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Jonathan wrote:
"Besides having the drummer play to a metronome, instead of the real loop
is
no fun for the drummer..."
Au contraire, mon frere,
As a professional drummer who has done hundreds of studio sessions I have
to
say that playing to a metronome is a difficult task to learn and I
, for one, really enjoy it live.
There are tricks to learning how to be able to be 'expressive' and 'human'
while doing so.
The fact is that most drummers don't know how to do it in a more expressive
way.
Here is a set of exercises designed to help you learn how to play to a
metronome with feeling and ease:
Try this(even if you've never attempted to play to metronomes before):
Set a metronome to a very comfortable speed where the click is set to
16th notes (NOT 1/4 notes).
Now play a 16th note hi hat pattern (kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4)
on hi hat (or touches if you are a percussionist or double picked palm
mutes
if you are a guitarist or bassist or, or , or)
As you play, see if you can audio-hallucinate that the metronome is
almost imperceptively slowing down. Keep trying and try to project onto
your listening that the machine is loosing energy and slowing down.
FEEL IT SLOW DOWN and then allow yourself to slow down with it. The more
you do this exercise, the more you will be able to project this concept on
your hearing....of course it is not actually happening, but you can
convince
yourself that it is.
Keep letting it slow until it is going as slow as you can imagine it.
NOW, try to 'drag' it down even further by playing slower.
Never let yourself get away from it, but play as slowly as you can possibly
play with out getting off of it.
At some point you will play so slowly that it will start to sound 'wrong'.
This is a crucial place. Now begin to experiment with finding the
exact spot in your playing where it starts to feel wrong.
Purposefully let yourself lose the metronome and then try to very slowly
speed up until you are back with it again.
The important thing here (and with all metronomic playing) is to not try
and
correct immeditately, but rather, to let yourself drift back to accuracy.
As wierd as it may feel, when you remove the metronome and go back and
listen to the recording of yourself, YOU WON"T EVEN HEAR THE MISTAKE.
Okay, bear with me now.
Now go back and do the same exercise, except audio hallucinate that the
metronome is now slowing starting to speed up. follow the same
instructions as above.
Once you can do either of these exercises with impunity, try
going to the slowest point you can (without ever letting the metronome get
away from you) and then take 2 minutes to slowly speed up to get
'perfectly' in sync with the metronome. Then take 2 minutes to slowly
speed up until you are playing as fast as you can without getting away from
the metronome. Now reverse this entire process and slow down to the slowest
again. Take four minutes to do so. this is difficult, btw, but you can do
it and the concentration that you will need will start to give you a brand
new understanding of just how deep 'time' is, even when you are playing to
a
constant metronomic speed.
Repeat this process...........1 minute from Slowest to normal
1 minute from normal to Fastest
Again.........................30 seconds " "
30 seconds " "
then ..........................15 seconds " "
and finally, How quickly can you go between playing as slow as you can
to how fast you can.
ALL RIGHT, NOW IS THE AMAZING THING:
Now play to the metronome and don't think about it. You will now play
perfectly in sync without ever having attempted it before.
What we have just learned how to do is to play 'behind the beat' (or
fatback
drumming as it is called by r&b drummers in the south) and
play 'ahead of the beat'(really prevalent in rock and roll, big band
music---but not always).
Some of the ways that I cultivate this is by thinking of emotional states
that can go with playing behind the beat or playing ahead of the beat.
Behind the Beat states: tired, langorous,depressed,sad,drunk (or other
depressants), sleepy,a feeling of physical 'heaviness'(this one really
works
for me---'how heavy can I feel and still play accurately-----almost
invariably, I will play behind the beat feeling this way)
Ahead of the Beat states: nervous, edgy, excited, angry, aggressive,
to much coffee (or other stimulants)
I find if I emotionally hallucinate these states, that I will play
commensorately behind or ahead of the beat.
Of course, the metronome never strays, it is just your perception and
reaction to it that strays.
This is such a powerful skill. With it it can allow you to completely
change the feel of a piece of music form langorously playing 'way back' on
the beat to a very edgy, nervous, excited playing 'way up on the beat'.
You can also use this technique to reel in an errant bass player or
rhythm guitarist who has either.........drunk to much coffee or drunk to
much bear or who is really angry (tends to rush) or really bummed out
(tends to drag).
A great technique that I have used for years to accomplish this is to
play perfectly metrononically (to the best of your ability) an the play
the snare drum as a flam that either flams late (behind the beat) or flams
early (ahead of the beat). It is amazing how you can get another musician
to unconciously respond to your movement hear. Great drummers all have
an
intrinsic grasp of this process (although most of them haven't done this
particular exercise to learn it).
I have used this method on beginning beginner students who have never
ever played to a metronome (and you know how dicey that can be) and they
are
able to play perfectly with the metronome in the first hour of play.
Amazing.
good luck, let me know if you have any success with this technique.
yours, Rick Walker (loop.pool)
p.s. Next we take on playing to 'lumpy' loops. LOL