Drums, Players
What Your Drummer Doesn’t Want You To Hear
How To Simplify the Drums
Who’s the most expensive drummer in the world? Ringo Starr of course. Why? Because he just plays the song. He keeps it simple.Can your drummer do this? The most basic effort is keeping the band together. It’s a servant role of being a minister of time and groove. Note: the drummer is not an independent leader, but an interdependent team player.
If they can play a straight tempo on 2 and 4, more than half their job is accomplished. It’s not by flash or crash, but by the Spirit of the Lord to lay down a solid groove and foundation of Christ.
Just listen to any Beatles album that Ringo recorded and you will hear nothing but simple. Most drummers would find this boring, but indeed, playing simple is the hardest thing to do. Besides, it’s not about what you play, but when NOT to play.
Kick it out of the way!
Got too much kick (bass drum that is)? Most often when the band begins to play, there’s a cloud of thunder. Cloud meaning that the wall of sound has billowed so thick you can’t see each other. Thunder meaning that all instruments + drums become an elephant trampling of noise.What can each musician do, in particular the drummer to remedy this issue? It’s not just found in what you play, but how you play. There’s a thing called kick patterns. “Kick” referring to the bass drum. We say this word instead of “the bass drum” to make a distinction that we are not referring to the bass guitar. A kick pattern is a 1-2 bar figure of what the melody in the song is doing. That’s right, the drummer needs to compliment the vocal line.
In fact, each musician needs to be singing along in their minds as they play. The kick pattern refers to the placement of what the kick drum is doing in response to the song’s melody. Yes, the bass guitar and drums together make up this groove, but the kick needs to find it’s own anchor.
This is a common overlooked item that most worship bands miss. Simply, the band needs to be advised to play less in there parts and lower volumes. This is critical for the drummer. Once you can hear the vocal line, beautiful things begin to happen in the band. They’re called “parts.” When the kick is played to much between each bar, let’s say: 3-5 notes per measure, it can really cloud up the groove. It’s too overplayed and actually leaves little room for the bass to groove along (depending on the achieved style and tempo).
Musically speaking, less is more. Have the drummer play the kick on 1 – whole note per bar or every other bar on the Verses. On the chorus, play a syncopated beat, involving a quarter note followed by an eight note or 16th note combination. This is where the vocal line would come in – the drummer plays the highlighted or certain notes based off the lyric. Keep it simple.
It may seem very boring for the drummer to play this way. However, if you listen to any good record, you will always hear the kick play simple whole notes, halts and quarters.
Eights and sixteenth groupings are used for fills, builds and spills. This article is aimed at helping you not spill your drum parts all over the song where it drowns the entire band. When less is more happens, a bigger sound is produced, dynamics are heard and the wall of noise comes down. Let the Spirit breathe, let the groove roll and keep the drums simple
. @BranonDempsey @worshiptt
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