Sinking In With A Different Drummer

[TKE96]

Well last night at practice was an interesting experience. We had a friend stop in who has played the drums for 20 + years. It was really my first time ever jamming with him. I don't want to knock our regular drummer, because he, like me, has only been playing for a year (he is also the creator of the band). It just seemed that I became a much more more proficient bass player! I caught the groove much more, was able to walk around more often, and much clearer.

 

SO I guess my question is, is it normal to rise to the rest of the band's ability level, and produce a greater sound and feel? Should I begin to search around for another band with higher abilities? Is a band of lower abilities going to create bad habits for me, creating a rut? Or should it be me to drive them to a higher level?

I am quite torn after seeing just what I could do last night. The guys in the band are great, we are also friends. I think that is what is making things difficult to sort out.

[chewstermaniac]

There is absolutly no reason for you to quit your current project. You can absolutly go find another group to play with. Hell, our drummer is in 3 bands! Just make sure that your bandmates are mature enough as human beings to bend slightly if you need to practice on a particular day with one group instead of the other.

 

Friends are a far greater asset for life than any bandmates can be, and friends that are bandmates shouldn't be scorned because someone else is a better player. Someone else always will be.

[Bob Gollihur]

Drummers come in all sorts of experience levels, but within those levels there are those who lock well and those who don't. Unfortunately, time and experience don't always teach drummers how to achieve the lock with the bass player, and OTOH, a lot of bass players never seem to acquire the skill, either.

 

The more different musicians you play with, the more you learn-- both good and bad, such as things to avoid.

 

After playing with a conscious drummer it is a real bummer to play with one who is not into communicating with the bassist.

 

I have to assign about a 40/60 (do/don't) to the general drummer population (but then I have played with some really good and really bad drummers). Anyone else??

[TKE96]

I am in total agreement that friends are more important...it is interesting though that the friendship that has been tested by time, 20+ years, is the friend who is most competant...even though he is a guitar player! But, he can play the bass left handed too...

[Tom Capasso]

I lock with my drummer from a groove standpoint. We don't communicate to coordinate fills (I've done this better with past drummers).

 

TKE96, it's normal to rise a bit when a better player comes along. Sometimes it's brief, and you level off. Sometimes you are always challenged. At the heart of it, you have to challenge yourself as much as outside factors challenge you.

 

I don't think you have to join a new band. Use the experience to push the whole band (instead of just yourself). If you've been playing a year, there is probably lots of room to grow if the band works well together.

 

Sometimes playing with someone different (not necessarily better) is a great way to learn as well. That's why if you want to join another project it will help you broaden your playing and your vision.

 

Tom

[TKE96]

I really did like the infusion of new energy and groove to my playing. I have been jamming with a broad range of people, and skills. This was definitely my first experience with a really competant drummer. Maybe it was the lack of continuous 16th note bass hits!

[61Pbass]

I recall the first time I played with a really competent drummer and how it made me feel like I was playing better. My timing was better and catching the groove was effortless. Playing with more than one group is good for you, too. Everyone feels music a little differently and the more folks you work with, the more your playing will expand.

[...]

Groove. Some drummers have it, some don't. I have played with a lot of great drummers and a lot of really, really ass drummers (especially recently, as one of my bands is looking for a new drummer). Good drummers are hard to find, very hard to find. Some will have the technical chops but can't play with the bass player to save their lives.. others have really good feel but their tempo is all over the place.. and some, well, some are just wasting my time (and the rest of the bands) by even showing up.

 

I find that when I play with a drummer that is wonderfully talented, I am way more relaxed when I'm playing. The groove just happens, we lock up instantly and the song will just play itself. This makes me much more likely to try really "out there" things that I wouldn't normally try, because I know the drummer is going to be where I left him when I made an abrupt right turn during beat 2 of the last measure.

 

As a bass player, especially someone who is just starting (you said you've been playing a year?), you should play with as many drummers as possible. Find out what different guys do, how they react to different things that you do musically, how their feel is, etc. It will make you a better player.

 

-Brian

[g.]

I've been playing with some good drummers over the past year. Each of them has their weakenesses and their individual styles but none of them are weak when it comes to time. They each have their GROOVE (something I recall a little about in a past life as a sax player in various types of bands).

 

Going back to playing with a drummer who is not so solid in time - or groove - for the Halloween party gigs showed me that though I know some new tricks and have grown as a supplier of bedrock, that with such a drummer I can't use it all there. So I dumb down. She just gets confused, falters, stutters, and even in the best of moments only faintly comprehends that bass and drums playing TOGETHER with a common goal, is unstoppable.

 

She still thinks each instrument is a separate entity. Ironically, if she could feel the entirety of the music instead of isolating her concentration, and then being shocked when she actually hears/feels something else, she'd be able to improve.

[The Bear Jew]

I've been playing with the same drummer for about 10 years. It's almost like we're joined at the hip. As some of you guys know, I play both guitar and bass (in two different bands), and this guy is the drummer in both acts. Since I kinda play guitar the same way I play bass, we spend most of our time locked in on grooves together. I never realised how well we do this until I brought my bass and jammed with another band just for kicks. These guys weren't bad at all, but the drummer played with an attitude similar to the one Greenboy mentioned above. The concept of anchoring the music through bass & drum interplay seemed foreign to him. He seemed to see music as sort of a solo sport, and whenever I tried to lock into his bass drum pattern, he'd change it -- almost spitefully running away from synching up with me. It confused the crap out of me. It's not like we were playing free jazz or anything... these were basic pop tunes. All of his fills were completely alien-sounding and uneven, and they always sounded inapproriate for the transitions they were accenting.

 

This is when I started wishing my ol' buddy was around. I feel we can pretty much back up anything and make it rock solid just by virtue of our good musical communication skills. I know his tendencies, and he knows mine. Our interplay feels effortless, and it seems like I can always tell where his fills are leading.

 

Part of this comes with time... we've been friends and musicians together for a long time. We've seen each other at our best and worst. We've dealt with some unbelieveable crap together. I know how exactly the number of beers that will change him into a character I call "Da Finga," which allows him to dispense his life's philosophies with one index finger hoisted in the air for effect. Believe it or not, when we play, all of these shared experiences and inside jokes help us understand each other's intentions and motivations within the confines of a song's arrangement.

[Jason Hoyt]

I'd have to agree with Bob's 40/60% rating. Some good, most not. I've only been playing about 6 years, but of the handfull of drummers I have played with, time playing and experience aren't always the same thing... Neither is technical prowess and groove. My favorite most regular drummer I play with, is really technically proficient, but I swear he sees music as a math problem. I think if he actually grooves it is probably a fortunate accident!!! He is really gifted though, which almost elevates my playing to new heights, so it is a bit of a trade off. He studies with a drummer named Mike Mangini(?), and is really into progressive stuff... Maybe as he learns and grows, he will begin to FEEL the music as he matures a bit. THEN he will have an incredible tool-bag with which to lay down a righteous beat! Plus we get along okay, which is important too. Just my 2c's

[randy clay]

Most of you guys are lucky, you get to play with a drummer!

 

I find that the Alesis drum machine does not groove, or play with the same intensity as the Roland.

 

I've had my share of good and not so good drummers. The good ones make me want to play all night. The not so good makes me look at my watch and hope the night goes by quickly. But most of my gigs are with a drum machine, Yikes! The only good thing is I get to run the machine, and I can lock in with it. It doesn't get lost or lose a beat. Or give me dirty looks when I get "out there". It's either that or playing along with midi files. But some of those were cut with a real drummer.

 

Either way, if you have a "real" drummer, enjoy them, my friends, and feel sorry for me

[cornbread_medhotmail.com]

One of my best friends is a phenomenal drummer. When he and I play, we lock in and the groove is solid enough to build a skyscraper on. We know what the other is going to do before he does it. The bass player in his band is great, but the groove isn't as good as when I'm in there, but it's really good. He plays that style better than I do, so I would lose the groove if I tried. I have played with some really not-so-good drummers in the past and have developed great timing. My friends call me the "human metronome" because of it. I've played with drummers who were all over the place timing wise. I have the odd knack to bring them back down to earth, but only if they're attentive. If not, I have to bring the rest of the band to the same page the drummer is sitting on. In these cases, the groove flutters. I think it's imperative for the drummer/bass player relationship to be solid. Not that you have to be best friends, but both need to be aware of the groove and time. I hate playing with those drummers that I have to babysit because I feel I'm limited and the groove can be lost. Now, when I look for a band, I really only pay attention to the drummer. If I feel he doesn't have "IT," I move along.

[Lee Flier]

I don't think it's at all unusual to feel like a better player when you play with a great drummer. I think a great drummer makes everybody play better, period. Same goes with other instruments, although to a lesser degree IMO.

 

When I was a teenager I spent very little time playing with kids my age, I started seeking out musicians who were better than me. I felt like that made me better, kinda forced me to get better in a hurry. On the other hand, I didn't have very tight friends who were my age, most of my friends were older.

 

Anyhow... even after playing for 27 years I STILL think I'm a much better player with a great drummer. Luckily I've very rarely had to play with bad ones - having always recognized the importance of a great drummer, I tend to do whatever crazy shit is necessary to find good ones and keep them around.

[MattC]

You don't get better by jamming once with a great set of musicians. Whatever you pull out of thin air that you didn't have before was always there, it just took a better (or different) player to help you realize it. There is a comfort level when playing with a comfortable group of friends, but then the phenomenal player comes in to jam and you have to kick it up a notch to keep up to his perceived comfort zone. Of course, I've noticed that usually the other player kicks it up a notch to keep up with your groove. This is the kind of thing that doens't happen too much in the comfort zone, and it's the only way to bet better.

 

If you practice with great, upper level musicians all the time, then that "kicked up" level will become your comfort level in time.

[bassbloke]

One thing that interests me is the different perception of bassist and everyone else. I've played with guys I think don't groove very well and don't have great time, only to come off stage and hear them praised by musicians in the audience, even by other drummers who I know have really good time themselves. I've also played with guys who are good technically but not great timekeepers, and the rest of the band will be saying "X is a great drummer, he has wonderful feel and time". And I'm thinking, "no he hasn't. Or if he has there's something wrong with MY time."

 

Anyone else recognise this? Is it because our role as bassplayers gives us a special sensitivity to the drummer's time?

 

Incidentally I don't think I'm a great judge of a drummer's time if I'm just standing watching a band. But let me play with him and I'll know within minutes.

[g.]

BEATS me.

 

; }

 

Ok, bassbloke, I'll play along. Everything everybody thinks is truth is just a relative truth. And absolute truth is not to be had in the land of mortals. There are a lot of kinds of grooves and sometimes you will meet drummers who don't have one that is sympathetic to your own.

 

And sometimes you will. When you meet one who has one that is a hand-in-glove fit for you it gives that special feeling. Hey the other drummer may be incredible as a timekeeper, chopsmaster, and a groover, but he just didn't have the one that fit yours like that...

 

Kind of like the sexual relationship game. It ain't about best or worst. It's about what works for you.

[jeremy c]

I play with lots of different drummers. They are all good. If they had time or taste problems, they wouldn't be professional drummers.

 

But every drummer has his own feel, his placement of where the beat is. I feel pretty lucky to get to play with all these guys and experience this.

 

What's interesting to me, is that I will adjust to whoever walks out on stage. However, I don't see a lot of drummers who adjust to the bass player. They all come in and put the beat where they put it and I'm supposed to adjust. Or maybe I notice it because I can adjust.

 

My favorite drummers are the ones who actually listen to me play and the two of us will change the parts subtly to make the music work better. With these guys, I feel like I can play anything and it will work, and they feel the same.

 

Play with as many people as you can. It will help your playing. Play with the best players that you can, it will help your playing.

 

Playing with your friends can be wonderful, if they are good players. If they are not good players, it can be horrible, because you are stuck with them.

 

At one pont in my life, I made a conscious choice never to play with my best friend again. I wanted to stay friends with the guy and I wanted my playing to improve and I didn't think either thing would happen if we kept playing together. That was about 25 years ago and we are still friends (and he hardly plays anymore) so I guess I did the right thing.

[61Pbass]

Originally posted by jeremyc:

 

My favorite drummers are the ones who actually listen to me play and the two of us will change the parts subtly to make the music work better. With these guys, I feel like I can play anything and it will work, and they feel the same.

 

I could not agree more Jeremy! I went through a change of drummers a while back in my main gig. While the new guy was quite a bit more proficient technically, I never REALLY was able to find that "pocket" to groove in with him. His timing is great, his chops are great, he caught the tempos and arrangements immediately, but it just didn't "click". The previous guy and I were thrown onstage cold, never having met or played together and were grooving immediately because we felt the music the same way and picked up on each others cues without effort.

[bassbloke]

Hmm I'm not disagreeing with you Greenboy, but I think I'm talking about something less subtle - playing with a guy who's noticeably speeding up or slowing down, but no-one else seems to notice. I don't put this down to me having wonderful time, I put it down to my role as bassist making me more sensitive to changes in time. I'm not a pro musician so I'm possibly talking about drummers who are not as good as some of the ones other guys are talking about.

 

I take your point about every observer creating their own universe. But the difficulty with introducing that kind of epistemological concept into a workaday discussion like this that it tends end up with the logical but self-defeating conclusion that no-one can be sure they know anything and even if they did they'd have no reliable way of communicating it.

[g.]

I guess we were talking about two different things then, bassbloke. An analogy for what I was saying might be:

 

You are a small retailer who contacts many companies and distributors. There's this one guy you talk to on the phone who from the first moment you made contact seems to take almost everything you said the wrong way - and vice versa. And there's some strange tension in any communication, though at the surface orders are not getting screwed up or anything.

 

You talk to others all the time who business is always easy with, and they sometimes work with or through this person as well. Most or none of them seem to have the problem... You go to a trade show where you will be meeting these people or seeing them again, and are introduced to this person, and have face-to-faces several times over a three-day period. As your other contacts said, he seems to be a nice person, is conscientious and professional - and yet there is just an odd chemistrry that will not be shaken any time communication/conversation is attempted.

 

That's the gist of it.

 

As to what you seem to be saying now (not the philosophical thing, I won't wade further there), it seems pretty simple. Some of these guys suck in the time and tempo department, by your opinion. And maybe the audience doesn't care if the song changes tempos because there are perhaps other compensations ; }

[bassbloke]

Greenboy, I understood what you were saying and in fact agreed. It was just a different thing from what I was talking about.

 

Let me illustrate:

 

Drummer A: this guy is a drummer with great time, feel and sound. For a bass player he's a total pleasure to play with. Does he have a down-side? Yes: he's highly conservative about what he wants to play, will not attempt styles outside a specific range, and is so intensely perfectionist that he can make other musicians feel uncomfortable. (Example: if another musician starts a song off at an inappropriate tempo, this guy will come in and not speed up or slow down. He will play the song at exactly the same "wrong" tempo from start to finish. It's beneath his dignity to speed up or slow down. If the song started at the wrong tempo, that's not his problem). If he was better at marketing himself I think this guy could easily have had a career as a pro drummer.

 

Drummer B: technically possibly even better than Drummer A. He is open minded, will attempt just about any style, and has the ability to play most of them well. Occasionally a bit flash, but an easy going guy without a big ego. Not what I'd call a bad timekeeper, but occasionally he starts songs at inappropriate tempi and has to speed up or slow down and occasionally his time drifts a little. And never quite as deep a pocket as Drummer A. I doubt he ever wanted to be pro, but if he did want to be I think he's got the ability but he would definitely need an injection of seriousness and to work on his time and feel.

 

Drummer C: just not as good as the first two. Less technique, sometimes quite a nice feel but poor time.

 

I've played with guys fitting all these descriptions. That's the way I perceive them. How do other people perceive them?

 

Drummer A is widely admired by pretty much everyone, although some other drummers criticise him on bases like "his fills are unimaginative" etc. Personally I'd call this not striving after pointless novelty, but hey, we all have our opinions.

 

Drummer B is also widely admired. At least 50% of other drummers think he's better than drummer A. They never seem to pick up on his time problems. Other (non-bass-playing) musicians who play with him never pick up on these problems. Even other bass players who've played with him have not, although I think that's because they have been guys who have not played with anybody better.

 

Frequently I get told "B is a great drummer, he has impeccable time and feel". This puts me in an embarrassing position because he plays drums in the same band as me, is a great guy and a friend but I KNOW IT'S NOT TRUE! I have a choice between agreeing (ie lying) or looking like a bad friend and disloyal bandmate. So I lie. I don't want a reputation as the only guy in town who doesn't think my friend is a great drummer. And in the greater scheme of things, a little time slippage isn't such a big deal.

 

Drummer C. Less interesting. His time sucked. Actually the whole band realised this, so it wasn't just me. What WAS interesting though is that even Drummer A - who probably has a better sense of time than anyone I've met - didn't pick up on this watching him from offstage. When I said "he has severe time problems", Drummer A was surprised. It seemed you had to be on stage playing with this guy to see the problem.

 

For me, Drummer A is clearly the best of these three drummers, although other factors mean that Dummer B is the guy I'd rather be in a band with. Drummer C just couldn't keep time. The interesting thing is that drummers listening from offstage tended to prefer drummer B to drummer A; that even other musicians on stage don't seem to pick up drummer Bs time problems; and drummers listening offstage didn't pick up on drummer C's severe time problems.

[bassaddik]

a good drummer can make you feel better and play better- no dubt- and a bad one can ruin your sense of time-

i have worked with drummers that rush a lot- few thigs are more uncomfortable- then there are those who drag-- ouch!! then there are the "russian-dragons" that do both!! pull AND push!!

to me what makes a drummer good is the feel and the groove- even if he cant play a single fill!!- of course , chops are nice, if they are muscial..

yes, seek adrummer that feels good- he will help you develop your groove- stay friends with the other drummer, by all means- but dont limit yourself to playing with him if you are struggling--

by the way, someone mentioned playing with a drum amchine being a bummer.. yes and no - that drum machine is gonna drill a great sense of time into you- i worked with drum machines and sequencers for years- i can tell you if you sped up by one bpm- i love it when " good" drummers say they hate clik tracks because they cant groove to them-- BULL!!! you gotta play time or forget it! every bass player needs a nice metronome- a lot of little boxes for bass fx come with simple drum machines-- take advantage of that- it is a great feeling to know you are anchored and if the drummer is drifting- you can pull him back- be a rock- somebody will notice, believe me- by that guy a small metronome and suggest you both work together on playing to the klik- and no more 16th note bass drum fills!! its so eighties!! arggghhhh!!!!

[jeremy c]

Bassbloke brought up some very good points about perception of drummers.

 

Personally, I don't think I know anything about a drummer until I play with him.

 

When we hear a drummer from the audience, a drummer can sound great, but unless you are actually playing with him, you can't tell how it feels...whether he pushes or pulls against you, just sits in the pocket, plays fills which complement you or clash with you, places the beat dead on, a little behind, or a little ahead.

 

I've listened to drummers who I thought sounded very complex and when I played with them it was a breeze, everything made sense. I've also heard drummers who sounded super solid and when I played with them it was a tug of war.

 

I still would like to play with some of my favorite all time drummers, Bernard Purdie, Harvey Mason, Ricky Lawson, Steve Ferrone, Omar Hakim, Jeff Porcaro (RIP),Manu Katche, Carlos Vega (RIP) and many others...but I would like to be able to decide who I will hire to go on tour with me after I play with them.

 

Yeah, dream on.

[TKE96]

One week later...

Our drummer learned something from our friend who stopped in! He picked up on some fo his patterns, and it is helping immensley. Although I don't have the same groove as I did with the friend who stopped in, I did see a big increase in my "regular" groove this week in practice!