Getting a drummer to play in time

[Rex]

I'm fortunate that I've been playing with a fantastic, disciplined, knowledgeable drummer in several different projects over the years. He can swing, lock a tempo down and hold it, adjust the timing on the fly if needed (usually to follow a singer at times), play dynamically and even quietly while not losing groove/feel, play to a click track without any issues, push and pull around the 'one' for feel, or reign people in when they wander. He has a great feel, and never sounds rigid and mechanical, even when playing with a click.

As a general rule I defer to where he may pull me slower/faster if I start a song too fast/slow when playing live, but if I feel his tempo is either a bit laggy or rushed at rehearsal he'll listen and check it out. We did that several times over rehearsals with two different bands this week so it works out for everyone.

He has a metronome gizmo-thing attached to the kit and has the tempos recorded for the tunes we do and that's been perfect...absolutely the ticket for getting the proper feel.

A superb drummer who accepts input. Everyone should get to play with such a drummer at least once.

 

[Stratoblaster]

A superb drummer who accepts input. Everyone should get to play with such a drummer at least once.

I do indeed feel fortunate to have had such a long lasting association with a drummer so skilled and open-minded. IMO the drummer is the most singularly influential band guy on the overall band quality/effectiveness at a foundational level...then you need a similarly skilled bassist to complete the groove and sonic bed that everything sits over top of.

If you have an awesome drummer (and bassist) with guitarists/keyboardists/singers who are not as skilled the band will still be very good and rise above many others. It all starts with the rhythm and groove at the most basic of levels. The one element you have to get absolutely right IMO.

If you have a not so skilled drummer that just can't groove and hold it down, good tempo control, etc. you can have Ronnie James Dio, Randy Rhoads, Geddy Lee, and Jon Lord rounding out the band and it will never have 'that mojo'....

 

[Rex]

I do indeed feel fortunate to have had such a long lasting association with a drummer so skilled and open-minded. IMO the drummer is the most singularly influential band guy on the overall band quality/effectiveness at a foundational level...then you need a similarly skilled bassist to complete the groove and sonic bed that everything sits over top of.

If you have an awesome drummer (and bassist) with guitarists/keyboardists/singers who are not as skilled the band will still be very good and rise above many others. It all starts with the rhythm and groove at the most basic of levels. The one element you have to get absolutely right IMO.

If you have a not so skilled drummer that just can't groove and hold it down, good tempo control, etc. you can have Ronnie James Dio, Randy Rhoads, Geddy Lee, and Jon Lord rounding out the band and it will never have 'that mojo'....

Exactly this. A good drummer makes me sound better than I am. The drummer makes or breaks the band.

 

[Stratoblaster]

Exactly this. A good drummer makes me sound better than I am. The drummer makes or breaks the band.

But we don't ever, ever let on that this is the case to any drummer though lol....

 

[JoKeR III]

To me music is a living breathing thing. It should be able to ebb and flow. When the drummer's or anyone's attention gets fixed to a robotic click, his/hers attention goes off the actual music. Clicks are difficult to play with.

Clicks are only difficult to play with if you don't play or practice with them consistently. It eventually gets pushed into the background and becomes more of a guide or reference than a 'robotic' sound. Everyone in our band plays more confidently knowing each member is locked in together. No chance of someone's adrenaline kicking in and speeding things up.

Yes, there is a learning curve. But once a band gets used to playing with one it's much less distracting than a band trying to follow a fluctuating tempo or seeing someone in the band trying to reset or adjust the tempo using body movements or hand gestures.

 

[henryrobinett]

Clicks are only difficult to play with if you don't play or practice with them consistently. It eventually gets pushed into the background and becomes more of a guide or reference than a 'robotic' sound. Everyone in our band plays more confidently knowing each member is locked in together. No chance of someone's adrenaline kicking in and speeding things up.

Yes, there is a learning curve. But once a band gets used to playing with one it's much less distracting than a band trying to follow a fluctuating tempo or seeing someone in the band trying to reset or adjust the tempo using body movements or hand gestures.

Of course. Everything with practice. But it's also an aesthetic and style thing. If you plat creative music flowing is very important. There are some musics where tempo just is a reference point not a hard and fast rule. If the drummer has to continually check himself against the click that much of his attention is removed from the general flow. And yes there are great drummers who play great with clicks. All the drummers I play with are very used to playing with clicks. Well there's one guy. A great and famous drummer who CAN play with a clcik but he'll complain. It's not his bag. He'd rather just play. LOL. So when I record with him I don't use one. We just play and it's great.

 

[tealtonerick]

A bit of zen... Without time, we actually know absolutely nothing. With time, we know even less.

This is how tricky it can be until this is really understood.

 

[henryrobinett]

Haven't you ever heard some great live recordings? There was this great recording of a jazzy funk record with Steve Gadd. Live. Go to the beginning and the the end and it is very noticably faster. So what? The music and vibe is killer and completely appropriate to the music.

As great and convenient as drum machines are - I was an early adopter with Linndrum. But it's ruined drummers and their interaction with the band and the band with drummers. It's like auto-tune. Nobody sings like that but now we're used to hearing things being sung in robotic perfection. And guitar - editing, quantizing, adjust soundbites, slowing down and speeding up later. It's kind of terrible.

 

[la szum]

Sports is a good analogy, with one big exception: In sports you have a set # of games (and more to come if you finish those well enough.)
In music, the # of gigs and rehearsals isn't a set amount. When I was gigging, I wanted to get to the live shows as reasonably quickly as possible, since I'd much rather play to an audience, than in a garage. It's just so much fun, and starts to show a bit of (not much, but still) return for your time invested.
So I wanted rehearsals to be the time where we got the songs tight as a group, not the time in which individuals worked out their own parts. That's for home practice. And the drinking/smoking had to be kept to a minimum, because too much of either, and you're just delaying the time before you're ready to gig.
Now if gigs aren't the reason for your rehearsals, than by all means enjoy your time in the garage, as long as that "enjoyment" means essentially the same for everyone.

Totally agree.

My own perspective on all of this has changed so much over the past few years.
I have grown to realize that expectations of a man in his mid-50s playing in a band
probably should not be the same as expectations of a man in his mid-20s/30s playing
in a band.

I used to get SO uptight about every little thing at rehearsal. It made us tighter as a band,
but it also made us grow apart as human-beings.

Not sure where the fine-line is between getting stuff done and being chill. Some shit still
bugs the hell out of me, but I know in the grand scheme of things that most of us are
not playing as a big of a gig as we think we are, and most people coming to see anyone
play are more into their own mood and having fun with friends than analyzing the band's
performance.

With the limited number of days here on Earth my emphasis is more on being a cool hang
than being a "great" band.

 

[la szum]

I also get it that music can speed up or slow down and some of that-- done tastefully-- can add something special. But to say that playing to a click is somehow too machine-like-- misses the point that tempo can be stable, but with swing, feel, phrasing, dynamics, accents and other qualities, it will not feel like a robot.

John Bonham and Keith Moon both phoned in from the otherside and told me you are full of crap!!!

 

[la szum]

Tempo modulation has always been part of interpretation and musical notation. But, as @DJD100 has stated, it is mandatory for any serious musician to learn to play a tempo, and change it only when required and with grace

A piacere	Tempo is at the pleasure or discretion of the performer. The same as ad libitum. Similar to rubato except rubato is the discretion of the conductor.
Accelerando (accel.)	Quickening; a gradual speeding up of the tempo
Ad libitum	Tempo is at the discretion of the performer. The same as a piacere. Similar to rubato except rubato is the discretion of the conductor.
Alla breve	Duple time with a half note as the unit; same as Cut time
Allargando (allarg.)	Broadening; sometimes interpreted as a combination of ritardando and crescendo
ancora	Still more; used generally with tempo indications, as ancora meno mosso (still more slowly)
A témpo	In tempo; reestablishes original speed after accelerando or ritardando
Cédez	French for poco ritardando; a slight holding back
Come Prima	As at first
Come Sopra	As above; much the same as come prima
Doppio movimento	Twice as fast; usually used in conjunction with Common time changing to Cut time
L'istesso tempo Lo stesso tempo	The same tempo, indicating that the beat remains constant when the meter changes as 2/4 to 6/8
Meno mosso Più lento	Less motion; slower. May be qualified by poco (a little less)
Più allegro Più animato Più mosso	faster
pressez	French term for "quicken"; same meaning as accelerando
Rallentando (rall.)	Same as ritardando; a gradual slowing-down of the tempo
Ritardando (ritard.)	Slowing down; a gradual holding-back of the tempo
Ritenuto (riten.)	Frequently confused with ritardando; means a sudden slowing-down, in contrast to the gradual holding-back of rallentando
Rubato	Litterally, to "rob" or steal the time values by holding-back or speeding up at will to color a phrase
stringendo (string.)	Pressing forward; sometimes erroneously interpreted as a combination of accelerando and crescendo
tempo giusto	In strict tempo (non-rubato)
tempo primo (tempo I°)	Original tempo
trattenuto (tratt.)	Holding back (same as rallentando) with the addition of a sustained quality (sostenuto)

This! This! This! This!

Imagine your heartbeat beating to a click.

Unnatural and mechanical is unnatural and mechanical. People can be apologists for
all sorts of things and talk themselves silly into nonsense trying to sway other people's
perspectives on the matter, but one thing is not the other. And that's ok. Just don't say
one thing is like the other. It is not.

 

[la szum]

Haven't you ever heard some great live recordings? There was this great recording of a jazzy funk record with Steve Gadd. Live. Go to the beginning and the the end and it is very noticably faster. So what? The music and vibe is killer and completely appropriate to the music.

As great and convenient as drum machines are - I was an early adopter with Linndrum. But it's ruined drummers and their interaction with the band and the band with drummers. It's like auto-tune. Nobody sings like that but now we're used to hearing things being sung in robotic perfection. And guitar - editing, quantizing, adjust soundbites, slowing down and speeding up later. It's kind of terrible.

Preach brother!!! Preach!!

One of the things I am realizing as I grow older and gain some things in experience over time
is that we are predetermnined to hyper-rationalize the relevance of the latest tech and then
chronically assume it is superior. What is not so readily understood, in the same way, is that
tech/advancements giveth and they taketh away.

For instance, the fact that people WANT to use backing tracks and samples, and that this then
forces the band to play to a "click" in their IEMs is then rationalized as a net "win" when it is more
like a requirement to stay in time and sync to the samples/tracks. We force ourselves into the
box to accomodate the pre-recorded track and then say it is better. I don't think it is. Not always anyways.

 

[Musikron]

I use a click as a count in when recording just so the overall tempo does not get away from us as the day progresses. After that first bar though, it's all on us. I prefer a little humanity in my music, so no click, I don't edit shit on the guitars or drums, what we play is what we capture. I do however comp vocals regularly. I'd rather attitude and vibe be there than some flawless robotic performance. On a song like this one, I play guitar in front of the beat to give an urgent feel for part of the riff, then lock into the groove for the back half. This song would sound dead and stale played to a click.

 

[henryrobinett]

Preach brother!!! Preach!!

One of the things I am realizing as I grow older and gain some things in experience over time
is that we are predetermnined to hyper-rationalize the relevance of the latest tech and then
chronically assume it is superior. What is not so readily understood, in the same way, is that
tech/advancements giveth and they taketh away.

For instance, the fact that people WANT to use backing tracks and samples, and that this then
forces the band to play to a "click" in their IEMs is then rationalized as a net "win" when it is more
like a requirement to stay in time and sync to the samples/tracks. We force ourselves into the
box to accomodate the pre-recorded track and then say it is better. I don't think it is. Not always anyways.

Yeah. I don't think it's necessarily better either. I created a whole set of music with Ableton Live to be played in conjunction with the band. Sometihng were really nice. Huge arrangements we couldn't play otherwise. Drummer obviously had to play with a click while the rest of us just played. But the drummer, a very well known bay area studio and live drmmer jjust wanted to play. "Come on man, we can do it without this shit." LOL. He was right and the vibe was better when we played with less crap and more vibe.

 

[Rumbletone]

I didn't read the six pages of comments, but here are my thoughts (having been through this many times ...):

1. tempo is the responsibility of the entire ensemble, not just the drummer. If the group is slowing down or speeding up, you're all doing it. One member - even the drummer - keeping time is not useful if everyone else is not. I raise this in part because I've seen scenarios where the drummer gets blamed for the fluctuation, but the reality is that the drummer is the only one conscious of the issue and the only one trying to fix it, but no one is following.

2. ... but recognizing that unwanted tempo fluctuations often start with one member and often it's the drummer: if the drummer speeds up or slows down the other musicians have a decision to either follow or not. So one recommendation is that when the drummer starts to change tempo, the rest of you don't - and if you have decent monitoring, the drummer should be able to hear that they're pushing/dragging in relation to the rest of you and adjust accordingly. And if they don't, or if it gets so far off that you're about to go off the rails, the musical director/bandleader stops the group, explains why and what needs to change (e.g., "drums were speeding up once we hit the beginning of the chorus, and the rest of you started to follow, here's a reminder of the tempo, let's try again from the last half of the verse ..."). When I'm in the MD role I might stop playing myself and clap loudly or otherwise clearly and loudly communicate the tempo for everyone to follow in that next run-through, especially if/when they start to fluctuate - so they know exactly where the issue starts, and exactly what tempo they should be maintaining.

3. at some point it becomes an issue of basic musicianship - if after all the reasonable attempts to fix the issue are exhausted, sometimes the answer is that a particular musician is not up for the task at hand, and needs to be replaced with someone who is.

 

[henryrobinett]

Absolutely tempo is not only the job of the drummer. If for example the guitar player starts dragging it can pull the drummer back or the bass player or the piano pplayer. Every member is 100% responsible for the time. I say 100%, not fractions of the whole! LOL.

 

[JoKeR III]

Absolutely tempo is not only the job of the drummer. If for example the guitar player starts dragging it can pull the drummer back or the bass player or the piano pplayer. Every member is 100% responsible for the time. I say 100%, not fractions of the whole! LOL.

This is exactly what a click track helps with; keeping everyone locked in together. No chance of anyone drifting from the predetermined feel.

I'm not disagreeing that some songs/music tends to want or need to drift from a static tempo nor am I saying that everyone should adopt using a click track. The point I disagree with is that music cannot be alive or breathe if 'chained' to a specific tempo. Tempo is a useful tool to create emotion or energy in a song but it's not the only one.

There is a lot more to making a song emote than how fast or slow it's played. Dynamics and energy can be created at any static tempo. Using half-time sections of a song or laying back behind the beat can create the sense of it slowing down or dragging, a dynamic tom build from a quiet bridge can make it feel like it's speeding up. Musicianship is critical when using a click if you want to take the audience on an emotional journey through a song.

 

[henryrobinett]

OK. We just kind of disagree there. I've been playing and producing music for a very long time. There are some things where the recording takes place insiide a pre arranged sequence. Yeah, that's important. But otherwise I see little reson to lock musicians into a click. OK everyone I play with has great time. But really there's no need other than a sequence or the musicians just can't hold tempo. In that case I'd prescribe working with a metronome during personal practice time.

Time is INTERNAL, not external. You gotta feel that time in your bones or whereever you feel it. And in a band everyone feels that same time. That pulse. I just think it's kind of weird to give that command over to an external robot. LOL.

 

[Rex]

OK everyone I play with has great time.

Aye, there's the rub. Not every band is so blessed.

Time is INTERNAL, not external. You gotta feel that time in your bones or whereever you feel it.

Same rub.

 

[henryrobinett]

Aye, there's the rub. Not every band is so blessed.


Same rub.

Well yeah, OK! But that's what practicing is all about. Developing that internal time. Playing with musicians helps that. Working with a metronome at home. Strumming and turning the metronome off, then on again to check. Almost nothing happens naturally. Music is not a physical universe thing, meaning it's not just out there in space like rocks. We imagine it and put it there. It's OUR internal time as musicians. That's kind of why we're musicians. Just a philosophical rant. Apologies.