the flow, but I'll mention it on break to make sure there was awareness of what happened. And to double check that I'm not in error.

TheElectricCompany said:

So which is it? Do you join in on the mistake and guide the band moving forward, or do you make them come back to you?

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If it's during practice, call them out...but don't be an a-hole.


If it's live, join in what everyone else is doing. Even if you're "right," and the rest of the band is "wrong," the audience doesn't know that and always thinks the odd man out is incorrect.

TheElectricCompany said:

As drummers, when the band makes a mistake do you go along with them or do you stay the course and make them adhere to the correct structure?

For example, over the weekend I was playing a show with my Zeppelin cover band and the singer and lead guitar player started a chorus four bars early. I couldn't hear the rhythm guitar player or the bass player to know if they also jumped ahead, but I decided to stay the course and didn't transition into the chorus for another four bars. Fortunately the vocal part drops out as soon as the chorus begins so the only thing the audience really should have noticed was a change in the guitar part.

So which is it? Do you join in on the mistake and guide the band moving forward, or do you make them come back to you?

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During a performance, the idea is play for the music. I will do whatever it takes to get the whole band back in sync. It isn't about who's right or wrong. Usually that means keeping with the majority of the band.

That may include playing a big fill to keep out of a train wreck. Keep going if most of the band keeps going or changing with most of the band.

You had a real tough one if you couldn't even hear the bass or rhythm player.

larryace said:

At a gig I try to cover other's errors by going along with the flow, but I'll mention it on break to make sure there was awareness of what happened. And to double check that I'm not in error.

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PorkPieGuy said:

If it's during practice, call them out...but don't be an a-hole.


If it's live, join in what everyone else is doing. Even if you're "right," and the rest of the band is "wrong," the audience doesn't know that and always thinks the odd man out is incorrect.

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Thanks for the feedback. To top it off, after this misplaced chorus which should have been the end of the song, they somehow went into an additional verse and chorus. I went along with those, but I wasn't happy about it!

Unfortunately in my last band that kind of thing happened a lot. I always go with the flow. Stubbornly staying with the song when everyone else is off doesn't work. And to be fair, I have on more than one occasion ended a song before it is supposed to end. Everyone followed me.

I'm with the others. In a live situation, follow along with what most of the band is playing.
Talk about it with them later.

Sorry, but your job is to help make the rest of the band look and sound good.

By The Way. You can't hear the bass player!?!?!...... Noooot gooooood.


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AZslim said:

During a performance, the idea is play for the music. I will do whatever it takes to get the whole band back in sync. It isn't about who's right or wrong. Usually that means keeping with the majority of the band.

That may include playing a big fill to keep out of a train wreck. Keep going if most of the band keeps going or changing with most of the band.

You had a real tough one if you couldn't even hear the bass or rhythm player.

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This is the second show in a row it's happened, but this time was much better than last. The first show I had nothing in my monitor for half of the set and the sound guy couldn't figure out what to do about it. Eventually he put a single guitar in my monitor and cranked it up to eleven, which made things much, much worse. Now instead of faint stage noise I have a screaming loud rhythm guitar and I'm having to sing the songs in my head to keep us together. After all, I can only remember so many measure counts in a two-hour show.

This past Saturday I told the sound guy to give me an audience mix minus the drums because I wanted to be able to hear everyone. It comes time for the soundcheck and I have nothing in my monitor. I stop the song and tell the guy I can't hear anyone, so he just gives me bass drum. I stop us again and we have to go instrument by instrument with me telling him to turn everything up. We get to a good level and once the show starts it's all out the window. No bass, one guitar, and none of the guest artist's instruments- save for one guitar player- and it's constantly changing. One song I can hear the vocals fine, the next song they're gone. Leads are dropping out in the middle of the solo and the rhythm's getting turned up.

There's only so many times you can take a second between songs and have someone with a mic tell the sound guy everything is still wrong before it makes the band look unprofessional.

It sounds completely insane, but I know others here have had experiences like this or worse.

Hollywood Jim said:

I'm with the others. In a live situation, follow along with what most of the band is playing.
Talk about it with them later.

Sorry, but your job is to help make the rest of the band look and sound good.

By The Way. You can't hear the bass player!?!?!...... Noooot gooooood.


.

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That's a good point. In the moment I was debating whether I wanted to make the singer and guitar player look right, at the risk of selling out the rhythm player and bass player who I was sure would be right.

Ugh, we were playing a song and i purposely played an extended fill that i started early in the measure but still ended correctly. i threw off the singer who also plays guitar. he gave me a look because he could tell something was off, but before we locked back in, he started singing the next verse, it was terrible and i could have killed him for not waiting till we were all back together before singing a verse where the beat didnt match up. we didnt discuss it later but what an idiot for singing over that mess.

Everybody is there to make the songs as good as they possibly can.

Points scoring about who made a particular stuff up is irrelevant, because over the course of a few songs, everybody will make mistakes.

There are two things that I particularly like about my band. The first is that there's a real sense that we're all in this together, and are there to support one another when we play.

The second is that our lead guitarist is super-critical when we rehearse (because that helps us to improve), yet always positive after a gig (because it's done, and there's nothing to be gained by crying over split milk).

The only thing I would add, is that it's worth agreeing that it's important not to look surprised when the band goes off piste.

Go with the flow at a gig. Then bollock them after

Fire your sound guy, he's a putz.

I don't play music that can be right or wrong ... it's just music and it can go where ever it wants.

If 'the band' is wrong, then it's up to 'the band' to sort it out during rehearsal. Who screwed up is arbitrary except for when 'the band' is considering giving 'that member' the boot.

dboomer said:

I don't play music that can be right or wrong ... it's just music and it can go where ever it wants.

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You make a very good point. The band has the power to take a song where ever it wants.
And those band members who resist may be the ones who need to loosen up and go with the flow.

I was playing at a jam the other night. I was playing with players that I had never played with before. I could not hear them talking so I did not know what song they were going to play. The bass player started out playing a funky sounding groove. So I started playing a really funky beat. I mean really really funky, like James Brown funky.

By the second verse I realized that they were playing and singing "The Thrill is gone" by BB King. I then knew I was playing the wrong groove for that song. Well, The bass player and I just kept that funky groove going through the whole song. After the song the lead guitar player and singer turned around and said, "wow, that was really great!" And the bass player turned to me and simply said "Thank you".

The song did not go where one would expect, it just went where we took it.

.

TheElectricCompany said:

Thanks for the feedback. To top it off, after this misplaced chorus which should have been the end of the song, they somehow went into an additional verse and chorus. I went along with those, but I wasn't happy about it!

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Follow the singer. They can't skip a bar or repeat it without looking stupid.
If no vocals, follow the lead guitar. He won't grasp what's going on before the song is over

About the addl verse and chorus: hey it's called improvisation! Consider it a challenge to make it sound as if all is well and afterwards casually tell your fans, "oh that part was completely improvised" and they will be impressed like you wouldn't believe it

It doesn't matter who fluffed and who was on it what matters is that your band is able to recover and that the issue is solved in a nice easy way so that everyone is happy. Do not persecute the offenders as we all know what goes around comes around.

Singers often need really obvious queues to know when to come in, in some bands 60% of my fills are placed not for musical texture but to simply sign-post to the singer a change is coming. THis is particularly true if they don't play an instrument, unless you are a Bruford or Bonham this is an important part of your job. Every singer I know wants a clear groove that has obvious sign post fills.

Sounds like a great stylistic mash-up.

Captain Bash said:

Singers often need really obvious queues to know when to come in, in some bands 60% of my fills are placed not for musical texture but to simply sign-post to the singer a change is coming.

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This
I have a "Magic Snare" and I'm sure Captain Bash does too. When rehearsing if there's something in a new song that needs a cue because people aren't certain of the structure then I'm always asked, or a band member tells everyone else in the band, "Woolwich can use his magic snare there". It can be activated by a flam, 2 hits, a 4 stroke roll or anything really. No one ever talks about my Magic Hi Hats but they are activated by lifting my foot off them to make them a bit sloshy or by moving from my ride cymbal over to them. Like the Magic Snare they give an obvious yet subtle enough signal that a change in the song is due.

As to the bigger question, if a mistake happens I'll go with it and do my best to avoid the human nature action of staring at the person who made it or pulling a face, sometimes easier said than done. No one but the band notices or cares especially about these mistakes so I just play the song and enjoy the off piste moments. I'm not perfect and I've gone early at times and because my band mates follow me then all is well

The OP poses only half the question. The other half, obviously, is what does the band do when the drummer gets lost.

Assuming a band of equally capable players where everyone makes roughly the same number of mistakes, it's just as impotant to have damage control skills as it is to know the material.

Those damage control skills ideally get honed in the practice room. One of my bands is fairly adventurous and we make a ton of mistakes at practice, but the atmosphere is such that we laugh at brilliant recoveries as much as the brilliant experiments that actually work, which is great because nobody's freaking out about mistakes. They come with the territory and it's just good practice. When we stuff something up at a show, we're pretty good about getting things back on track with confidence and a sense of amusement.

Mistake recovery is something that gets better with practice.

One thing we've worked out is that if I botch something and come back all weird, it's best if they follow me rather than have the drums upset the flow a second time to get back to what's correct. That's too noticeable.