ORIGINAL: Ogis

Because drummers are the worst musicians in a band.

Okay, thats messed up. I am a drummer of 10 years (and I'm only 25)... I took lessons for 6 years, and like to think I'm not too bad.

Let me explain something to you. Drummers have a NATURAL feel for rhythm. When you put a metrodome (I know I spelled that wrong) to us, you throw us off. Simple as that. We have our own feel, within our head. As soon as we start to feel someting outside our own natural rhythm, we get thrown off. Its not a simple 4 count on a hi hat, its in us. If you have a drummer that cant keep time, you dont have a drummer. Simple as that. A true drummer sould be able to do, off beats, funk, fills, etc, with out any help. What throws us off the most (within a band), is a screw up on part of the bass. drums and bass are the backbone of rhythm in a song. Do not, I repeat do not say we have no talent. How about this, try doing paradoodles, whilch is tapping R = right, L = Left.. RLRRLRLL, LRLLRLRR.. And see how fast you can do it to time

All good musicians have a natural feel and an internal clock.
A metronome is " throwing you off" ???

Well, an other translation to that is, you can't, or don't like to, follow strict time.
It's totally up to you to deciede if you want to aquire that skill or not.

The "should be" is defined by your choices.
I know drummers that enjoy working with a click and they happen to be the best, funkiest drummers I've ever worked with.
However, the ones I'm talking about are 15 to 20 yrs. older than you.

Then again, when I was in hight school the drummer for my band then was also a drummer in the school orchestra and had come up from grade school orchestra and had took lessons from a somewhat famous
player at that time. ( mid '60s ) ..........
......he always practiced at home with a metronome. The teacher I'm talking about used a metronome in the lessons off and on and was very very strict about learning what strict time was all about.

It's something you work "with" ... and when you get strong and accurate enough, you can dance around it like a wild man dancing around a bon fire and never loose site of the core time ... the real clock.

Once you "get it" you get it and keep it, in my opinion.

That highscool drummer is still a friend of mine and was world class then as still is.
He doesn't play regularly, but he can still sit down at a kit and play any style with great accuracy and amazing variety of feeling.

It's about experience, and that's not necessarily meaning age.

ORIGINAL: Kangotwang

Most instruments can play with a click because when they're of just a little they can almost stop playing and let the beat catch up or vise versa. If a drummer does that, it all goes to pieces and if they are really feeling a groove the natural ting to do is rush the beat just like the other instruments. The bass player is the one who should be holding the time together due to his part being more natural for just rythmn. If we could all play together as one like we're suppose to, this question wouldn't be asked.

I disagree. That's the same approach a good drumer uses.
A less experienced drummer will "sound like" he's loosin' it ... well... because he's loosin' it!

ORIGINAL: jmarkham
...you can turn off the click after the count-in and they don't budge. ..

I mixed live sound for a number of local bands years ago. There are 2 excellent drummers I can remember that had perfect tempo. On songs that it fit, I would set a chase scene with the stage lighting to the tempo of the band. The lights and band would be in perfect sync at the end of the song! One of them even drank while gigging, yet even after several drinks he still had perfect tempo! Both of them learned drums with a metronome. And both of them could really groove.

Just one my many excellent drummer experiences...

<X>
guitarist/bassist

Just to throw in my 2 cents on some of the points raised, here are some of my personal observations.
Rick Wakeman used to record all his solo stuff without click tracks. He also said he felt sorry for all the drummers that had to try to sync to his rhythmic fluctuations.
Even some big name drummers have timing issues, even in the studio. Carl Palmer could rush with the best of them, and it wound up on albums, same with Phil Ehart of Kansas (all right, not so big a name, but he sold a lot of records).
My own experience from two different types of music I have been involved with showed that even if the drummers weren't perfect, tempo wise, the rest of the band adjusted in ways that made it less noticable. (In fact, in my experience bass players seemed most likely to drag, and drummers and keyboardists were more likely to rush. That's just in my experience, however, not a blanket statement) I was in a band that added a second drummer. We were never able to fully adjust to him (or vice-versa) before disbanding. His presence created many awkward rhythmic moments. My high school marching band used the same drum cadences that the college I attended used. So after three years of marching to these cadences in high school I had difficulty marching with the college drum line because I was used to making adjustments in my steps to timing changes that occured when the cadences switched. The more talented college drum line was more accurate in their tempos and I soom learned to quit adjusting my step.
Finally, Frank Zappa liked using live rhythm tracks from his own shows on studio material, to give a more energetic feel to the song. While these live drum tracks were not done to click tracks, Frank's bands were so heavily rehearsed that he was actually able to splice together not just songs from multiple performances and have them match, but individual runs or riffs that were pieced together note by note. They matched, tuning and tempo wise because they had been heavily (almost mercilessly) rehearsed.
All right, it was more like 50 cents rather than 2 cents, but I think that there is no set answer. Some tracks (like Jet's big hit, I can't remember it's name) have a real ragged, live feel that make the song jump. Some pieces, however, sound like crap when their rhythm section aren't synced to a click track. It depends on a variety of factors. Punk recorded to a click track is pretty dull, progressive music without a click sounds sloppy.

ORIGINAL: mildew

ORIGINAL: MKS



Drumming doesn't make YOU dumb. Your fingers are doing a good job by themselves.

Again, you must only play crappy music.

here is a song i recently produced - all instruments played by me, song written and sung by db grant.

http://rapidshare.de/files/34431131/4follower.mp3.html


m

You kind of proved my point. Not saying your music is that bad, but you can't judge a drummers skills from what you played on that track. You could play that with one hand & one leg.

Plus, your guitar solo is real pitchy. I wouldn't have picked that track to showcase your musical ability.

Also, regarding the statement that drummers are the worst musicians in the band is not always true. The band I was in in high school had 4 drummers in 4 years, but two were great. One of them played drums, keyboards and woodwinds (mostly sax). He is currently a professor of jazz at a school with a really good jazz program. He ran circles around the rest of us, musically.

All good musicians have a natural feel and an internal clock.
A metronome is " throwing you off" ???

......he always practiced at home with a metronome. The teacher I'm talking about used a metronome in the lessons off and on and was very very strict about learning what strict time was all about.

Steve- good posts..as usual ;)
talking about the metronome again..
MKS (who mentioned on page 2 the 1/8 click if 1/4 doesn't seem to work)..and everyone -
IMHO one of the harder/best things to practice for getting a "natural" feel (playing around time or exactly on time- first of all you got to have decent timing for the hits themselves) but still play in a constant tempo and constrain yourself to one or a small range of BPM changes is the opposite of "more click"/ more sub divisions like 1/8 or 1/16 -

practice in each session with less and less of beats that have a click on them..you'll need one of those nicer metronomes for that or a drum machine/sequencer..
so, starting with a 1/4 metronome and getting used to a certain tempo gradually try leaving just the 1 and 3.. beats 2 and 4..or any other combination (like 1..2.._.._)
until you just leave the FIRST beat of each measure! this would give you a nice gap of 2-3 or even 4 seconds if you practice on the slower grooves/bpm's !

the trick is of course to fall exactly on that single ONE of those next measures.. after some practice you can really do it..for some it won't be so comfortable..(and here we go back to the talent thing;)

even try longer periods (2 measures) of no metronome besides beat 1..it's a nice feeling to play on those large gaps and then falling exactly on a beat that you were expecting to appear then you know you really "feel" that tempo.. you're locked..metronome or not

ORIGINAL: pantherhawk27263

Also, regarding the statement that drummers are the worst musicians in the band is not always true. The band I was in in high school had 4 drummers in 4 years, but two were great. One of them played drums, keyboards and woodwinds (mostly sax). He is currently a professor of jazz at a school with a really good jazz program. He ran circles around the rest of us, musically.

that is so true. i had the honor of meeting a Bay Area transplant Louis Bellson. the guy is a musical
genius in every sense of the word. wonderful drummer, but also an excellent composer and arranger.
a complete musician. he's in his 80's now and doesn't perform anymore .. but he's what every
drummer should aspire to be (imho).

jeff

We want our drummers to play to a click track and our drum machines to quantize to a "human feel".... what's wrong with that picture?

ORIGINAL: mwd

We want our drummers to play to a click track and our drum machines to quantize to a "human feel".... what's wrong with that picture?

Apparently you're not paying attention. Clicks are a reference. You still play ahead of the beat, behind the beat, etc as needed.

Also, "Humanizing" has just as much to do with velocity as it does note location, among other things.

Your statement says to me that both are lacking somewhat and need to meet somehwere in the middle.

When I was talking about my last drummer, the band did indeed adjust to his fluctuations, and I actually locked in with him quite nicely. But it still wreaked havoc in the studio.