Re: letting the drummer hear your loop live

["David" <vze2ncsr@verizon.net>]

Just like everyone needs to hear everyone else in a performance, I suggest
everyone in a band needs to hear any loopage -- obviously so they can know
the context in which to play their musical moments.   If your band is so
tight and well rehearsed that it can get by from kick and snare alone, 
cool.
And that's a good skill given the sucky state of many club monitor set-ups.

Still, it's never as good as hearing it all -- loops included!

David


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Travis" <tiktok@sprintmail.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 11:57 AM
Subject: Re: letting the drummer hear your loop live


> Neither.  I was trying to lead someone to a conclusion.
>
> My position is that in most ensembles, the other musicians looks to the
> drummer to provide the tempo.  It's one of the main reasons for having
> a drummer.  At this point someone (often a drummer) usually jumps in
> with the "Oh, it's every musicians responsibility to keep their own
> tempo and drummers are unfairly relegated to this most pedestrian of
> duties which makes them glorified metronomes, and my creativity is
> being unfairly stifled, etc, etc"  to which I'd say, yeah, but still
> dude--the drummer provides the tempo.  It's a difficult job, but a
> drummer who can't keep a relatively steady tempo is going to have
> trouble finding much work, in the same way that a
> guitarist/bassist/whatever who can't play in time with a drummer isn't
> going to do well in an ensemble situation.
>
> So, yes--I'd say that if only one musician gets to hear the loop, it
> has to be drummer (if the loop isn't just an ambient drone).  And the
> drummer has to follow the loop.  And it's difficult, and can be a pain
> in the ass, but there's nothing degrading or "stunting" about playing
> to some form of click.  But drummers are like many other
> musicians--they have problems playing to a click, whether it's a matter
> of ability or aesthetic sensibility (and usually a mix of both) and
> no-one likes to do something that they hate and aren't very good at it,
> but if you can get past all that, there's a lot of new ground you can
> cover.
>
> TravisH
>
>
> On Monday, September 1, 2003, at 07:28 AM,
> Loopers-Delight-d-request@loopers-delight.com wrote:
>
> > Subject: letting the drummer hear your loop live
> >
> >
> > Travis wrote,
> >
> > 'If everyone's supposed to be keeping time for themselves, why is it so
> > particularly important for the drummer to be able to hear the loop?'
> >
> >
> > Are you being facetious here or have you not played a lot of ensemble
> > work?
>