Jump to content

Man vs Machine


the stranger

Recommended Posts

  • Members

So, as usual I was surfing the tube (youtube) jamming.

 

It's actually mind blowing what some of the modern drummers are capable of and the fluid skill with which they do it. Drumming talent these days is unreal and I was wondering if it's due to the fact drumming is an athletic activity and like other sports, the skill as a whole is evolving. And drummers are always conscious of timing and always striving to improve their flow. And some of the high speed drummers today are so fluid, it is almost mechanical.

 

The gridpop discussions come to mind and I wonder if even some of this is just the modern style of drumming. Machines have had an influence, and the typical modern recording methods have the same influence, so would this affect the overall style of drumming to a noticeable degree over the course of a few decades?

 

:blah::bor::lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yeah, I think it has. There are a lot of drummers who either grew up listening to machines or feel they have to compete with machines for gigs, so they really work at having metronomic time, doing speed runs that were thought to be impossible except with a machine, etc.

 

Sometimes that kind of style is interesting, but after awhile I miss the subtleties and the pocket. Fortunately there are still plenty of those kind of drummers around too, including young ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yeah, I think it has. There are a lot of drummers who either grew up listening to machines or feel they have to compete with machines for gigs, so they really work at having metronomic time, doing speed runs that were thought to be impossible except with a machine, etc.


Sometimes that kind of style is interesting, but after awhile I miss the subtleties and the pocket. Fortunately there are still plenty of those kind of drummers around too, including young ones.

 

Seems to me that many good drummers probably go through a phase where they work to develop as much strict precision and discipline as possible (and many, of course, obviously have never given it a thought :D ) ... I think the pay-off is not typically found in that woodshedding phase but after the drummer has developed strong discipline and control, beyond the second nature phase, and then he can let himself play more freely without having to worry about failing at a fundamental level.

 

I think almost all of us would agree that the optimal rhythmic underpinnings of many great songs over the years has often diverged from the grid in various ways -- but it must do so with grace and precision or it just sounds like bad drumming. As my 8th grade English teacher kept saying, "All you modern break-the-rules writers first have to know the rules before you can break them intelligently." (That's what you get when you end up with Creative Writing majors teaching grammar, huh? I'm positive none of us -- not even me -- considered ourselves break-the-rules writers [one guy, a transfer student from NY, maybe]... I loved that gal, though. What a babe. Beauty and brains. The first redhead I ever had a crush on. Where was I... ?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

A lot of them have learned that economical movements will help immensly with their speed. Their fast-twitch muscles are awesomely fine-tuned.

Check out how the drummer from Skinless (one of the very, very few "cookie monster bands" I like)plays very close to the kit...nothing like the exaggerated arm flourishes from the heyday of Moon and Bonham.

WndMWUmLaG4

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Thanks for being able to get the gist of that incoherent post, folks. I really meant for it to meet my usual quality standards for bull{censored}, but it appears it was a complete cluster{censored}. And what bothers me is when my bull{censored} isn't sticking, it tends to come off as real masturbatory and man that's a bit...uh...you know?

 

I might retitle the op: Why a person shouldn't use two paragraphs to ask a simple question.

 

;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Seems to me that many good drummers probably go through a phase where they work to develop as much strict precision and discipline as possible (and many, of course, obviously have never given it a thought
:D
) ... I think the pay-off is not typically found in that woodshedding phase but after the drummer has developed strong discipline and control,
beyond the
second nature phase, and
then
he can let himself play more freely without having to worry about failing at a fundamental level.

 

Yeah, of course, and that's a fair statement about a lot of young drummers I suppose.

 

I'm thinking though... to me the most technically skilled AND the most fluid and passionate drummers seem to have originated out of New Orleans (or were very influenced by someone who had). Apparently drum corps is (or was, anyway, maybe still is) a huge thing in the high schools there - everyone wants to be in drum corps so they can march and compete in the Mardi Gras parades. So they really develop chops and precision, but then there's the traditional jazz and Cajun influence in there, so they never sound stiff or mechanical. There's always a pocket, always that tendency to play a little behind the beat, and dance around it a little. Even with young players.

 

I'm sure there's something to be learned in there somewhere. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

And on the other hand, I have to say that machines have also been responsible for the devolution of a lot of drummers. That is, a lot of drummers who started off with a lot of nuance and skill were told by producers and artists ever since the 80s that they should "play straighter" and with more robotic consistency and play fewer fills, accents, etc. And if you wanted any session gigs, that's what you had to do, even though it was boring as hell.

 

So, it cuts both ways I spose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

And on the other hand, I have to say that machines have also been responsible for the
devolution
of a lot of drummers. That is, a lot of drummers who started off with a lot of nuance and skill were told by producers and artists ever since the 80s that they should "play straighter" and with more robotic consistency and play fewer fills, accents, etc. And if you wanted any session gigs, that's what you had to do, even though it was boring as hell.


So, it cuts both ways I spose.

First, on the N.O. thing in your previous post: totally agreed. There have been some monster masters of rhythm out of N.O. On the other hand, I heard a lot of zydeco bands back in the late 80s and the breadth of skill and precision between the tight ones and the others could be stunning. I heard some well-known zydeco bands that were just a rhythmic disaster... real tennis shoes in dryer stuff. I'm not talking about too-tricky rhythms, I'm talking about incompetently played, out of time, meandering, way-too-sloppy bands and music. Between acts like the Meters (who were drop dead, jawdropping amazing when I saw them) and some of the household name zydeco bands I saw there could be a million miles of soggy tennis shoes just out of the dryer prematurely when its off balance breaker blew. If you catch that drift.

 

 

And totally agreed on the point in the quoted post about human drummers persuaded to lock into the grid and stay there, dynamically and rhythmically. I remember having serious qualms even back when I was in school and we were always hearing advice like, "For rock, have the drummer hit every hit as hard as he can -- that way it will come out more consistently, since he'll tend to be pushing the drum about as far as it can go -- sort of defacto limiting." But then all those guys thought Toto was the be all and end all of rock and roll. :facepalm:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

First, on the N.O. thing in your previous post: totally agreed. There have been some monster masters of rhythm out of N.O. On the other hand, I heard a lot of zydeco bands back in the late 80s and the breadth of skill and precision between the tight ones and the others could be stunning. I heard some well-known zydeco bands that were just a rhythmic disaster... real tennis shoes in dryer stuff. I'm not talking about too-tricky rhythms, I'm talking about incompetently played, out of time, meandering, way-too-sloppy bands and music.

 

Well, of course. There are crappy musicians everywhere. :lol: Not really the point, though - the point is that the best N.O. drummers figured out years ago how to do what you were describing in your earlier post - that is, focus heavily on precision and discipline when they're young - without sounding like machines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I know Lee hasn't seen it, ;) but in the new Rush documentary Neil Peart talks about how after years of playing to click tracks he felt his playing had become too mechanical. He started taking lessons to help him find more of a pocket and groove in his playing. I think his work paid off and you can hear it on Snakes and Arrows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I know Lee hasn't seen it,
;)
but in the new Rush documentary Neil Peart talks about how after years of playing to click tracks he felt his playing had become too mechanical.

 

So THAT's been the issue this whole time? :D

 

I suppose it helps one's feel to get away from clicks, although I do want to point out that a lot of really good drummers are able to play to clicks and still keep the pocket going.

 

He started taking lessons to help him find more of a pocket and groove in his playing. I think his work paid off and you can hear it on Snakes and Arrows.

 

It does groove more from what I remember.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

So THAT's been the issue this whole time?
:D

 

:D Nahh, I think there are deeper issues than that. ;)

 

I suppose it helps one's feel to get away from clicks, although I do want to point out that a lot of really good drummers are able to play to clicks and still keep the pocket going.

 

True, although I wish they wouldn't (play to clicks). Good drummers don't need one, and it seems tempo as a mode of expression has become a lost art, which is ridiculous.

 

Practicing to a click sometimes is good (even for us guitar players :D), but it's not something you should do all the time IMO or you get too dependent on it. And we don't ever play to a click onstage (heaven forbid) or while recording.

 

Best way to really work on your tempo is to program a click to go for a few measures at a given BPM, then drop out for a few measures while you continue playing. Then see how much you got out of sync when it comes back in. Change tempo, rinse, repeat. Works a lot better for improving your natural meter than just playing to a click all the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Well, of course. There are crappy musicians everywhere.
:lol:
Not really the point, though - the point is that the best N.O. drummers figured out years ago how to do what you were describing in your earlier post - that is,
focus heavily on precision and discipline when they're young
- without sounding like machines.

imho, Drum Corps has done a lot for advancing drumming techniques, precision, and basic mechanics.

 

[YOUTUBE]d2QixmwAl5Y[/YOUTUBE]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

A lot of people overlook that some tools that let you snap things to a grid also let you snap the grid to you. This is a variation on the "tap a beat map" thing that was introduced in the early days of MIDI.

 

This was incredibly valuable to me when adding percussion to an acoustic guitar track played without a click. I generated a click that followed the guitar, and played percussion to the click.

 

So why didn't I just play along with the guitar? Because I wanted the option to have percussion follow the guitar precisely in some places, and this way I could snap those sections to the click if needed. Although IIRC, there weren't a lot of those because it turned out not to be hard to follow the guitar's groove.

 

One thing that really irks me about "flat-lined" tempo curves is there's absolutely no reason for them, even if the band played to a click originally. With time-stretching and other techniques, you can go in after the fact and add some life to a track if the band didn't do so in the first place. When doing remixes I'll often play around with the tempo in subtle ways. I think it improves the music, even for "metronomic" dance music that was generated by machines.

 

And finally...without a doubt, playing to drum machines has improved my timing. However, "improved" timing to me also means the ability to play a little ahead or a little behind with accuracy, not just being metronomic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

When my brother started to combine a drum machine with his live kit in the early '80s, I noticed his ability to play songs at consistent tempos from one night to the next improved greatly.

 

For example, there was one song that started with the drum machine and me playing guitar - he would count it in and for the first couple of weeks I had to stand near his monitor to make sure I got the tempo after he counted it in. Later he began to count it precisely and consistently.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...