davor
Senior Member
So… last night, on the spur of the moment I decided to go to my first local pub jam, (and my first time ever playing outside of a rehearsal room!). A lot of fun, went pretty well, was a laid back atmosphere and so it was perfect situation to get me playing in front of others!
I took a lot away from it, more than I was expecting, such as:
- Pay attention to the other players and what’s happening in the music. Being quite nervous, I was so focussed on what I was doing that I kept the same volume through a quiet part of a song, not realising what was actually going on! (I was given a nod by the bass player to bring it down a notch haha!)
- Get used to playing with brushes – I went with my stick bag (some 5As, 7As, and a pair of rods). I was told before getting on the kit I couldn’t use sticks, due to volume issues. So I used my rods, but I was told even these were a bit loud. So the only other drummer there let me use his brushes – I’d never used brushes before. Something new for me to learn/practice!
- Don’t think the “money beat” will always get you through – I went along banking on being able to mainly play time using the money beat of bass 1 and 3, snare 2 and 4 with eighth note hi hat (or shuffle if needed). I played about 6 songs in total and this worked on 4 of them. One of the others called for snare hits on each quarter note, and the other was an uptempo boom – bap, boom – bap (?!) type thing. This threw me quite a bit, took more bars than is acceptable to find my groove and those songs remain a bit of a blur in my mind now
There’s probably a lot more I learnt without even realising it though!
Anyway thought I’d share this. If anyone has any comments I’d welcome them – particularly the on 3rd one (I need to broaden my range of grooves I can pull out without having to think!) . I’ve been practicing straight rock beats for so long I felt like a fish out of water when the song needed something else!
I took a lot away from it, more than I was expecting, such as:
- Pay attention to the other players and what’s happening in the music. Being quite nervous, I was so focussed on what I was doing that I kept the same volume through a quiet part of a song, not realising what was actually going on! (I was given a nod by the bass player to bring it down a notch haha!)
- Get used to playing with brushes – I went with my stick bag (some 5As, 7As, and a pair of rods). I was told before getting on the kit I couldn’t use sticks, due to volume issues. So I used my rods, but I was told even these were a bit loud. So the only other drummer there let me use his brushes – I’d never used brushes before. Something new for me to learn/practice!
- Don’t think the “money beat” will always get you through – I went along banking on being able to mainly play time using the money beat of bass 1 and 3, snare 2 and 4 with eighth note hi hat (or shuffle if needed). I played about 6 songs in total and this worked on 4 of them. One of the others called for snare hits on each quarter note, and the other was an uptempo boom – bap, boom – bap (?!) type thing. This threw me quite a bit, took more bars than is acceptable to find my groove and those songs remain a bit of a blur in my mind now
There’s probably a lot more I learnt without even realising it though!
Anyway thought I’d share this. If anyone has any comments I’d welcome them – particularly the on 3rd one (I need to broaden my range of grooves I can pull out without having to think!) . I’ve been practicing straight rock beats for so long I felt like a fish out of water when the song needed something else!
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