The Steel Guitar Forum

Steve wrote:I'd rather them"take liberties"with the tempo than play too loud...

Paul wrote:I also hate drummers that have huge drum kits and feel compelled to play every drum and every cymbal on every song.

Exactly. I've been playing with a young traditional country artist (a bit of an oxymoron) a bit over the last few weeks. Most of the time he doesn't use a drummer, but he has an upright guy that really drives a great groove with some moderate slapping. I asked him why he didn't use a drummer more often and his answer was:

"I don't want to try to sing over some guy building a shed back there."

Had a drummer that would speed a little once in a while..
One particular night he was really "in a hurry" on a song and when we finished, he looked at me and said,
Did I Win?

What I hated the most is if you start a song a little slow and you can't get that drummer to move.

Bill has opened the whole question of whether drums really belong in country music anyway.

rpetersen wrote:Had a drummer that would speed a little once in a while..
One particular night he was really "in a hurry" on a song and when we finished, he looked at me and said,
Did I Win?

What I hated the most is if you start a song a little slow and you can't get that drummer to move.

THAT means the drummer is doing 80% of his job.The other 20% is to set the tempo and count off.

Yes, it can be a race to the finish.

I have played with so many drummers over the decades, good, bad, speeder uppers and draggers,, Early on as a young teenager I was a drummer in terrible grade school bands..Played drums in bands for several years.

I feel I can comment with at least a modicum of authority.

I had the internal clock and proved it later on when I switched first to guitar, and then on to pedal steel..Mediocre chops, and little theory,but a good clock is what got me recognized locally.


Players with much much better chops than me often got bypassed when it came to bands/freelance gigs, mostly because of time/pocket/ and "overplay" concerns.


My point is this- One either has that clock or does not.. Some drummers are out there with tremendous chops, but lacking in meter.. Same with many guitarists I have found over the years.

Not sure you can "teach" someone to keep good time.. I think its given to you... or not...

Some otherwise good drummers seem to want to "push" everything , others tend to start to drag.. Either one is VERY hard for muisicians with good meter to deal with..
Personally, I always found it was always worse with a "dragger".. Pushers were bad enough, but when guy starts to drag a song down,,, ugh....

A drummer that has the clock and formidable chops is worth his/her weight in solid fine gold.

They are in very high demand, and from what I have seen, kinda rare...

A truly good drummer that can drive a band, but still keep it in time???... simply priceless...bob

Bob, I sincerely believe that the presence of that internal clock is genetic, and that it cannot be acquired by any amount of training or therapy. Music occurs in real time, and if you can't function fully in real time then you should get a non-time-critical hobby, of which there is a wide choice.

Also, good drummers play less. Ours doesn't really play fills - he marks a new section by either varying the pattern slightly or leaving something out, but he seldom adds anything.

And now it's time for a confession. When I saw Keith's OP "Speeding Drummer" I thought it was going to be a story about someone late for a gig because he'd been pulled over by the cops.

A band is only as good as it's drummer. That's not my phrase but it rings true to me.

I agree with Ian; good drummers play less.

I disagree that time keeping can’t be taught, because I was born with an internal Mickey Mouse watch. If I was a drummer I’d be a plumber. I couldn’t count to four. But playing in bands and serious practice with a metronome finally did its magic. I may not have perfect time, and I still struggle with some of the latin grooves I find myself playing now, but I can sure tell when the band is either clicking or clunking along.

And I have to say, if both your drummer AND your bass player are weak in the time keeping department, you really really really don’t have a band.

I think if you are not genetically equipped and you know it, then the desire to acquire a good sense of time must be strong and followed up with study and practice. It’s not rocket science and it doesn’t take forever.

A local band leader once said, "give me a good drummer and bass player and I can fill the rest of the band with kazoo players and have a good band."

It's a bad sign when the song ends and the dance floor is a pile of dancers with their legs all tangled up.

On the other hand, I've seen a few that were dancing out of time to a different beat. Thank the music God that they aren't drummers.

I do think some people are gifted with musical ability more than others, but I do believe anyone can learn to play in time-if they are dedicated to hard work & study. Folks with dyslexia mastering reading for example. The original post's drummer made it this far, just depends if that person can accept some humility and dig in to some fundamentals/rudimentary work to play solid.

I play guitar,bass,and pedal steel and have played with several drummers that speed up on fast songs. I also have played behind several lead instrument players that jump time on chord changes and cause speed up. Also singers who jump time so bad you can't do a two four bass. You get what you get when your not doing it for a living and it's just for fun. Pay your players $500 a gig and you will draw players that don't speed up. I'm not a Branson player, but have played with some that are full time show performers, and I didn't notice them speeding up.

I have played with good and bad and basically you have to adjust your licks to what's going on in real time. It sucks that you cant play the break that you have worked so hard on but the show must go on. In my view this makes us better players.

Jeff is right - you can only play the hand you're dealt.

A few random, non-sequential thoughts and opinions, if y'all will indulge me...

I found myself nodding my head in agreement with more than several of the previous posters, particularly Skip, Steve Hinson, Jack Wilson, and Jeff Neal.

To me, more important than a precise tempo is "groove," which is the combination of all of the band having a general agreement of how a song should flow; seamlessly, and without argument between the players. The tempo during a song may vary +/- a few bpm but if everyone agrees to it, there's a natural groove happening and all is cool. It's hard to define specifically, but the listener and dancers know it when they hear it.

Occasionally, a really proficient but metronomic drummer can keep a band from grooving; if the player/singer calls off a tempo too fast or slow, an unfamiliar but metronomic drummer, such as a fill-in or sit-in situation, can keep the uncomfortable tempo for the entire song. Much to the dismay of the band.

Re: a song should "breathe." IMHO, a big problem with a 4/4 country shuffle such as a Price/Faron/Bush song is a drummer too in love with his kick drum. To get that sound correct, the bassist carries the 4 beats to a measure simply with a triadic line, and the drummer plays the kick on beat 1 and 3 while the snare plays on 2 and 4. The piano left hand plays the same line as the bass, and the right hand plays the chord changes on the off-beat. The acoustic rhythm guitar gently and unobtrusively plays 1 and 3 on the downstroke and 2 and 4 with the upstroke. No guitar runs on the bass strings, unless it's tic-tac on the electric guitar.

IMHO, that's the ideal shuffle configuration. This depends on a strong bassist, drummer, and keyboardist who are disciplined enough to play it that way. For me, drummer hammering the kick drum with great force on every beat is like trying to sing or solo having two hands around your neck while gently being strangled.

I enjoy a drummer who knows when to groove and when to be metronomic, such as when an arrangement goes from 2/4 to 4/4 and then back (or not). Often tempo will noticeably speed up when going to 4/4 due to an overly enthusiastic bassist or lead player. For me, if a band groove can still be held when the time signature goes from 2 to 4, that's a disciplined rhythm section. Listen, if you will, to the Western Strings album by the Cherokee Cowboys as a perfect example of what I'm opining about. "Rubber Dolly" comes to mind; it's all in that performance.

Another option, if you can't get your point accross, is an extended length, up tempo version of Remington Ride, and WEAR EM OUT. If they don't settle down, or start to rush again, just play it again.

Rick

A little late to this particular party but I wanted to say:

Herb, right on with your comments. I'm sharing with the band.

We had some big grooves back in the day, but I recall some times when the rhythm section exhibited what you're warning about.

I recently read an article from theoretical physics that the more precise a clock, the more entropy generation is required.

I hope someone can apply this helpful principle to their live shows.

Someone once asked Ringo Starr is he used a click track. He angrily replied, "I AM THE F***ING CLICK TRACK!".

As a very long-time drummer myself, I pride myself in my time. I would sometimes practice tapping out a beat with a song on the radio, then turn down the volume for a bit, then turn it back up to see how far (or not) I was off.

IMHO, the key to a good drummer is to listen to EVERYTHING going on around him/her and play to that. And, a bass player who's in the pocket

Right on, Don. I love that Ringo quote

I also agree with what Herb said about groove, and everyone in the band feeling the song the same way being somewhat more important than tempo. BUT, in my experience, you are lucky to find yourself ever in that situation, unless you are in a group that has been playing together long enough to settle into grooves almost instantly. Minus that, having a good sense of time is essential for everyone in a band that is in its perpetually nebulous phase, like the one I’m in.

There is also the issue of singers and tempo. Whole nuther thing.

I had a band that always complained about the drummer dragging or speeding until I put them on an electronic drummer. Then we found out that it wasn’t the drummer’s fault. They still complained about the drum machine either dragging or speeding.

They still complained about the drum machine either dragging or speeding.

This is true. In the early days of drum machines people would complain that they were "too much on time". The designers then introduced algorithms into the machines to try and duplicate the "human" factor by randomly speeding up and slowing down.

Speeding Drummer

Good name for a band.

Well said, Herb and Bob C..

I worked for a while with an excellent bassist who put it, I thought, quite succinctly.

"It takes a really good drummer to be better than no drummer at all."

His other oft-repeated wisdom was rather like the Hippocratic oath:

"Do no harm..." - apt wisdom for either the operating theater or the orchestra-pit.

Don Downes wrote:..."I AM THE F***ING CLICK...

https://youtu.be/WW2Jp8gytK8?t=10