drummingman
Gold Member
For quite a few years now I've written all of my drum parts out for every original song that I play. Every beat, every fill, everything written out down to the note. And although I do think this is a good way to do things as it forces me to come up with new ideas that I feel that I never would come up with off the top of my head, doing it this way is starting to feel a bit sterile to me. I almost feel like I'm overthinking things sometimes making the drumming more academic feeling than anything else (at least for me. I can't speak for the listener).
Even though I knew how to read and write music back in the day I hardly ever wrote out any of my drum parts. I mostly came up with things and then played by memory. At times I feel that certain aspects of my playing back in the day were overly simplistic because of this. But my playing did have a certain spontaneity and freedom to it back then as well that I sometimes feel is lacking today.
What I've been thinking of doing is combining both my current way and my old way of constructing drum parts. Writing out ideas while at the same time leaving certain things open for more spontaneity and creativity off the top of my head. I'm thinking that taking this approach may add a bit of spice into my creation of parts in the sense of everything not feeling so mapped out. This will still allow me to push and innovate in my drum part writing while at the same time allowing for the spontaneity that I have not been using in my playing for quite a while.
How do you construct your drum parts? Why do you construct your parts the way you do?
Even though I knew how to read and write music back in the day I hardly ever wrote out any of my drum parts. I mostly came up with things and then played by memory. At times I feel that certain aspects of my playing back in the day were overly simplistic because of this. But my playing did have a certain spontaneity and freedom to it back then as well that I sometimes feel is lacking today.
What I've been thinking of doing is combining both my current way and my old way of constructing drum parts. Writing out ideas while at the same time leaving certain things open for more spontaneity and creativity off the top of my head. I'm thinking that taking this approach may add a bit of spice into my creation of parts in the sense of everything not feeling so mapped out. This will still allow me to push and innovate in my drum part writing while at the same time allowing for the spontaneity that I have not been using in my playing for quite a while.
How do you construct your drum parts? Why do you construct your parts the way you do?