Caz
Senior Member
Hi all,
I'm mostly asking this from the perspective of playing with jazz combos and big bands... but this really applies to all genres. You know the feeling when you're playing with a really strong rhythm section, or just a really strong band, where everyone has great time and you don't really need to 'provide' anything, it's just there: "the time is in the room" as I've heard people here say. You can play around, they can play around, everything's great. Then there's the feeling where you're playing with people who don't have great time.. the pianist is trying to fill out all the spaces when comping, the bassist is trying to be cool by playing around all over the place but doesn't just contribute towards keeping the time, the soloist is going crazy over the top of it all, so it all comes down to the drums.. In these situations I've noticed I just revert to playing as simple and clear as possible - swing on the ride, bass drum four to the floor, hi hat 2 & 4, just so there's something locking it all together. But even then, it can feel like a real struggle trying to keep the tempo.. you're trying to keep something (anything!) consistent, and you lose the clarity of whether the tempo is going up or down because everyone's pushing or pulling in different directions. Dynamics also comes into it - you play louder to reassert the time but maybe this encourages others to get louder, or you play quieter to encourage others to quieten down and listen to each other, but that doesn't always work either.
What I don't want to do is be the person who complains and thinks it's everyone else's fault. I want to play and make music with everyone, and have the control to *always* keep the tempo and pull things together no matter how experienced or inexperienced the rest of the group is. Do some of the more experienced drummers out here have any advice for how to get control in this kind of situation and how to lock people in? To put it in perspective, when I play with really good musicians they'll sometimes notice things in my playing - like dragging between transitions into bass solos, rushing/dragging when doing extended fills etc, so it's not like I've got perfect time in the first place. I try address this stuff by practicing with a metronome, practicing subdivisions, transcribing and playing with recordings of drummers who can drive bands well (Buddy Rich, Philly Joe etc), recently I've been getting into konokol which I'm hoping will help to solidify my internal time. Is there any more I can do to solidify things and provide great time with ensembles?
Thanks,
Caroline
I'm mostly asking this from the perspective of playing with jazz combos and big bands... but this really applies to all genres. You know the feeling when you're playing with a really strong rhythm section, or just a really strong band, where everyone has great time and you don't really need to 'provide' anything, it's just there: "the time is in the room" as I've heard people here say. You can play around, they can play around, everything's great. Then there's the feeling where you're playing with people who don't have great time.. the pianist is trying to fill out all the spaces when comping, the bassist is trying to be cool by playing around all over the place but doesn't just contribute towards keeping the time, the soloist is going crazy over the top of it all, so it all comes down to the drums.. In these situations I've noticed I just revert to playing as simple and clear as possible - swing on the ride, bass drum four to the floor, hi hat 2 & 4, just so there's something locking it all together. But even then, it can feel like a real struggle trying to keep the tempo.. you're trying to keep something (anything!) consistent, and you lose the clarity of whether the tempo is going up or down because everyone's pushing or pulling in different directions. Dynamics also comes into it - you play louder to reassert the time but maybe this encourages others to get louder, or you play quieter to encourage others to quieten down and listen to each other, but that doesn't always work either.
What I don't want to do is be the person who complains and thinks it's everyone else's fault. I want to play and make music with everyone, and have the control to *always* keep the tempo and pull things together no matter how experienced or inexperienced the rest of the group is. Do some of the more experienced drummers out here have any advice for how to get control in this kind of situation and how to lock people in? To put it in perspective, when I play with really good musicians they'll sometimes notice things in my playing - like dragging between transitions into bass solos, rushing/dragging when doing extended fills etc, so it's not like I've got perfect time in the first place. I try address this stuff by practicing with a metronome, practicing subdivisions, transcribing and playing with recordings of drummers who can drive bands well (Buddy Rich, Philly Joe etc), recently I've been getting into konokol which I'm hoping will help to solidify my internal time. Is there any more I can do to solidify things and provide great time with ensembles?
Thanks,
Caroline