Gavin Harrison here!

Hey Gavin, I wanted to ask about metronome use. I read somewhere that you use it for some tracks live (the ones with the clips being displayed) so you stay in sync. But what about most studio work and other live situations (like 19 days, you must have done it with a click, it's really hard to stay in time with the rest of the instruments otherwise, for me anyway)? because as far as I am aware, many Pro Drummers *don't* use a click for many of their tracks, and almost never use one live. I personally like to always use a metronome, regardless of the setting, but are there any disadvantages to doing so?

Fox.

Gavin contributed a great article on creating click tracks to the Sound on Sound online recording magazine.

It can be found here if you haven't seen it:http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/articles/clicktracks.htm
 
Gavin -

I just read your Sound on Sound article on triggering -- very entertaining. I actually hadn't realized you had ever used live triggering. Being a metal drummer I see triggers being used everywhere, but I have never really enjoyed using them myself.

I'm curious are you ever in situations where you use live triggering today? I know you play to backing tracks with clicks in Porcupine Tree but do you ever sample triggers in live situations still? I'm asking partly just out of curiousity but also because I may be doing live triggering in a band I am in right now and have never really done it before. I noticed the article is a few years old so I wondered if you had had any more updates in your quest for the ultimate live triggering setup.

The article reminded me of a nightmare I once had with triggers. My band Vex was playing a metalfest in south Texas, so there was one house kit that all the bands were using. It was a two kick drum set using DDrum triggers on each kick. We couldn't get a signal out of one of the kicks so the guy who owned the triggers kept cranking the trigger sensitivity further and further up to try and get a signal. Low and behold we found that a cable was loose on the inputs of the DM5, and when he plugged it back in it happened to be at an extremely slow, doomy part of the song with very simple kind of 1 & 3 kick drum playing. But because of the sensitivity being so high the trigger was firing everytime one of my leghairs got too close to the kick head. So this slow, doomy part suddenly was seasoned with a flurry of 32nd note hertas and 16th note triplets all over the place. The other guys thought I had all of a sudden turned it into an improv fusion part.

So that experience kind of swore me off of triggers forever.
 
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Hi NeuroAxis

I'm curious are you ever in situations where you use live triggering today?

No, I hate it - and when I did - it drove me crazy. You can get it pretty good but never perfect at all times.
The best system I found was the DDrum 4 - because it reacted the fastest of the ones I tested - and you can put in your own sounds (VERY important). However - there were occasional mis-triggers and flams. I tried triggering directly off the Axis pedal and that worked pretty good - but it's not an exact science in the way you set it up - so there's room for errors. Anything that involved MIDI was a n nightmare because of the delay - and I was hoping to get triggering down to less than one millisecond (the DDrum was about 4.5 ms) - some MIDI systems were producing over 10 milliseconds and you become very aware of a flam between the real drum and the sample coming out.

I know a lot of metal drummers trigger the bass drum - and you really have to for that speed and articulation. You can also try some drastic eq and gating the bass drum to a few milliseconds - and mixing that in with a standard mic sound.

good luck
Gavin
 
Hi Gavin,

Here's the finished drum solo which I called 'Ritual Madness' and dedicated to you. See what you think, remembering it's for a year 12 student of a good playing level but not virtuosic. I'll get it recorded sometime too (as soon as I've practised it a little more.)
I've written other ones dedicated to Tony Williams, Steve Gadd and Ian Paice. Students doing Solo Performance for year 12 have to perform 15 minutes of pieces on 2 areas of percussion (e.g. kit and snare.) Cheers again for the inspiration.
 

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Hi Gavin,

Here's the finished drum solo which I called 'Ritual Madness' and dedicated to you. See what you think, remembering it's for a year 12 student of a good playing level but not virtuosic. I'll get it recorded sometime too (as soon as I've practised it a little more.)
I've written other ones dedicated to Tony Williams, Steve Gadd and Ian Paice. Students doing Solo Performance for year 12 have to perform 15 minutes of pieces on 2 areas of percussion (e.g. kit and snare.) Cheers again for the inspiration.

Hi,wow,it's very difficult for a 12 year children..he's a good student!
 
Hi Gavin,

I recently came across your work for Porcupine Tree when I became hypnotized by the "Sound of Muzak" groove - it must have been a preview of your Modern Drummer festival performance. It had quite the same impact on me that once Jeff Porcaro's "Rosanna" groove had. Sure, the musical setting is different but both consist of a rather challenging groove (at least for me) matching the musical context as close as possible while being performed totally relaxed and easy - whenever I hear it, it catches me.

I have been following this thread for quite some time now. As far as I can see there are not too many professional drummers patiently answering questions from fans and interested drummers over months and years now - just like you have. This is extremely encouraging and has given me much insight into how you think and approach technical and musical issues.

Although it´s really a tough challenge for me to follow you when it comes to polyrhythms, displacements etc. as layed out in your two books and DVD's, it is very inspiring. I also like very much that you stay true to the point that you want to make instead of blowing everybody away with chops and solo's that would be too fast to figure out for me anyway. Given that I am a hobby drummer who´s family and job doesn´t leave too much time to practise, I am sure it´ll take me years to get to the point where I could comfortably play most of this, but as you rightly say... it increases the comfort level for the "usual" stuff I come across.

The one or ther other time you mentioned, that it might be good idea to create a set of FAQ's to make it easier for new readers of this thread to collect all the knowledge that is spread across nearly 80 pages. Is this already existing? If not, I would volunteer to compile a first draft - it´ll also help me extracting the core of what has been posted here. I assume it makes sense for you to approve it before it can be published here within this forum.

What do you think?

Best regards,
Christian Gau
 
Hi,wow,it's very difficult for a 12 year children..he's a good student!

No, actually that means 12th (and final) year of high school in South Australia so the student would be 17 or 18 and been learning for 5 years at least.

Tony Royster could have played it at 12, probably one-handed!
 
Hi dahop

Here's the finished drum solo which I called 'Ritual Madness' and dedicated to you


Thanks - it's very interesting - and pretty hard!!

Hi ChrisGau

it might be good idea to create a set of FAQ's to make it easier for new readers of this thread to collect all the knowledge that is spread across nearly 80 pages. Is this already existing? If not, I would volunteer to compile a first draft - it´ll also help me extracting the core of what has been posted here. I assume it makes sense for you to approve it before it can be published here within this forum.


Vladimer Sichinava kindly made this one

http://gavinharrison.netsons.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

but I guess it's a pretty time consuming updating it.

Hi Kongo

who played drums on the track "Mesmer Part 1" ? I'm pretty sure it was Chris. Is that 13/8 timing?


I've no idea about that song - I've never heard of it. If it's a PT song it must be Chris on drums.

Cheers
Gavin
 
Hi Gavin,

Glad I did read your article about using triggers. We are in the stage of adding triggers to the drums because some songs demand some extra drumsounds triggered. Particulary simmons kit drums.

I'm not sure if you are really familiar with the simmons system but I'll ask anyways. The simmons don't use midi as far as I know but direct CV inputs. Does this mean that the delay between the hit and the sound will be much lesser then with midi systems?
I know that Phil Collins used the simmons system a lot with real drums where he played the system from his acoustic kit (I have seen small triggers mounted in his concert toms) and I heard him doing it live a couple of times. I never noticed any flam or delay. Could this be because the system is analog instead of midi?
 
Hey Gavin,
Thanks for your generous replies on this forum. I'm going to ask the one I always ask at every drum clinic which is: how do you handle the physical side of drumming?
I've always got a few aches and pains from playing and have had acute back problems in the past. I get to the gym which helps, along with good posture at the kit and a relaxed grip but when the music gets heavy...Any other tips, any physical issues yourself?
Cheers, Dave.
 
Hi Gavin,
I am doing a thesis about how Progressive Rock drumming advanced modern drum kit playing.
can you give me some advise?
thanks!

Jit
 
Hi SantiBanks

I'm not sure if you are really familiar with the simmons system but I'll ask anyways. The simmons don't use midi as far as I know but direct CV inputs. Does this mean that the delay between the hit and the sound will be much lesser then with midi systems?

I think so. In my experience MIDI and the modules that it's controlling isn't as fast as I would like.

Hi dahop

I'm going to ask the one I always ask at every drum clinic which is: how do you handle the physical side of drumming?

Well, it gets harder as you get older for sure. Now I warm up before the show (I can remember a time when I never warmed up). At the moment I'm cycling everyday trying to work on stamina and general fitness. Of course it depends on the type of gig that you're playing. Some of the PT sets have been pretty tough in the past. I don't like to hold back or cruise when I play - I like to really go for it - but that's when I have to try and conserve energy in the slower songs and release it in the up tempo stuff. I guess it's learning about pacing yourself.

I've always got a few aches and pains from playing and have had acute back problems in the past. I get to the gym which helps, along with good posture at the kit and a relaxed grip but when the music gets heavy...Any other tips, any physical issues yourself?

I get occasional aches and pains - and my hands get pretty beaten up during the tour. It's a battle with myself about wanting to hit hard - but hurting my hands if I go too far. I could of course play half the volume and let the sound engineer turn me up in the PA - but it just wouldn't feel the same to me. Posture, seat height, stick weight, skin tension, drum/cymbal setup and grip will all effect your physical stamina - and you just have to come to a compromise with yourself about it.

Hi Jit420

I am doing a thesis about how Progressive Rock drumming advanced modern drum kit playing. can you give me some advise?

I'm really not the right guy to ask about that. I don't have a lot of knowledge about the history of prog music. Good luck.

cheers
Gavin
 
Hi Gavin,

Thanks for being so generous with your replies. If I may just take advantage of your generousity with a few questions...

I've found it very interesting reading how you used to record yourself and slow down the recordings to gauge your level of accuracy, consistency etc. Could you possibly describe how you used this sort of feed back? For example - lets say on a recording, my left hand cross stick and hi-hat foot appear to, more often than not, unintentionally flam when playing a particular time functioning pattern. How would you go about fixing this? Is it just a matter of shifting your attention to the problem area? It never ceases to amaze how very different I can sound on playback, so how do I change what's seemingly unperceivable whilst playing?

And - Are there/were there any sort of exercises you would do to improve your own sense of time or internal pulse? Like for example displacing the metronome, or recording and practicing to click tracks with gaps. While you play set pieces or improvise, do you imagine a click or sing the subdivisions of the music you're playing, like other drummers/percussionist claim to? I have your Rhythmic Illusions book and it would seem to me that some of the illusions, especially those where there are none or few notes on down beats (like Ex 5a-8a) have to be played in conjunction with an imagined click in order to be performed accurately. Is this what you'd do or would recommend doing? And would you recommend your book as a tool for improving this aspect of playing?

I'm currently working through The new breed book and Gary Chaffee's rhythm and Meter Patterns and find this whole area of improving timing and 'clarity' both fascinating and increasingly frustrating. It's difficult to know what sort of level of consistency to accept before moving on to the next exercise, and what mental steps to make for progress. Like accurately switching between subdivisions whilst keeping the time steady. How's it done? With the exception of maybe Peter Erskine or Andrew C Lewis, I've hardly ever heard a successful drummer talk about what would seem to be such an important aspect of drumming.

I'd be very interested and extremely grateful for hearing your expert opinion in these areas if you get the chance.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
Hey gavin, I'm trying to become a professional studio and live freelance drummer. I recently got endorsed by a custom drum company called TMD and have done sessions on a cd along with Marco Minnemann, Kenny Aronoff, Chad Wackerman and a few others. I'm trying to make connections and get my name around as a drummer and I almost landed myself behind the kit for bedouin soundclash touring live this summer with no doubt. I was wondering if you have any tips on getting myself out there in the drum world, and landing jobs and gigs. Thanks alot.

Brendan Colameco
www.myspace.com/brendancolamecodrums
 
Fancy a jam?

Hi Gavin,

This isn't just opinion, this is fact. You are the best goddamn drummer on the planet and most inspiring player I've ever witnessed. You've had an enormous influence on me - if you get a minute you can hear our band @ http://www.chasinjade.com

Anyway, long shot here - would you be up for coming to Yorkshire for a jam? I think it's safe to say that would be the greatest moment in our collective existence!

Peace

Ben
 
Gavin,
I'm extremely excited about the upcoming album with 05ric! I have really enjoyed the last few albums where you have been able to let all of your skill show. i.e. nil recurring, drop, futile... I was wondering if there are any other groups you've recorded with where you have been able to express more of the illusory skills and just flat out kill it? Also, are there any plans for a Denver/Boulder show on the upcoming PT tour?

Marc
 
Hi Steve Gregson

I've found it very interesting reading how you used to record yourself and slow down the recordings to gauge your level of accuracy, consistency etc. Could you possibly describe how you used this sort of feed back? For example - lets say on a recording, my left hand cross stick and hi-hat foot appear to, more often than not, unintentionally flam when playing a particular time functioning pattern. How would you go about fixing this? Is it just a matter of shifting your attention to the problem area? It never ceases to amaze how very different I can sound on playback, so how do I change what's seemingly unperceivable whilst playing?


If you want to fix what appears to be small problems (but very important from a groove point of view) you're going to have to get microscopically anal. So if you can hear an unintentional flam happening between the hi hat and cross stick - just practise hitting the two together for a couple of hours and let your ears become accustomed to that kind of detailed listening - remember what it sounds and feels like when they both land perfectly together. Go REALLY slow and make up exercises that will feature it. Play slow 16's on the hi hat and then play all kinds of figures with the cross stick - and just turn your attention on their 'togetherness'. Record yourself playing a really simple rhythm and then analyse it carefully. Slow down the recording and see what it sounds like.

Maybe break it down further and just play 8ths with both hands on a practise pad (or hi hat) and see if you can make them sound perfectly together with no flams. It's actually quite hard.

And - Are there/were there any sort of exercises you would do to improve your own sense of time or internal pulse? Like for example displacing the metronome, or recording and practicing to click tracks with gaps.

There's a great Steve Gadd exercise that I used to do (and still do now). Record yourself playing (without a metronome medium slow about 60-70bpm-ish). Play 1&3 on the Bass drum 2&4 on the snare and just quarter notes on the hi hat (count yourself in by clicking the sticks). After 8 bars change the hi hat to 8th notes (keep the BD & SN the same) then after another 8 bars switch the hi hat up to 16ths - then after 8 bars go back to 8ths and then 8 bars later go back down to quarter notes. Stop the recording and play it back. When you hear your count in on the recording play gentle 16ths on the hi hat throughout the entire exercise. Firstly it will show you that probably you didn't start playing at the same tempo that you counted in at - then you can judge how even your tempo keeping is especially when you are switch through the hi hat subdivisions on the recording. OK go back and repeat the exercise until you feel it's sitting comfortably. In the beginning I used to just practise the count in and first few bars (over and over) to see if I could get it at the same tempo. Be tough on yourself.

Then pick a different tempo and do the whole thing again. Then try playing a lead in fill and a fill at the end of every 8 bars - and go back and listen very carefully to the recording each time (and always play 16ths on the hi hat along to it - all the way through from the count in to the end to check your evenness).

While you play set pieces or improvise, do you imagine a click or sing the subdivisions of the music you're playing, like other drummers/percussionist claim to? I have your Rhythmic Illusions book and it would seem to me that some of the illusions, especially those where there are none or few notes on down beats (like Ex 5a-8a) have to be played in conjunction with an imagined click in order to be performed accurately. Is this what you'd do or would recommend doing? And would you recommend your book as a tool for improving this aspect of playing?

I don't imaging a click when I'm playing. Trying to play 16th note displacements are actually very good for improving your inner clock...and it feels so much better when you start playing back in their original position again.

Hi dr.funkenstien

Hey gavin, I'm trying to become a professional studio and live freelance drummer.


Me too!

I was wondering if you have any tips on getting myself out there in the drum world, and landing jobs and gigs.


Nearly all the jobs I ever got came from other musicians - and in my early days I would play with anyone who was willing to have me (usually for free of course). I don't really know what the scene is out there now - wherever musicians are playing - go along and meet them.

Hi Gavin.Is.Better.

Anyway, long shot here - would you be up for coming to Yorkshire for a jam?


Do you mean like a strawberry or raspberry jam? I know that jams up there are good (my mother is from Yorkshire) but I think I can buy them in London ;-) -- thanks anyway!!!!!

Hi MBruyere

I'm extremely excited about the upcoming album with 05ric! I have really enjoyed the last few albums where you have been able to let all of your skill show. i.e. nil recurring, drop, futile... I was wondering if there are any other groups you've recorded with where you have been able to express more of the illusory skills and just flat out kill it? Also, are there any plans for a Denver/Boulder show on the upcoming PT tour?

There haven't really been any other groups where I get to express my more elaborate 'rhythmic designs' with lately. There have been records where I have played some amounts of them (Mick Karn, Dave Stewart & Babara Gaskin, Jakko, Ed Poole) but none as much as my records with O5Ric. I haven't see any plans to come to Boulder/Denver with PT this year - but I'm optimistic for next year.
 
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