Do you groove or at least keep time when you solo?

BrewBillfold

Silver Member
Just curious, after watching a lot of solos on youtube recently--from both famous drummers and not so famous, and both rock drummers and jazz drummers.

I actually find it kind of frustrating that so many drummers do not bother with grooving or at least keeping time when they solo . . . a lot of what I'm hearing sounds more like noodling to me. Sometimes it's impressive noodling--in terms of speed or dexterity, but most of it does not tend to sound very "musical" to me. In fact, a lot of it sounds to me like what someone who doesn't know how to play drums does when they sit down behind a kit, it's just that they do it with less "athletic" ability/finesse.

But that's not how we normally play drums. In other words, so many drummers approach soloing completely differently than they approach playing otherwise. It's almost as if they're trying to play a different instrument during the solo.

It seems like a lot of players think, "Ah, here's my chance to show everyone how fast I can move my hands and feet and finally hit every drum, cymbal, etc. every way that I know how." It would be like a guitarist doing a solo while forgetting about playing in keys, etc., and just trying to make sure that they get to every fret on every string at least once, as fast as possible, and with every different method of picking, harmonics, palm muting, etc. that they're aware of . . . which would be fairly ridiculous.

It might be interesting if we could start more of a trend towards grooving and keeping time during solos, trying to approach them more musically, at least to even things out a bit.
 
It depends on the situation. I almost never do a free form solo but I have occasionally if it is what was warranted for the situation. I generally play a very defined length of solo following the form of the song. I almost never keep a groove going but if you listen carefully you can hear elements of the song in the solo, just like you would if a horn player or guitarist was taking a solo.

Just ignore the youtube wanking. Most of it is nonsense. I pay attention to what someone can do live with a band, not what he can do in the nice safe (but creepy) enviroment of his mothers basement.

"It puts the lotion on it's skin. It does this whenever it is told."
 
ATTEMPT is probably the best word for my endeavors (mainly cause I suck)

I hear ya I'm not one for pyrotechnics (on any instrument , as player or listener) that wind up being more about a demonstration of mechanics than a musical expression...I think that generally tents to interest other drummers as "shop talk"

I generally find it cool when a musician communicates with the audience by doing sort of an "exposition and development" type structure (a'la fugue)

i think it's neat if a musician "hides" the theme as long as they "bring you home" and expose the theme in the end - so you get that "ah, ha! so that's where you were going / holy crap, I get it now" moment -kind of tacking the exposition on the end

BUT like anything clever, you have to be really careful and diligent there. That's kind of like a good mystery novel, the author has to give you the clues or it's just a flat story, not a fun puzzle

so yeah, I'm of a similar taste I suppose - showing me speed or density or volume for its own sake just doesn't turn me on
 
A drum solo is a time for self-expression.

IMO:
I think a good drum solo comes from maturity. Granted there are quite a few exceptions to this rule where some individuals seem to play extremely good solos considering the time they've been playing. This, I think, is in part because they have a natural musical ability, and two they have athletic (coordination) ability. The athletic ability only goes so far, though.

I have always thought of a solo as a song, and as such it is more for the listener than for other drummers to listen too. If you listen to someone like Benny Greb , or Steve Smith play a solo, it is just as entertaining to non-drummers as it is drummers.

Playing well technically is not the end product. It is a refined tool. We use this tool to create the product. So a drum solo may be a form of music. Using drums to express yourself musically is a great thing. And, having great technical ability is not necessary for a drum solo to accomplish this (those of us that are older remember the great solo of inagodadavida). Yet, technical ability can be very effective, and can be used in a musically based solo. I think it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

However, I must also concede, that listening to a drummer playing for the shear sport of technical ability can be entertaining at times. (Johnny Rabb's great one hand single stroke roll.) But, I think a technical solo still has to have some kind of structure that is in place for it to be entertaining.

Still, it comes down to considering the source. If a drum solo is a form of self-expression, what does your drum solo say about you? What are you (am I) expressing? And, when you hear another drummer's solo, you learn something about them.
 
Brew, good comments - love your work :) As I've said on a couple of other threads, a lot of drum solos seem to be a brief interlude - an acrobatics show in between the music. The drummer/acrobat finishes the final loop de loop with a TA DA! and then normal transmission returns. That's cool if it's a good acrobatics show and doesn't go too long. It's just entertainment, and is not music any more than a vocalist cracking jokes between songs is music.

There's a place for free form approaches to soloing where a drummer works on textures, melodies and abstract ideas, but I'm no fan of drummers clattering away with no groove and ugly / repetitive sounds to show off their chops. They might have good chops but it's a drag if it doesn't sound pleasing or interesting.
 
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Brew, I'm with you. Most drum solos leave me flat. Even the greats. Myself I was always afraid to leave the safety of the song structure, but I felt so stifled by it that I would end my solo just as fast as I could. (I can't "go to the 4" on drums, it's not a melodic instrument, basically speaking)
So what I've come up with is to play the song structure just long enough to where I can insert a nice stop hitting a snare flam on the (beat) 1. After that, when beat 1 comes around again, I start a eighth note ostinato of hi hat "chicks" for a bar or 2. Now I'm free to cut loose a lot more and enjoy considerably more freedom, while still keeping peoples foot tapping to my eighth note ostinato. Ah freedom! No constraints of song structure. It's so much easier that way for me. So I do my thing, all in time to the hi hat and I end the solo with another stop on the 1, which is a clear signal for the band to come back in when beat 1 comes around again. I hate a noodling drum solo, I don't care how cool you make it sound, if you can't tap your foot to it, to me, it's a liability, not an asset. Drums are a rhythmic instrument, we have to keep a good rhythm going and work the instrument in the realm it is meant for, rhythm. Noodling is not rhythm, noodling is just boring. Rhythm has to be continuous from beginning to end. Give me a solo you can dance to, now you have something worth listening to. Death to the noodling solo! Off with their heads!
 
There are many situations that call for solos. For example, I had to play a long solo to cover time for a costume change. Total freedom. What I did depended on how I felt.

Soloing over a structure is different. It just depends.
 
There are a lot of different gray areas when it comes to this question. For about a year, I was much more comfortable with completely open, timeless drum solos, but then I realized how lacking that was, and that audiences (both musically-educated and mainstream) want to hear something COOL. If your crazy blazing chops is just a bunch of noise and not COOL, then no-one cares. But since I can never bring myself to just sit and play one measure over and over again with a fill and the end of every 4 bars, I decided to work on new ways to both keep time and play out of the box.
What I have been doing lately is adopting a sort of polyrhythmic approach to solos. I can keep time perfectly well, but perhaps play one time signature with my feet, while doing some sort of odd time with my hands, creating a loop that lasts for many measures. So I think that keeping time and playing free are sort of dependent on each other. You shouldn't always play completely free, and you shouldn't always play within one specific groove. Branch out, but have everything you're doing relate to everything else you're doing.
 
Just curious, after watching a lot of solos on youtube recently--from both famous drummers and not so famous, and both rock drummers and jazz drummers.

I actually find it kind of frustrating that so many drummers do not bother with grooving or at least keeping time when they solo . . . a lot of what I'm hearing sounds more like noodling to me. Sometimes it's impressive noodling--in terms of speed or dexterity, but most of it does not tend to sound very "musical" to me. In fact, a lot of it sounds to me like what someone who doesn't know how to play drums does when they sit down behind a kit, it's just that they do it with less "athletic" ability/finesse.

But that's not how we normally play drums. In other words, so many drummers approach soloing completely differently than they approach playing otherwise. It's almost as if they're trying to play a different instrument during the solo.

It seems like a lot of players think, "Ah, here's my chance to show everyone how fast I can move my hands and feet and finally hit every drum, cymbal, etc. every way that I know how." It would be like a guitarist doing a solo while forgetting about playing in keys, etc., and just trying to make sure that they get to every fret on every string at least once, as fast as possible, and with every different method of picking, harmonics, palm muting, etc. that they're aware of . . . which would be fairly ridiculous.

It might be interesting if we could start more of a trend towards grooving and keeping time during solos, trying to approach them more musically, at least to even things out a bit.

I agree, any soloist on any instrument should always keep time when they play and have some sensible structure.

Why is a drum solo like a sneeze?
You can tell it's coming, but you can't do anything to stop it.
 
When I do a drum solo I might do 3 or 4 different time signatures but they will be in time and I also like to have a groove section in my solo IMO solo's need to have peaks & valleys in order too make them interesting.keep in mind everybody that hears it isn't. a drummer & if you start out @ 1000 mph where are you gonna go from there I always try too have a easy & hard section, whether if the part is easy or hard it needs too sound good IMO.

Bonzolead
 
I've always been taught and I believe to always keep time. Whether it's in the middle of a song or if you are doing a straight solo - keep to the time of the song or the time you started your solo and don't stray from that.

If it's a long solo, I like it like a rain storm. Starts easy as first, then builds up, builds up more, then the thunder and hail, then the prestige or return to calmness, or the band comes in during the ice and thunder. But that's just me.

A lot of uTube wankers just wail away with complete disregard for musicality. How fast and how hard can I play? Total rubbish!
 
I think of all the major instruments, the drumset is one of the hardest to make an engaging solo on, my opinion. With any other instrument besides percussion, (piano excluded) you have melodys, harmonys and rhythm. Plus solo's are usually given without warning, (let's give the drummer some!) and all of a sudden you're in the hot seat. Plus they (guitarists, bassists, and everyone else) usually have us backing them up. Who backs us up? No one. I feel buck naked at drum solo time. We just have rhythm (unless you use a Bozzio setup) and you really have a lot less to work with compared to most other instruments.
 
One of the most entertaining sols I've seen was back in 1982 by a stage band called "Clean Sweep."

He started a nice groove. He had a mic and began a dialogue, "Hey, how's everyone doing tonight?..I was here early practicing my drum solo and Judy, (A waitress we all were familiar with asked me if I knew..."

He then played what she asked. he did this with 2 or three people that worked there, then got to the bartender, Dave... " and Dave asked me if I knew any Gay music" ...and he broke into a great rumba beat. The audience went wild... He then kind of said, "Ah screw it..." and broke into this great solo."

I know it sounds hokey, but the audience, including me. loved it.

I loved it so much that I tried it a few weeks later when my band played, and, it was so much fun...
 
After experiencing Phil Collins & Chester duets; now thats groove! And chops! , I find any other "solos" boring.

If I do a "solo", I do a one man version of P&C inspired stuff and the audience loves it!

I am not into the self indulgent fastest triple inverted paraddidles followed by mammy/daddy's in 5/4 from hell. All they do is show you can do it, but that's all. It is just noodling for the sake of it, imo.
Also another thing I really can't stand is drummers twiddling their sticks...either you play drums or you are a juggler but pleeaaase, not both lol! Concentrate on the drumming.

No offense meant for those of you here who both noodle and twiddle ;)
 
After experiencing Phil Collins & Chester duets; now thats groove! And chops! , I find any other "solos" boring.

If I do a "solo", I do a one man version of P&C inspired stuff and the audience loves it!

I am not into the self indulgent fastest triple inverted paraddidles followed by mammy/daddy's in 5/4 from hell. All they do is show you can do it, but that's all. It is just noodling for the sake of it, imo.
Also another thing I really can't stand is drummers twiddling their sticks...either you play drums or you are a juggler but pleeaaase, not both lol! Concentrate on the drumming.

No offense meant for those of you here who both noodle and twiddle ;)

I know what you mean, but the occasional stick trick can be great as far as a performance goes. I saw Robin Guy play at Drumfest earlier this year and he wowed the crowd with his performance and showmanship. As far as entertainment and energy, its well worth it. However, you shouldn't sacrifice the groove or the drumming, that should be the number 1 priority. Tricks and showmanship in certain situations can be really handy.

On the other hand, drummers who try and do all of the tricks, but can't actually 'play'... that's another story. Stick tricks in that sense are pretentious, and defeat the whole point of drumming.

As far as solos go, i can appreciate all types of solos. I mean, i love solos that groove and build up from that groove, but sometimes fancy rolls and chops just work. I mean the drum solos in Steely Dan's 'Aja', where Steve Gadd is just going nuts are awesome. Dennis Chambers is another one. Some of his solos are mind blowing as far as technique is concerned, but sometimes you end up asking yourself, 'where is the one?!?!'. He can just go off on one, totally disregarding the pulse of the song. This can be off putting sometimes, but it's expression, and you can really feel the emotion he puts into the song.

Also, when everyone drops out in a drum solo, it's a great chance for us drummers to express and make the little details stand out, especially dynamics.The amount of times i have been playing & jamming with guitarists/bassists and the song feels like it should drop in volume or change direction, and they are on a different page is untrue.

It always seems to me that, drummers are always the first to call another drummer 'self indulgent' for playing a technical solo, but we should appreciate each other. When you see drummers expressing themselves through solo it can be great. Everyone's way of expression is different, so its varied. I guess its each to their own, everyone has different tastes in this sort of thing
 
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I think both are acceptable. Gadds solo on Aja is a great example of a solo played in time to music. Bonhams solo at the end of Rock and Roll does not seem to have any time but still sounds great. Moby Dick seems to have both. The multiple solos in bop jazz depend on keeping time but often have the allusion of no or different time, then the band kicks in together for a great effect. No clear cut answer for me on this one.
 
It always seems to me that, drummers are always the first to call another drummer 'self indulgent' for playing a technical solo, but we should appreciate each other. When you see drummers expressing themselves through solo it can be great. Everyone's way of expression is different, so its varied. I guess its each to their own, everyone has different tastes in this sort of thing

Agreed, I perso prefer stuff like Phil Collins would do rather than Peart or Portnoy for exemple, even though I like both these guys playing withing the songs. I like Gadd in Aja, that works very well!

Phildas
 
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