Having played my fair share of gigs over the past seven years I’ve had a great opportunity to listen to many different bands, musicians and pertaining to my end of the scale; drummers. What I’ve found fascinating over this time is listening to and hearing how other drummers approach the music they play, and how they place themselves within in the song.
With a lot of talk of technique, groove vocabulary, licks and even gear within the drumming community there never seems to be much discussion or conversation on the topic of “approach”. I don’t know if it’s something that comes from being self-taught but when learning to play, I always picked up on and tried to understand how a drummer was placing themselves within the music...in other words it was the mindset of who I was listening to that fascinated me rather than their technique.
The big revelation for me through all of this was learning how to compose melody and harmony for other instruments. At first my compositions were all about fitting the music to the drum parts but eventually something clicked and I began to write the music first and then see how the drum parts could interact in a musical way. In essence I began to see the fabric and weave of the song with all of it’s spaces rather than the notes themselves and to carry on with the textile analogies; I treated my drum parts as the needle and thread travelling through these spaces and converging at the necessary points to hold the music together.
Once I had got to grips with this approach in composition I then started to bring it into real-life playing, applying this approach to the bands I was in at in at the time and to songs that they had composed as opposed to songs that I had composed. At first it was all a bit frustrating, the same flow and feel that I had achieved in my compositions was not translating into the live writing sessions and that’s where I realised it’s all in the listening! Sitting back and letting the band play the songs through over and over allowed me to hear the fabric of the song and really get to understand those same spaces that I needed to fit into and the points where I needed to converge with, articulate and support the music.
The point I’m trying to get across with all of this is that it’s not the technique you use or the grooves and licks you know that are the fundamental in finding your place within a song, of course they are important, but it’s the way you take your approach and how you listen the song beyond the notes themselves. In no way am I saying that my approach is the only approach to creating and playing drum parts, but what I am saying is that focusing on how you approach music can open up many areas for you and will ultimately help you to understand who you are as a musician.
Hope we're all keeping well,
Casey x
With a lot of talk of technique, groove vocabulary, licks and even gear within the drumming community there never seems to be much discussion or conversation on the topic of “approach”. I don’t know if it’s something that comes from being self-taught but when learning to play, I always picked up on and tried to understand how a drummer was placing themselves within the music...in other words it was the mindset of who I was listening to that fascinated me rather than their technique.
The big revelation for me through all of this was learning how to compose melody and harmony for other instruments. At first my compositions were all about fitting the music to the drum parts but eventually something clicked and I began to write the music first and then see how the drum parts could interact in a musical way. In essence I began to see the fabric and weave of the song with all of it’s spaces rather than the notes themselves and to carry on with the textile analogies; I treated my drum parts as the needle and thread travelling through these spaces and converging at the necessary points to hold the music together.
Once I had got to grips with this approach in composition I then started to bring it into real-life playing, applying this approach to the bands I was in at in at the time and to songs that they had composed as opposed to songs that I had composed. At first it was all a bit frustrating, the same flow and feel that I had achieved in my compositions was not translating into the live writing sessions and that’s where I realised it’s all in the listening! Sitting back and letting the band play the songs through over and over allowed me to hear the fabric of the song and really get to understand those same spaces that I needed to fit into and the points where I needed to converge with, articulate and support the music.
The point I’m trying to get across with all of this is that it’s not the technique you use or the grooves and licks you know that are the fundamental in finding your place within a song, of course they are important, but it’s the way you take your approach and how you listen the song beyond the notes themselves. In no way am I saying that my approach is the only approach to creating and playing drum parts, but what I am saying is that focusing on how you approach music can open up many areas for you and will ultimately help you to understand who you are as a musician.
Hope we're all keeping well,
Casey x
