Re: First Contact (or, a drummer defends his breed).

[Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>]

On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Eric Cook wrote:

> > In reference to the asynchronous looping, I'd love to find a drummer 
>who can
> > keep track of beats and time signatures without help (isn't that what a
> > drummer's supposed to do--keep time?)
> 
> Ack!  Sorry for going off-"loop-topic", but this is a pet peeve:
> 
> One of the best drum teachers I ever had was a man named Cliff Davies.
> During one of our first lessons together, Cliff looked me straight into
> the eye and gave me one of the most valuable lessons I ever had about
> drumming:  "The drummer does not keep time.  Many people -- many drummers
> -- think this.  They're wrong.  Metronomes keep time.  If the people you
> are playing with can't keep on beat and in time without you doing it for 
>them,
> you shouldn't be wasting your time playing with them.  They need a
> metronome, not a drummer."
> 
> What he meant was not that a "real" drummer should play entirely free, or
> in out time, or something like that.  Rather, a drummer should interact
> with the beat, create a dialogue with it, emphasize certain parts,
> de-emphasize others.  Dialogue and emphasis -- not "just" time keeping.

My own early lessons in good time-keeping came from a reggae
guitarist/bassist I sometimes jammed with.  We'd play guitar and bass
through a shared amp, no drummer, just reggae grooves.  His main
lesson was that, in reggae, it isn't the guitarist or the drummer
keeping time, it's the bassist.  The bass should be square on the
beat, while the guitars and drums lag a bit to get the laid-back
feel.  Ska is just reggae played ahead of the beat rather than behind
the beat.  The bass and kick drum keep time.  The guitars, snare, and
hi-hat make the groove.  This applies to all sorts of music.  The mark
of a good drummer is making a groove, not a beat.  And the mark of a
good bassist is keeping time for everyone else. 

> > But I've not found one yet who can
> > play freely and creatively against a separate time signature or 
>polyrhythmic
> > textures.

You think drummers are bad?  Try playing with guitarists!  Or worse,
classically trained musicians who can't follow anything that isn't in
a "standard" time signature, or jazz musicians who desparately need
chordal movement instead of drones.  But really, any sort of musician
who can't handle something new is going to be a problem.  This
includes most rock guitarists and drummers.  

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       /* dstagner@icarus.net */
   -Charles Fort