Conductor of form

The general topic here is jazz comping— some general concepts thereof, getting into what I think is missing from a lot of students' playing, even as they do the basic thing pretty well. The following are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories of playing— they're more ways to listen, ways to think about the functions of what we're playing.  

Our first job with that is just to learn some left hand activity, as running commentary on the snare drum, which we get from practicing out of Chapin or Reed, or by downloading a bunch of junk off my site. Guided by a general need to be doing something, hopefully not in a stupid way, hopefully sounding like they're listening to the soloist. 

There is also an element of groove support— backbeats, the rim click on 4, a bongo rhythm, and riffs— repeated rhythm figures, which people learn early. 

As players mature, they get better about being selective about how they make their bigger statments, thinking more in terms of punctuations, interjections, filling spaces left by the soloist. They'll differentiate their dynamics between that vs. running background texture. 

Through the development of all of this, the mindset is vaguely about “playing better”, playing cool things well, hopefully being a good ensemble player. Apart from the groove stuff, the real purpose of it isn't real clear— beyond just playing the style, or of conversation or self expression. Building intensity. We get closer to it as we get better at playing phrases, at playing off of the tune. But it all happens by vibe. 

The unstated thing is that there is a presentational or guiding function happening as well— introducing changes, conducting the form, guiding the group through dynamic changes— it's the big center of our musical job as drummers. Acting as an arranger, and stater of the arrangement. It usually only gets discussed indirectly under some other categories of things, and not in the sense of what are we actually doing here, what is this total performance about.   

Maybe you can hear Philly Joe Jones conducting us through the form here: 

This is all over the album Milestones— the arrangement is involved, and very show-like, presentational. Everybody's thinking that way. But he's pretty assertive with the snare drum as running commentary as well, that's not all purely functional re: the form.  

We could stereotype Elvin Jones as generally a texture drummer— I pulled this up with the idea of it being an example of primarily textural playing— but you can hear him doing the exact thing I'm talking about, conducting us through this blues form:  

 

Listen for it here, in Al Foster playing very busily with Joe Henderson. To me virtually everything he does here has a function within the form. There is a lot of pure texture happening, some elements of it just driving the groove. The big things you hear him doing are all about blues, the movement of that form: 

Early on, form is just a thing we're trying not to get lost in. Later it becomes the arena for you to do your thing— at which phase you're more attracted to blank forms, blowing-friendly forms, or to very friendly and distinctive ones— and hostile to the obligations of playing an arrangement. The thing we're talking about here is becoming a presenter, and the form is the thing you are pleased to present.  

When you start thinking this way, your job playing unfamiliar material becomes clearer— you'll know the problem you're trying to solve. The mundane details are not just pains in the a** interrupting your flow, they're the whole thing you're doing. 

I can see someone taking this idea and going way too far with it. People like turning suggestions into doctrine. It's one angle to consider in your playing, and to guide your listening, that I haven't seen widely stated elsewhere. 

Expanding a concept - 01

This is connected with all the fill related jive we've been dealing with lately. I share it with you to illustrate a thought process, not a particular set of licks. These are some things I did live while practicing recently, without writing anything down, using the following humble page from my own book, Syncopation in 3/4: 

You look at that see a lot of dumb rhythms in 3/4 time; I see an unending fairyland of playing possibilities for the drumset. You may put that in different terms. 

I happened to be playing along with a loop sampled from Herbie Hancock's Cantaloupe Island, which is in 4/4 time, with a straight 8th note groove. I was playing 16th note rate stuff against it, so I needed to double time those rhythms— line one for example:  

Becomes: 

Played in a 4/4 environment that would be:  

For practice purposes, and concept purposes, we're interpreting that time signature as a description of the length of the rhythm pattern, not as a demand that we play in 3/4 time. 

The rhythm suggests a number of possibilities on the drum set just as a fill/solo idea— starting with RH on cymbal, with bass drum, on the 1; remainder of the rhythm played with the LH on the snare drum, with some help from the RH, as the embellishments get more involved. 

Of course we're going to move that around the drums, try some different stickings, accents and embellishments. Generally try to make music out of it. 

Some possibilities for line 2:

And line 4:  

You'll notice: 

- We often add bass drum at the end of the pattern, or between the quarter notes of the original rhythm.
- You can interpret the rhythms as a general pattern outline of fast and slow notes— you can substitute faster rhythms for the 8th notes in the original rhythm.
- You can embellish freely, double or buzz some notes, add flams, add ruffs.  

One facet of a larger topic of drumistic thinking. Drummeristic. Whatever. Drumming is a process, not just playing some notes somebody wrote down. More of this coming. This post may see a major revision when I can think about it while some guys are not reroofing my house. It sounds like Gene Krupa uncrating some wildebeest with a sledgehammer on d-day around here. 

Very occasional quote of the day: go ahead

“Don't be afraid. Go ahead and play.”

- Charlie Parker, quoted by Miles Davis, interview by George Avakian

Reading a lead sheet

Some notes on a chart I had to play yesterday, on a festival gig with a pianist I've worked with quite a bit, Jasnam Daya Singh. He's Brazilian, and quite a heavy composer. For a one hour concert, he sent me 36 pages of music for I think 9 tunes.  

He was actually being nice, selecting tunes that we could learn with one rehearsal. It's not as bad as it sounds— they're basically normal combo arrangements... with, frequently, composed intros, outros, A1s/B1s, C sections, interludes, a different solo form, recurring vamps. That can add up to some pages. Fortunately we never had to flip from page 9 to page 1, all of the multipage pieces didn't have any backtracking with the roadmap.   

This was one of the friendlier ones. I was reading piano parts, and I've marked this one up up with some of the things I look for, and think about, and want to know when I'm playing something. I marked some of this on my chart in pencil, some of it I just see. 

STYLE: It says bossa at the top, but it's a loose, modern instrumental bossa. You can't just play a repeating Girl From Ipanema beat all the way through. 

METER/TEMPO: Typically Brazilians write sambas and bossas in 2/4 time, which he has done here, with 16th notes as the main subdivision, the cymbal rhythm. Tempo is 58. An American writing the same arrangement in 4/4, with 8th notes as the main subdivision, with a tempo of 116— that's how we're used to thinking of it. I think we played it quite a bit faster than this.   

FORM/ROADMAP: The tune itself is an AB form, 26 bars long— 14+12. That's the melody of the tune, and the solo form. There is also a 10 bar intro, which occurs again at the end as an outro, preceded by a 12 bar coda phrase.

As I've indicated, the intro is played twice, then the main form is repeated a number of times for the head and solos. The chart says DS al coda, but there is no sign marked— he wanted da capo instead. The coda begins at the top of page 2. There is no coda sign indicated on page 1, but at the bottom of the page it says segue to coda on head out, meaning we play through all of page 1 and go directly to page 2.

MEASURE NUMBERS: I've marked in measure numbers every four and eight measures, up to the phrase ending where there are extra measures— some phrases 6 and 10 measures long. I also marked the total number of measures at the beginning of each section— 10, 8+6, 8+4, etc— so I know what I'm in for. 

These ended up being a little misleading, because his phrases don't break down that neatly. On the soloing I'd be listening and playing basically 24+2 bars— the last two measures of the B section were distinctive, and made it easy to set up the top of the form. 

PHRASES: He writes a lot of extended phrases, four or eight bars with an extra measure or two at the end. Sometimes just an extra half measure, or one extra beat. Occasionally he'll do shortened phrases, three measures or seven measures long. 

CHORDS: I look out for home base chords— like the CMaj7 that happens at the beginning of the A section and the intro/outro. I'll also look out for changes in the harmonic rhythm— the number of chord changes per measure— though that wasn't real helpful here. It's helpful to note where there is more than one chord per measure, or where a chord is played for more than one measure. 

In rehearsal I'm also listening for chords that jump out to my ear— like in the rehearsal I noticed the B7(sus 4) in bar 6 of the B section. Those are helpful for staying oriented while not keeping my eyes glued to the page. I played it only once in rehearsal and once on the gig, and didn't get a great feel for that yet. 

THE MELODY: On this tune I could state much of the melody rhythm pretty closely on the drums. I'm also looking for spaces in the melody where it might be appropriate to fill, and set something up— syncopated rhythms after a rest, usually. Above I marked in accents in some spots I would want to catch on the drums— syncopated tied notes. I just see those, I don't mark them on my part unless they're big and unexpected. 

Also see my chart reading pyramid post, and my weird tunes post for more on this type of thing. 

On weird gigs

Having just played a weird gig, let's talk about weird gigs. The kind gig where everything seems basically in place, but for whatever reason, nothing is happening. There's nothing grossly wrong, but nothing feels right musically, and you don't feel like you're playing your best, to the point that you're doubting your abilities. You don't feel you have any ideas of what to play, or the time doesn't feel great, or you're not communicating well with the other players, or your hands aren't working well. You're not comfortable. 

Whatever the problem, contributing factors could be the sound, the material, another rhythm section player having a weird night. We blame ourselves, but we're not always completely to blame— maybe we're not handling these normal problems very well... both emotionally, and in our actual playing. We should be working on that, but everybody has limits to when they're going to feel good and play well (or feel that they're playing well).   

First, if you're basically covering the gig, what you're doing is probably fine. If you didn't know what you were trying to do, you'd think you sounded fine. Nobody hears the notes you wanted to play but didn't, as the pianist Jasnam Daya Singh told me. I've felt badly about a gig only to have listeners come up to me afterwards, excited about the music. This happened last night. I don't play to get compliments, but you have to respect it when the audience enjoys what you did.  

The answer is always to play more— more sessions, more gigs. It helps you to play better, and also to understand and accept that you won't be a genius every minute of your professional life. And that things are probably working better than you think they are. And it helps you recognize when some aspect of the gig is not working well for you. And you get better at dealing with those things, and correcting them, when possible.  

Recording more helps. You'll play plenty of sessions where you hate the way you play, but listening to yourself later, after you've forgotten what you were trying to do, you sounded fine. Or good, or great. So you proceed more on faith, when necessary. 

Listening more is good. You have to have something in your ears— melodies, forms, musical energy, percussion sounds and ideas that are inspiring to you. Probably it should be in some way connected to the gig stylistically.

Practicing is good, but practicing hard right before a gig can be a detriment. If you're doing something that puts you in a certain muscular zone, that may not be a useful physical state to be in on that gig. Often if you just walk in without having played, things move easily. Watch out for things that seem to help you play better, on a particular kind of gig, and practice that. What gets you ready for a rock or funk gig may put you in a funny place for a jazz gig. 

Remember what you tried to play that wasn't working on the weird gig, and practice that specifically. Something you thought of to play, but couldn't, is the most important thing to work on— if something comes to you as a musical impulse while playing, you want to be able to fulfill it.  

I write this in the form of advice, as if I have it completely worked it out, but this is really for myself. It's one thing to know it, it's another to be completely accepting and understanding of it. I've talked to people— like 70 years old, ultimate professionals— dealing with it in some capacity, in one circumstance or another. You'd be surprised. Some people are better at detachment than others, or are more naturally confident. Some are just simple people who don't worry about anything. A lot of people will be feeling that way, but will put up a front. It's better to do that, for the sake of their confidence in you— remembering that you probably sounded fine.     

The best thing you can do, possibly, when this is happening, is scale back your ambitions. Maybe you don't have a lot of percussion to offer to the music tonight, but you can do the job. There are lots of great records out there like that, that are not loaded with big percussion statements. Play what you can, relax, probably some openings will present themselves and you can surprise people by being a genius then.   

Very occasional quote of the day: play what you hear

“Play what you hear, and if you can't play it, then practice it.”

- Barry Altschul, Modern Drummer interview by Rick Mattingly, November, 1982


Periodic reminder that, creatively, the fundamental equation is real simple. Of course, if you don't hear anything, you have to get some stuff in your ear by listening to records and seeing people play. 

How to stop - 01

Kind of a mundane item here— a multi-parter, believe it or not— mainly for teachers, about handling ordinary materials in a more real-life musical way, including how to stop in the conversation. Younger students and novices who haven't done much real playing will often end a practice pattern weakly, petering out.   

How to do it isn't spelled out in drumming materials, which are often written as repeating single measure patterns. They're incomplete statements by themselves— the last note of the measure is usually not the true end of the idea. 

Ending this rock beat this way, for example, makes no musical sense: 

Breaking from a groove with that hanging hihat note is not going to happen in real music— except maybe as an arrangement device simulating a digital edit. The pattern is completed on the 1— the 1 is the beginning of the pattern, and also the end:  

A beat pattern with a bass drum or snare drum on the & of 4 is more complete on its last note— played as an accent the last time: 

You could practice breaking a number of places in the pattern, in fact: 

Or put on another ending altogether, regardless of what's happening in the written beat: 

Usually this gets worked out in the course of doing some real playing, but there's no reason not to include it in regular practicing in preparation for that. I introduce this after students are comfortable playing basic beats, and are ready to begin thinking about orchestration and fills. 

What it is: reading music

The world is teeming with resources.

I was just involved in an extended, very contentious online discussion on the topic of reading music— Is it good to be able to read? Is it better to learn, or to refuse to learn? Is refusing to learn to read good musicianship too? Why not? Questions of controversy. 

The problem: people who can't read music don't know what reading music is, how and why it is done, or what it's for, and form their own wrong ideas about those things, and then tell other people about it as if they know something.  

A second order problem is that the same people often do not understand the nature of playing— on the drum set— which is to create a drumming accompaniment as you play it, with no preparation, on a piece of music you don't know, and have never heard before. That's the essence of playing, and reading is an extension of that natural thing. The chart is a guide for that— of varying specificity, depending on the situation, arranger, and employer.

Doing that kind of reading gives you clarity on what your job is as a drummer: playing time, figures, setups, fills, breaks, and percussion parts/effects (I'll clarify that last distinction, drums vs. percussion another time), supporting phrases and form, following a roadmap.    

Many drummers never have to do that kind of reading, and never do that kind of playing. They either play mostly familiar styles, forms and songs (or tunes), or their entire experience playing the drums is to learn “parts” from a recording, which they memorize and perform verbatim. When playing original music, they'll work up their own parts in rehearsal, which they then perform verbatim. What good is learning to read for them? 

It's communication
In terms of learning and practicing the drums, notation is a very fast, and clear, and permanent form of communication to you, from people trying to help you pay better. It makes it easier for you to take in new drumming information, and for you to give information to others. And to form your own drumming ideas. It's more permanent than a live demonstration, and faster than watching a video, or watching someone demonstrate it. It's not reliant on any individual's memory, perception, or perceptiveness.

It's musical structure
Learning how to read notation requires understanding a whole lot of musical fundamentals— the entire system is nothing but symbols for things it's important to know. What is a time signature, measure, beat, what are the rhythm values relative to each other? What are dynamics, tempo markings and alterations, articulations? What is a repeat, first and second ending, DS, DC, coda? 

What are the note names, what are sharps and flats, what is a key signature, and therefore a key? What do the chord symbols mean, and what is the structure of the chords to which they refer? What is harmonic rhythm?
 

What can't be notated
Thinking about areas of music that can't be notated, we can get an idea of how non-reading people have to do things. Swing for example. “Feel.” Whatever else. These are mysterious things, subjects of endless subjective debate— they're largely left up to the individual players, and their communities, to figure out. If somebody is not insightful in the right way, or is not exposed to the right stuff, and the right people, they're likely to figure it out wrong.  

Non-readers are like that about everything— what's a beat, what's a 16th note, what's a time signature. It's all mysterious, debatable, guessed at, figured out by vibe. 

How to start
There are different levels of it— knowing enough so you can use drum books in the practice room vs. knowing how to read professional drum charts, vs. how far you want to go beyond that so you can play another instrument and/or compose.  

Where it all begins is in learning to play basic stuff on a snare drum— playing through a beginning-level snare drum book. Most drummers would benefit by simply playing through the snare drum portion of book 1 of Rubank, and a basic drumset book. Funky Primer. Becoming expert at it is a long process, but the basics can be learned in a few lessons. Interpretive reading as is done with the book Syncopation can be done at virtually all levels of learning. Any and all reading situations are good— playing in school or community band or orchestra is extremely helpful, even if much of the time you are counting rests. 

Categories of what we're doing

Following is a very half-baked item that has been in my drafts for a long time. It's a broad-ranging subject, and not the kind of thing you can just bang out, and have it be fully thought through. Somebody could write a thesis on this. But my banged-out thoughts are worthwhile, so here we go: 

Ever think about what we're actually doing here with this drum stuff— what job are we doing, what's the purpose of the things we during a piece of music? 

Most of the time we don't— we just do what is done, and play the music the way people play it. It's mostly non-verbal, and we pick it up through a lot of playing and listening and watching. It'd be nice to know what things are, so we know what choices are available to us, and know what we're hearing. 

This is a list of some aspects of drumming, that is certainly incomplete. They're not hard and fast, and not necessarily mutually exclusive. They may happen at different times in a piece in a piece of music, or at the same time, or not at all.

Timekeeping

Simple time
A straight beat or pulse, maybe emphasizing the down beat or strong beats. Few or no variations or fills, starts and stops only.

Examples: Motown, traditional Country, Native American


Genre time feel
A time feel with a flavor specific to the style of music— a repeating “stock” beat. 

Examples: Connie Kay, Getz/Gilberto, most music generally 


Composed time patterns
Playing made-up non-generic drum grooves.

Examples: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Cissy Strut


Extemporaneous time feel
Any of the above, with significant variation and improvisation. 

Examples: “ECM” feel, modern jazz generally

Very occasional quote of the day: too loud

Another choice item from a 1981 column in Modern Drummer, in which Scott K. Fish talks to a lot of great bass players, about drummers:  

“Faults I hear in drummers? Mainly that they play too loud. They're too insensitive. A drummer can lead whatever band he's in. He can force himself to be the leader, just by the nature of the instrument. He can play the loudest, he can cover everybody up and he can make everybody go in the direction that he wants to make the music go. But, he should be sensitive enough to realize that if he's not the leader of the band, then he is just another member of the band. That everybody else's role in the band is just as important as his is. 

Drummers have said to me 'I can't hear you. I can't hear what you're doing.' And a lot of times I do that on purpose because I want them to stop and listen. I'm saying musically what I could be verbally saying: 'I can't hear the piano player or the horn player because you're playing so loud. You can't hear me because you're playing too loud, not because I'm playing too soft.'

I think that the greatest drummers had the ability to really burn with intensity while still playing soft. I don't say that a drummer shouldn't play loud. I remember listening to Elvin Jones with John Coltrane! To an extent it's volume but it's also space. A lot of drummers are just so busy that they don't leave spaces for other instruments.” 

 
- Carol Kaye

Limitations of loops

There's a good post about playing along with recordings, that everyone should read, over at Ted Warren's Trap'd blog.

Since he commented about playing with loops vs. whole tunes— and I do a lot with loops— I should clarify some things.  

2. Try to play with whole tunes rather than loops.

I've mentioned this before, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes around this, but I feel playing with loops never gives us the whole story. By loops I mean just taking a small section of an already existing tune and have it playing endlessly. When we do this we miss out on a lot of form. Not only the structure of the tune (AABA, 12 Bar Blues etc.) but the form of the whole performance. How do we differentiate between sections of the song like in head to solos, different solos, and last solo to out head? Does the tempo of the tune change from beginning to end? What about the relative volume of the drums at differing sections of the tune? These are important issues!

He's absolutely right. In jazz form is not dispensable, it is the whole thing. A jazz environment is not complete without considering form. All of my jazz loops will include at least one complete time through the form— except when there's a special purpose involved, like learning a figure, or learning to hear the connection from the last A section to the first A section on Stablemates. 

Once or twice through the form looping is still not the complete picture of performing a jazz tune, but I think we're talking about different practice goals here. Most of what I use the loops for is to take regular focused drumming practice— like, stuff from books— in a more musical direction. So we can hear these book ideas in a context, and try to match them to a musical vibe, and play them in a way that makes sense within a musical phrase, with some continuity. To an extent it's about concentrated exposure to a single figure or vamp, or a single solo. 

Ted's concerns above are bigger picture items re: playing a complete performance of a tune. For me it's hard to do the kind of practice above with complete tracks— the temptation is to just play.  

But it's true, no one should have any illusions that playing with a recording is a replacement for playing with people. They're really entirely different things. The track doesn't listen to you and fall apart when you play something so dumb you caused a train wreck. Or get mad at you and never call you again because you played selfishly. You don't learn anything about support playing with a track. So you have to be very cautious about the lessons you take from playalong practice to playing with people. 

Also see my previous post on this topic, that I wrote in hectoring screed form. 

Very occasional quote of the day: listening

“Listening is the whole thing. I'll tell you exactly how I play. My whole approach to playing is reaction. I don't listen to myself play. I'm not aware of myself because I'm too busy listening to everything going on around me. All my body is doing is reacting to that. Sometimes I'm forcing things, making things happen another way, but I'm reacting to everything I hear. The composition I'm creating as I play is because of what I'm hearing. How can you work out how you're going to accompany somebody? You can't! You're supposed to be complementing and accompanying.

Everything depends on your ears. If I'm busy listening to me, then I'm not hearing the rest of the band.”

- Mel Lewis, 1978 Modern Drummer interview by Scott K. Fish

Very occasional quote of the day: space to contribute

“The way guys like Bud Powell shaped their solos, they automatically left spaces for the drummers to contribute. A lot of times today, in student performers, I don’t hear that space being offered, because they’re not really aware of what’s going on. 

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

Some short tempered performance notes

Following are some comments I wrote after hearing some younger drummers— in a jazz setting, players far enough along with their playing to let their ambitions get the better of them, musically. I got a little impatient with what I heard. I think these are good things even for non-offenders to think about: 

The first job is to keep great time. All the extra stuff is meaningless and annoying if the time feel is mediocre. 

Groove is not an exotic idea to bust out for show on the one funky tune of the night, time has got to be Funkadelic solid on everything, all night. Even when floating stuff with a loose execution, there's a way to do it that respects groove, and a way that kills it. 

Youtube is really messing up people's cymbal technique. I saw a lot of screwing around with finger technique. Better: take the stick, hit the cymbal: DING DING GA DING. 

Stop thinking about things to play on the drums.  

LISTEN, and stop thinking about the drums. Don't think about anything, listen.

Jumping from cymbal to cymbal is like a lighting guy changing the scenery every three seconds. BLUE PURPLE RED PSYCHEDELIC. It's not good. 

A lot of players seem to be interjection oriented, rather than texture oriented. I say that because I'm getting annoyed by all the interjections.

No canned anything ever. Worked out beats sound worked out and usually don't fit, and the other players may not be willing/able to help you make them fit. Usually you have to adjust your personal stuff to work with what they're doing.    

Support the other musicians, don't force them to support you. Not all the time. 

The audience will make some noise when people play loud and bad. They are wrong, they don't know what they're hearing.  

Why can't I tell who anyone is listening to?

A good musician on another instrument, taking up the drums, needs to learn what the drums are about. What's their function— think foundation. They're not just another arena to wail in, except easier; they're not my-regular-instrument-for-idiots. A player like that should have better time than the other bad drummers. 

HI-HAT LIGHTNING ROUND:

The twitchy leg really doesn't add anything. It doesn't make up for not stating good time with the rest of the drum set. People who do this get burned when they have to hold a tempo their leg doesn't like twitching in. 

It's a loud instrument. That worked-out rudimental groove is blowing away the bass and piano.  

NEVER play it on 1 and 3. This is not an invitation to play it on 1 and 3. It's purely wrong and bad, there isn't a drummer good enough to make it be not-bad. Never for more than a few measures. 

There you go. The good news about all of that is, this job is easier than people make it. Most of these complaints can be fixed instantly by people using their freedom to do less.  

Comments on some younger drummers

Since COVID especially I haven't been playing as much as I should be, so I've been getting my lazy butt out to some jam sessions to try to stir up some work. Playing really is a different thing from preoccupation with drum crap, and not doing it enough I start feeling debased as a writer— literally having no basis for writing. Drum nerdery with no basis in music is meaningless.   

At the sessions— these are jazz jam sessions— I get to hear some younger drummers who are just working their stuff out, and I want to share some general comments on what I'm hearing. These are pretty serious drummers in their 20s, who can basically play, who know the tunes, and are able to play correct stuff stylistically.

They do tend to get stuck with other young players, or part time players, often playing dumb tunes, which doesn't make it easy to play your best. It's easy to play with expert players, it's a lot harder with people who are just figuring stuff out too. 

So: 

•  A lot of people could focus more on the ride cymbal— with having that be the lead voice, and on getting a good sound and groove with just that. 

•  Many could balance within the parts better generally— the snare drum and bass drum will be competing for attention with the cymbal. You can make accents with the drums, but the general texture should be led by the cymbal. 

•  The busier players are often a little raggedy— things are not completely lined up. Which is not the kind of advice I want to give, that you have to polish everything. That's the contemporary disease, in fact, being afraid to play anything that's not perfectly worked out. General fearfulness. But that will be a long term project for those drummers, getting things a little more polished. I think the effect would be minimized by playing less and listening more, which is good advice anyway. 

•  People sounding distanced from the tunes and from the other musicians. It sounds like people are thinking of what to play, thinking about the drums too much. There's sometimes a sense that people are playing things because they think they're supposed to play it. Back off and listen and wait for a musical impulse to play something based on what you're hearing. Or play the structure. Mainly listen. 

•  Heel up technique on the bass drum seems to be messing with some people a bit. It seems uncentered. There's a lot of extra physical activity going into each stroke, so accuracy is often not real good. There's a little bit of a dance to playing that way, and if the tempo doesn't support that, or the dynamics, or style, the technique falls apart.  

•  Feathering the bass drum in a way that doesn't add anything. It seems like more of an obligation than a purposeful thing— they're playing it because they were told it's supposed to be there. It sounds affected if there's not a real deep groove happening otherwise. Do it on purpose, to take the groove where you want it. The goal is to sound like someone who has done a ton of R&B gigs, even if you haven't.

•  In fact I sensed a little crisis of people not quite knowing why they're doing this— the whole thing, why are we here, playing. Maybe someone liked playing the drums, or they were looking for an identity, or looking to put forward a playing identity. In fact the thing is, we're playing in a night club band, maybe backing a singer, or another lead instrument; there's a club rhythm section craft that we're engaging in. Maybe we're playing for a listening and socializing audience tonight, but another night it could be for dancers. Even if there are barely any gigs, that's our arena. 

It may be thing of people being overschooled and underemployed that they seem to be unaware of the club/show aspect of it. At these sessions there's a great example of it in the host, drummer Ron Steen, who has been running these sessions for decades, and still probably plays 400 gigs a year just in town. 

Bill Frisell's advice to musicians

Posting this article from Guitar Player in it's entirety, because it's too important to be permanently entrusted to their little site: Bill Frisell's advice to guitar players, which applies to all musicians, and all humans to some extent.

Most musicians who have performed a decent amount will recognize everything here instantly— as things that happen, or that they believe, or try to do, or struggle with: 

1. Listen

Listening is the number one thing – taking your attention away from yourself. 

In one way it was good to get back to practicing and being in my own head during the Covid lockdown. But when you’re playing with a band, that’s not what you’re supposed to be doing.

You need to have your attention away from yourself. I don’t want to be thinking about what I’m doing. I want to be as focused as I can be on the people around me.

It helps me so much to just look at the other people in the band. It sort of opens everything up. It’s such a simple thing but it really helps the music for me.

Listening is such a huge thing. It sounds simple, but it’s a lifelong struggle to really, really listen.

2. Don’t Judge Yourself

What we perceive we’re doing when we play often has hardly anything to do with what’s coming out the front. 

At the time you might think, This is the most badass shit I've ever played in my life! And then you listen to a recording and go, "What was I thinking?" 

Or, you could be having some crisis in your head like, I just can’t play anything! But when you listen back it’s beautifully formed.

All that stuff in your head – you have to shut it down. The idea is to get rid of all that and just be immersed in the music. 

Try not to attach yourself to whatever just happened. You have to be constantly shedding off the idea it was good or bad.

3. Be Present

If you have a really great night, like you’re all high off the gig, you can’t think, That was so great – let’s do that again at the next gig. 

The reason it was great is because you were all in the moment and you were responding to whatever was going on around you.

You just have to be as present as you can at all times. It’s the most amazing thing when the whole band is in the moment. It’s like you’re not thinking.

Gigs can be completely different to what you expect, no matter what you do before to prepare. 

You get there and there’s like a loud refrigerator motor going over here and a bunch of people yelling over there or whatever – just nothing like what you had been planning for.

But you can’t hold on to what you hoped it would be. It’s about acceptance and letting go. You just have to be there, present.

Very occasional quote of the day: learning

“I learn something every time I play.”

- Philly Joe Jones, 1982 Modern Drummer interview with Rick Mattingly

Very occasional quote of the day: you have to be there to play every night

“You have to work with the people for a while. I was talking to Jo Jones one day. He commented something like, 'It's very important how a person develops his own musical personality.' He says, 'First, you have to be in a situation for a few years, the same musical setting, so that you can develop your character. Much the same as an actor in a play. If somebody gives you a script and you take a character and develop it, that character becomes you with the way you deal with that character.' 

Well, Jo Jones was explaining why today there might not be as much individuality among players as there was when he was coming up. You could always tell, 'Oh, that's Sidney Catlett' or 'That's Krupa' or 'That's Jo Jones' or 'This is O'Neil Spencer.' You could hear it right away and know that's this person. 

Well, Jo said these people had an opportunity to work in one situation for a time so they could develop their own musical character within that situation. When they left there, then they had established their musical character so when they played the first few notes, you knew who it was.

Some of the people today can do that because of developing that way. I notice most of the people who have an easily identifiable musical character are those who are with steady groups and they travel around.

You have to be there to play every night and deal with your instrument, and with yourself in a situation that allows you a chance to experiment and add and discard, and add and discard, until finally you come up with something.”

- Max Roach, 1982 Modern Drummer interview by Scott K. Fish

Very occasional quote of the day: the hands are like monsters

From the late Barry Harris: 

“Are the hands doing something they're used to doing, or is the mind leading the hands? Because the hands are like monsters— and they have a separate entity— and they like certain grooves. And if you aren't careful with the hands, they'll just play those grooves that they like.

If I just think of rhythmic things— don't think of notes to go with the rhythm, just think of the rhythm— then I think I come closest to being original, if I think of the rhythm first.”

Very occasional quote of the day: the instrument itself

“If you get too involved in the playing of the instrument itself, you forget that the whole purpose of what you're doing is to add to the music. 

There's more to music than having control over the instrument.” 

- Steve Gadd, 1978 Modern Drummer interview with Aran Wald

Lots of great quotes lately, from MD interviews with Gadd and Shelly Manne. This one is worth commenting on, because it fits so neatly into the ridiculously polarized, eternally pointless and misguided internet "chops vs. groove" debate. It's a hobbyist's topic, conveniently framed by and for hobbyists. It's not real. Gadd is not supplying you with an excuse to not practice. 

He was no doubt referring to himself as much as anyone else here. When he first became known as a star player in  the 70s, he was as technically able as anyone else active. It takes a lot of involvement in the playing of the instrument itself to play as well as Steve Gadd. 

The point is that it's not the only thing to be involved with.