Are you a Groove Player or a Technical Player?

I still say that "technique" and "technical" are slightly different meanings, in terms of drumming. You can have great technique in terms of playing crisply, relaxed and are able to play with great dynamic control and get a great sound out of the drums like a Curt Bisquera. Curt however, will admit, he's not a Dave Weckl or a Vinnie. Playing 19/16 grooves with all kinds of over-the-barline phrases and still being able to hit all the accents in the phrase, would be "technical" and also does require a lot of technique. I think you CAN have great technique but not approach playing music from a technical angle... if that makes sense.

Don't disagree, but I see technique as the means to that end. Unfortunately it's still basic technique for me, ha. But the outcome I'm looking for is "technical." Like, I wouldn't say I want to be a technical drummer, so I'm sitting in on a lot of house bands and working on feel.

I don't know much about the drummers you mention but I think I see the point - you can hear two drummers play the same thing under the two different motives (tech. vs. groove) and they'll sound and feel different.
 
I'll tow the line others have thrown out here, since it makes sense to me.

Think of groove, whether it be a boom-boom-chick-chick sound in funk or a jungle-y double bass rhythm in death metal, as the ultimate goal. The perfect complement for the music being played by the other instruments, the final destination at the end of the road.

Technique, on the other hand, is the tools to fine tune your playing so that you get to the end of the road.

Does your "engine" flame out and crash in a heap in the middle of a jam in a public setting?

Does it hiccup and stutter and hit potholes as you power through to the end of the set amid jeers from other motorists watching you in the crowd?

Or is it like a purring prima donna sauntering effortlessly across the stage and over, under and through the notes floating in the air.

As a guy that once tricked a Goddess for two boons instead of just the one: "One without the other would be useless, my Lord. I had to have both."
 
I think I'm split right down the middle - but the phone rings more when I remain steadfast and groovy.

/\ What he said. Seems like you get more calls when you're viewed as one that stays in the pocket. Not sure if that's good or bad.
 
My groove may not be your groove, just as your technique certainly isn't mine.

In other words: I'm a drummer. Just not a very accomplished one.
 
you can play a groove with technique.

groove is relative. In death metal, keeping solid time on a blast is the groove and pocket of the song. OR do you mean groove as in playing a standard 2 and 4 on the snare at a tempo between 100 and 140bpm.

I would say I am more of a "more is more" player than "less is more." I really think whoever coined the phrase "less is more" should probably go back to kindergarten math class.
 
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..... are you a nice guy or do you like ice cream?


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I like ice cream. I even started a thread on ice cream. Yummy, cool, refreshing ice cream.
 
I like ice cream. I even started a thread on ice cream. Yummy, cool, refreshing ice cream.

Hold on just a minute. What are we talking about here? Ice cream? Or "ice cream"? Sort of like "Puff the magic dragon" or "Waiting for my man"?



:p
 
/\ What he said. Seems like you get more calls when you're viewed as one that stays in the pocket. Not sure if that's good or bad.

I feel it's more about playing what the music requires. Whatever a drummer plays, has to be in the pocket. It seems the sometimes the association is that being technical means overplaying. Sometimes the music requires less, sometimes more, sometimes it need to be laid back, sometimes it just needs to be more dense.
 
Bozzio is another example of a guy who's groove is oft overlooked because of his predominant use of melodic soloing as the norm. He mostly does clinics and educational things on a giant melodic kit, so people associate him with "technicality". However, the guy's groove is SUPER DEEP, if you've heard his Brecker Bros, Lonely Bears or Bozzio/Levin/Stevens stuff. Even some of the Zappa stuff shows how smooth and groovin' he can be.
 
So as I progress further along this drumming journey, I'm beginning to sense there are two basic approaches to drumming. Some people are striving for a groove kind of feel to their playing and some are trying to be as technical as possible. So I'm just curious, what's your approach or goal when playing?

I definitely want to become a drummer that someone listens to and say...Man, that girl can groove! I don't care about hitting 225 bpm or doing some Neil Peart 10 minute monster solo. Not a darn thing wrong with that but it's just not where I'm at.

So...Groove or technical?

They say that there are two kinds of people in the world - those that put everything into neat boxes and those that don't.

The root of the question is "what is your concept of music?" For this, there are far, far more than 2 answers - it is more complex than a simple gradient between two points. What is the role of drums in a band?

Technique rephrased is simply "how you go about doing something". There is definite technique to establishing grooves. Seated balance, breathing, taking care of any anxiety, etc.
 
Currently, due to my poor technical ability on the drums, I have to rely on my musicality to play things that sound good. Until recently, this hasn't bothered me too much, but now I'm at a point where I can't play the things that I really want to play, so it's time to do some serious wood shedding.

Eventually, I will be a groovy player who isn't hindered by an inability to play technical things.
 
Great question. As I am self taught it has always been groove for me; technique is important and I do apply what I can and when it is appropiate. If I were starting over from scratch I would be taking lesson's for sure as I can get frustrated when I hear in my head what I want to do but then find I don't have the proper techique down and it comes out a flop, I am very good at the save because I do have good groove but I know that it is not what I intended. Right now most of the bands that have invited me to sit in have mentioned that they prefer the solid groove.
I will continue to read and watch and pick up new stuff (latley it has been brushwork) as it still comes in handy and out of the blue during a moment of inspiration I will nail something that astounds me (I learned not to admire the pass). I take heart of the words from Jim Chapin found on this very site in the titled Wise Words:Working on technique - that's not all!!
http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/jimchapinwisewords.html
When I'm drumming I want to be grooving or swinging with the music and so far it has been good grooving. I love watching the technical drummers and will always have them to look up to and will always recommend that new and younger drummers take lessons and indeed that seems to be the norm now anyway.
 
boom bang boom boom bang and repeat ad nauseaum....groove?technique?...hit them; boom bang boom boom bang etc....whatever you love dudes and dudettes....
 
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..... are you a nice guy or do you like ice cream?


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310lbs dude...I ******* lurve ice cream...I do think I'm quite a nice guy too tho...
 
310lbs dude...I ******* lurve ice cream...I do think I'm quite a nice guy too tho...

In that case, my good sire, perhaps you might be a groove player AND have technical skills imbibed from teachers, books, youtube, osmosis, or from amazing genetics...

How unique is that? - I shall leave it to the forum to determine.

PS- This of course is a rhetorical answer because we on this forum KNOW you can play


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I started off technical - think excel spreadsheet to align beats and such - then realized that sounding good on drums had more to do with dynamics and stick control. As well as coming to the understanding that (a) there are an infinite number of rhythms and permutations and stickings etc within the world of drumming, and (b) getting good had to do with realizing that only a small subset of those rhythms actually "work" and should be focused on. This is where teachers and university music programs come in. They prepare the student for this subset, as a result fasttracking the student to success.

Good question!

Steph
(note that by "technical" I'm assuming you mean the "spatial" relationship of beats and patterns that are the foundation of grooves, and that making a "groove" groove is simply playing the groove with correct dynamics. Technique is just a tool to play the groove with dynamics, and shouldn't be confused with the term "technical"...)
 
.... a septuplet fill phrased as 4's across 3 toms.

Is that the YYZ fill? I spent several days in my youth with a two speed tape recorder analyzing that one bar lick at 1:53 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nmOMo4OPi4

Nevermind. I'm thinking of quintuplets ... there were what sounded like five 16th notes per quarternote for beats 2 and 3, then only four 16ths in beat 4 with the lick ending on the & of 4. Beat 1 was a hextuplet. The lick starts on the snare for beat 1 hextuplet, then plays the remaining quintuplets as four per tom (three toms = 3 x 4 = 12), leaving the remaining two notes on the floortom (5 + 5 + 4 = 14.... 14 -12 = 2).

At least that was my first (technical) interpretation of a very fast executed lick, and executed by a guy most would consider the epitomy of technical drummers that ever existed (not to say that he didn't have groove because he - Neil Peart - sure as hell did!).

Peace

Steph
 
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