Learn Songs Quick & Bring Them With You?

JPyoji

Junior Member
Hey, drumming fam!

I'm newer to transcribing and have been working on it a lot lately. I'm trying to build up my repertoire, but it ends up with me having a bunch of songs randomly scrawled throughout a notebook without any real ability to organize them.

So 2 questions:
1) How do you approach covers? Any tips for writing simple transcriptions?
2) How do you carry your music around to gigs?

Thanks for any help here :)
 
I have to admit, through defensive listening, this is how I deal with covers. They're usually hit songs we've all heard before, so just through memorization I'm able to know them. If there are any special things going on, I can jot those ideas down on a legal pad that I keep with me if I have to read anything. How much listening do you do?
 
I agree that memorization is the best way to learn/internalize songs. It's the reason that we know a song we grew up with, and can play it for the first time with no notice, no rehearsal. It's just in us. I have songs thrown at me all the time that I've never played, never thought about playing, and I do pretty well, because they're still with me from childhood, or I'd hear a radio station's song rotation day after day, and the hits would be burned into my subconscious. When it's time to play one of those songs, I just sort of hear the parts in my head as I'm playing.

There may not be enough time to listen to enough songs to know them all, but repetition is the key (and occasional help notes are also a good idea.) If there are 60 songs you need to learn, put them on your phone. Put them on a USB drive or CD and play them in your car. Just listen, listen, listen. Hear the drums. Visualize your arms and legs and hands and feet making the movements to play those parts. Tap your feet and thump the steering wheel as you drive. Pretty soon, the songs will be in your DNA.

Bermuda
 
If you can't memorize them in time and must write them down, I would get a binder to alphabetize them in.

As already stated, memorization is the easiest way to take them all with you.
 
I'm a big supporter of chart writing. To me, it just makes so much more sense to listen to a song once or twice, write a basic chart for it and not have to listen to it again. I do this with just about every group I play with and find that it really makes my life easier. instead of spending hours and hours listening to the same songs over and over, I just take the time to chart out the most pertinent information (tempo, form, groove, breaks, unison figures, ect..) and I'm done.
Once I've finished a chart, I simply put it in a binder for the particular group I'm working with and forget about it until I have to use it on a gig. If you want to be super organized, you can scan your charts onto your computer and access them through a program like ForScore on an iPad.
 
I agree that memorization is the best way to learn/internalize songs. It's the reason that we know a song we grew up with, and can play it for the first time with no notice, no rehearsal. It's just in us. I have songs thrown at me all the time that I've never played, never thought about playing, and I do pretty well, because they're still with me from childhood, or I'd hear a radio station's song rotation day after day, and the hits would be burned into my subconscious. When it's time to play one of those songs, I just sort of hear the parts in my head as I'm playing.

There may not be enough time to listen to enough songs to know them all, but repetition is the key (and occasional help notes are also a good idea.) If there are 60 songs you need to learn, put them on your phone. Put them on a USB drive or CD and play them in your car. Just listen, listen, listen. Hear the drums. Visualize your arms and legs and hands and feet making the movements to play those parts. Tap your feet and thump the steering wheel as you drive. Pretty soon, the songs will be in your DNA.

Bermuda

At the same time, how often does a pattern come to mind even though you've never played a particular song before? How often do you improvise based on the beat instead of knowing the song? I my church setting, I'm often hit with playing to a new song once in rehearsal, then playing it live a few minutes later. If it weren't for the familiarity with the patterns/beats, it'd end up a train wreck, but usually comes off very well. If we have the opportunity to play that song again at a later time, I can usually remember what I played before. So would that be a conscious or unconscious memory?
 
At the same time, how often does a pattern come to mind even though you've never played a particular song before? How often do you improvise based on the beat instead of knowing the song?

I know some genres and eras and bands well enough, that I know what that drummer would probably have played, or what the style calls for. For example, if playing a straight surf song, you can be 99% sure that the fills will be straight 16ths, as opposed to an obtuse, syncopated part. That's not to say there aren't some more adventurous fills in surf songs, just that you can be sure you won't go wrong with 16ths around the snare & toms.

Likewise, there are some signature type fills in certain genres and eras. If playing a Motown hit, you can pretty much pick from a handful of stock fills & pickups that those drummers used, which would be just as likely to be used as the actual one. Heck, you might even nail the exact one without even trying!

But there's nothing to beat experience, and I've been listening to and playing songs for more than 50 years, some of which date back more than 60 years. If it was ever a popular song, it's in my DNA now, along with a thousand crucial album cuts from favorite artists. Call out just about any Elvis Costello song from his first 5 or 6 albums, and I can do it at least reasonably well, if not the exact part. Same for Beatles (+ solo albums), Stones, etc etc. One-hit wonders are my specialty. :)

Bermuda
 
I'm a big supporter of chart writing. To me, it just makes so much more sense to listen to a song once or twice, write a basic chart for it and not have to listen to it again.

Writing parts definitely helps ingrain the song by forcing you to listen carefully to the drums, but usually results in using the chart as a crutch. That's not a bad thing, I do it on occasion mostly for arrangement purposes. But knowing the song in your head is much more useful, and if nothing else, demonstrates more of a commitment to the music to the other players. Is that important? I don't know, but it couldn't hurt! I get songs thrown at me all the time, and I tell them (afterwards) that I've never played that song before, but I know it. That always amazes them that I could recall it - often with the original fills - out of thin air.

I don't know those songs because I wrote them out at some point in my life. I know them because I'd heard them over and over at some point, and listened carefully enough to call up the parts 20 or 30 or 50 years later.

I've told this story a few times, about sitting-in with a group for the first time about 15 years ago, and playing the Animals "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place". Right after "girl there's a better life, for me and you" there's a little tom & accent breakdown leading into the next verse. The leader turned around and gave me a funny look, I thought he was mad about something. Maybe he thought I was too loud or had sped up? I asked at the break what was up, and he said he'd only heard that part on the record, no drummer ever played that with him before! Mind you, I'd never played the song before at all, and didn't get a set lists prior to the gig in order to study it. So, no chart, no nothing. But I knew how it went, because I'd heard it almost 40 years ago and it was in me, just waiting to be recalled at some point.

Bermuda
 
I agree that memorization is the best way to learn/internalize songs. It's the reason that we know a song we grew up with, and can play it for the first time with no notice, no rehearsal. It's just in us. I have songs thrown at me all the time that I've never played, never thought about playing, and I do pretty well, because they're still with me from childhood, or I'd hear a radio station's song rotation day after day, and the hits would be burned into my subconscious. When it's time to play one of those songs, I just sort of hear the parts in my head as I'm playing.

There may not be enough time to listen to enough songs to know them all, but repetition is the key (and occasional help notes are also a good idea.) If there are 60 songs you need to learn, put them on your phone. Put them on a USB drive or CD and play them in your car. Just listen, listen, listen. Hear the drums. Visualize your arms and legs and hands and feet making the movements to play those parts. Tap your feet and thump the steering wheel as you drive. Pretty soon, the songs will be in your DNA.

Bermuda

I'm a big supporter of chart writing. To me, it just makes so much more sense to listen to a song once or twice, write a basic chart for it and not have to listen to it again. I do this with just about every group I play with and find that it really makes my life easier. instead of spending hours and hours listening to the same songs over and over, I just take the time to chart out the most pertinent information (tempo, form, groove, breaks, unison figures, ect..) and I'm done.
Once I've finished a chart, I simply put it in a binder for the particular group I'm working with and forget about it until I have to use it on a gig. If you want to be super organized, you can scan your charts onto your computer and access them through a program like ForScore on an iPad.

A combination of these approaches is what I'm currently kind of doing. I'll listen to a song a few times and write out a chart then go back from time to time and listen to them or play along. I think that writing it helps familiarize you with the song more quickly so that memorization is an easier process whereas just listening by itself leaves you prone to missing some of the nuances of the song.

I also personally have a lot of difficulty in letting go of perfectionism when I'm doing a cover - I like to play it as close to note-for-note, but I realize that's a bit unrealistic when you're trying to handle a huge batch of songs.

The listening-alone approach is tough for me because I spin a lot of music that I wouldn't likely be asked to learn for a gig. Then it comes down to listening to music for a gig versus to listening to music for enjoyment.
 
Writing parts definitely helps ingrain the song by forcing you to listen carefully to the drums, but usually results in using the chart as a crutch. That's not a bad thing, I do it on occasion mostly for arrangement purposes. But knowing the song in your head is much more useful, and if nothing else, demonstrates more of a commitment to the music to the other players. Is that important? I don't know, but it couldn't hurt! I get songs thrown at me all the time, and I tell them (afterwards) that I've never played that song before, but I know it. That always amazes them that I could recall it - often with the original fills - out of thin air.

I don't know those songs because I wrote them out at some point in my life. I know them because I'd heard them over and over at some point, and listened carefully enough to call up the parts 20 or 30 or 50 years later.

I've told this story a few times, about sitting-in with a group for the first time about 15 years ago, and playing the Animals "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place". Right after "girl there's a better life, for me and you" there's a little tom & accent breakdown leading into the next verse. The leader turned around and gave me a funny look, I thought he was mad about something. Maybe he thought I was too loud or had sped up? I asked at the break what was up, and he said he'd only heard that part on the record, no drummer ever played that with him before! Mind you, I'd never played the song before at all, and didn't get a set lists prior to the gig in order to study it. So, no chart, no nothing. But I knew how it went, because I'd heard it almost 40 years ago and it was in me, just waiting to be recalled at some point.

Bermuda

Currently listening to a playlist of every Top 10 song from 1950s - Present.
How else do you choose what music to listen to?
 
I also personally have a lot of difficulty in letting go of perfectionism when I'm doing a cover - I like to play it as close to note-for-note, but I realize that's a bit unrealistic when you're trying to handle a huge batch of songs.

It's a daunting task, but I highly recommend playing covers as close as (humanly) possible, without resorting to a note-for-note chart; that just looks bad.

Nobody will ever be mad or accuse you of not having an imagination or not making the song your own if you play the original parts. After all, isn't it those parts that make the song worth doing in the first place? Are you going to play something better or more imaginative than Ringo? Charlie Watts? Chad Smith? Ginger Baker? Hal Blaine? Larry Mullen Jr.? Bonham? Or anyone else whose parts were approved, recorded, released, and helped make a song a hit?

No... play those parts, be that drummer, have fun, and get more gigs as a result.

Bermuda
 
Currently listening to a playlist of every Top 10 song from 1950s - Present.
How else do you choose what music to listen to?

I don't really choose songs anymore, they're all in my brain. But top-10 (or top-40) is a good start, and focus on songs that sound like they should have ben hits, because that's what most cover bands play. They don't do many (or any) obscure or short-lived hits, because the audience probably won't know them.

Search for threads on Drummerworld about what cover songs work well. :)

Bermuda
 
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