GetAgrippa
Diamond Member
I played drums (we had a number of drummers and take turns) in church of about 1,500 for about 8-10 years. It was an open environment with no plastic blocks and a good size orchestra and large choir. It was a lot of fun and we played all kinds of music-really did some great productions that really turned out super with the mix of novice and some professional musicians. Anyways what I noted , as others have posited, is some drummers tended to play full speed ahead (all their sticks chewed up like a beaver eating on them-gosh I've some stick probably years old), but most importantly not really pay attention to the conductor or other musicians. All the instruments in an orchestra have to constantly adjust their volumes so all the parts can clearly be voiced by all the instruments. You don't want the horns to blow over a critical and beautiful string part-you don't want a drummer doing it either. The problem of volume control was solved by putting the drummer in a plastic "bubble" so they can control the volume. Now I loved playing and interacting with the piano and bass player and following the conductor (watched them like a hawk) who would at his whim change the volume or tempo-you had to really be on your toes and somewhat instinctive what he might do. I have real difficulty hearing and putting me in the bubble just felt like someone pulled my plug and connection with the music and other players-I hated it. I like to choke up on my sticks too for lower volumes-you can play quieter but also fast too so you don't compromise all the dynamics for lower volume. Tried hot rods/rutes but the audio guys said they sounded terrible. When I first started it was like "church music" and really didn't appeal to me (country and church music just never my thing), but they played enough variety to keep it musically interesting to me. It was a really positive experience overall, met some super pro musicians, and I learned to you can learn to play any kind of music so don't be jaded by my own biases.Hey maybe I should join a country band LOL