When you learn technique out of a book, you’re not really taught how to make your part fit with something else. That’s something you can only experience when you’re playing with somebody. You have to learn how to react to each other.
You can tell in about eight bars if a soloist is going to work with you or if he’s just going to ride over the rhythm section and pay no attention to what’s going on back there. A lot of times my students get frustrated because they don’t feel like they’re fitting into the group. I’ll listen to a little bit of who they’re playing with and realize that they’re not getting an opportunity to contribute. They’re being blocked out, and when that happens, I tell them to just pull back because there’s no space being left.
If the soloist is filling every beat, the poor piano player or guitar player has to find space to get that harmonic information in there, and that doesn’t leave any room at all for the drummer to contribute. So just play the ride cymbal and wait for the next soloist. This is the kind of thing you learn when you study the whole band as opposed to just your instrument.”
- Joe La Barbara, 2002 Modern Drummer interview by Rick Mattingly
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