Guitarist comment on drummers

Kenny Werner published Effortless Mastery back in '96 and there's some YouTube stuff out there on him. Much of what you all are talking about (fear) is addressed in his book and he has some very good points about musicians and fear, doubt, etc... good read. A lot of the fear that musicians have is based on ego. But the crux of the book is mastering effortless playing... forgetting about crunch time and just being free. Free from tension, free from trying to knock a solo out of the park etc... he also addresses mastering practice. It's an interesting read and there are some meditative approaches to shucking the predispositions and BS that many musicians heap upon their own shoulders.

And as far as rhythm guitarists go... finding one with a strong chord vocabulary is almost impossible these days.

BTW... if people tell you that the lead guitarist sound great... you have a good lead player. If people tell you the BAND sounded good it's because the drums and the bass were on the same page. Many bassists (not all) are percussionists with a string to pluck and many keyboardist and bassists covet good drummers to the point of calling them "their" drummers or "my" drummer. But a good drummer matched with a good bassist is a winning combination even if you just have a kazooist for a lead.
 
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SOME guitarists think the job of the drummer is nothing more than to make them sound good. I guess that is true in many contexts, but it's not the status quo.

Ever "jam" with a guitarist and they play two measures of blues licks then go into a "scorching lead?" Nothing sounds lamer to me than a guitarist blazing away while a drummer does a simple beat.
 
As it happens, most of the really good guitarists I've played with and met have said they put very high value on what a drummer does. On the other hand, the weaker guitarists -- guys that can't be self-sufficient about playing music, in terms of rhythm, harmonies or expression -- commonly blame weaknesses on the level of support they get or don't get from others in the band.

It's one thing to say that you depend on certain functions that some drummers don't provide well. It's quite another to say you "hate drummers." I think my response to him would be, "So I guess you play mostly acoustic folk and bluegrass then, right?"
 
SOME guitarists think the job of the drummer is nothing more than to make them sound good. I guess that is true in many contexts, but it's not the status quo.

Ever "jam" with a guitarist and they play two measures of blues licks then go into a "scorching lead?" Nothing sounds lamer to me than a guitarist blazing away while a drummer does a simple beat.
Ha ha! Funny cos it's true!

Consider the source on this one. Not all guitar players are cut from the same cloth and this one sounds like some I know that don't want to hear the drums or consider them as part of the same musical landscape they're in. I've known a few of those types that have found what they think are good drummers, but those drummers are usually novice hacks too meek to stand their ground and make the music sound good with drums that have presence - and by that I don't mean hero fills ever 4 bars or any overpowering dominance - I just mean there in the mix somewhere as part of the landscape.

There are definitely guitar players out there that don't just want transparency from the drummer. I remember reading Jeff Beck saying he needed a drummer to kick his ass; to propel and interact with the music (he was referring to T.Bozzio at the time). Those are the guitar players I like playing with.

Not sure why this so often comes off as a one-way street. The music doesn't belong to the guitar player any more than it belongs to anyone else - even a soloing guitar player is doing so in service of the song, right?
 
Rhythm section is almost everything in the ensemble. And that includes the guitarist. The guitar is an outstanding rhythm instrument in the right hands, and some music deserves this application in the right places.
I have played bass for two years in a Motown band, and it made me a better guitarist. I can tell you that the last few years spent learning the drums has also made me a better guitarist. I truly believe learning multiple instruments helps anybody improve listening skills. And as Larry said, listening is crucial for musicians. It should be more obvious, but I have found it lacking in a lot of "musical" situations.
I can truthfully share with you all that, as a guitarist, I would rather stand on the shoulder of giants than stumble about with clods.
I believe the audience feels the same way, though they may not frame it as such. They vote with their feet sure enough.
 
Don't stress Larry. The term 'lead guitarist' is just as broad as "drummer", and the gent only speaks for the ones that are drummer-haters.

Most of us guitarists are perfectly reasonable self-centered pricks like me ;-)
 
Between my ears is always a stress free zone lol. Not stressed. Never was. I found the whole thing slightly funny. And I don't think the guy was saying he literally hated drummers. What I took from it is...he played with drummers who were hot dogs, plain and simple. Playing for themselves and not even getting that the drummer must provide for the others. I got the impression he mostly played with drummers who were musical blowhards, or he wouldn't have said these things. He played with drummers, not musicians. Big difference. The guys he played with were more likely concerned that they were loud enough, that they got to express their "creativity" lol, and that they were cool. Not seeing the big picture, not even knowing a big picture exists.

It IS our job to make everyone sound good. Why is that a bad thing? If anyone complains about "just" keeping time....THEY AREN'T GETTING IT! They are missing the Mona Lisa's smile, the thing you can't put into words, the beauty. If a drummer has a problem with "just" keeping time, either he hasn't gotten past the "ego" stage...and can't forget himself long enough to realize that people are counting on him to lay down the road for them...and/or he doesn't understand what role the drums play in a band. It's not to be cool, that's for sure. That happens naturally when you do what you're supposed to do. The second you force things to satisfy a personal agenda....it ruins the vibe. The song is so not about the drums, even though the song would be not nearly the same without them. Drummers can't be selfish, they have to provide the rock solid foundation that will support a song, and be happy doing it. After THAT is provided....OK then you can get creative. But you can't get creative without having that foundation... there like air.

I vote to change the phrase from "keeping time" to "creating time". Creating great feeling time is not an easy thing to do, why do people minimalize it?
 
Screw em. Like I always say:

"Throw a stone... Hit a guitar player".

In other words, plenty more where he came from, and some of them are even decent musicians that understand how to work with a drummer.
 
I vote to change the phrase from "keeping time" to "creating time". Creating great feeling time is not an easy thing to do, why do people minimalize it?

Good points in your post.

I like "creating time".

Come to think of it, most drummers I have heard simply play along with the band. They don't own the tempo, they don't "create" the time like they should.


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"But you can't get creative without having that foundation... there like air."

I like to think of my playing as the rail upon which the rest of the band rides, never concerned about swerving off course!
 
Come to think of it, most drummers I have heard simply play along with the band. They don't own the tempo, they don't "create" the time like they should.

.

And therein lies the Mona Lisa's smile.
 
...I got the impression he mostly played with drummers who were musical blowhards, or he wouldn't have said these things.
Blowhards tend to play with blowhards ... that would be my guess.
The guys he played with were more likely concerned that they were loud enough, that they got to express their "creativity" lol, ...
And that's a bad thing because why? More importantly, why is okay for other musicians to express creativity and not the drummer? I've never understood this reasoning, and I think it's actually damaging to the art of drumming.
It IS our job to make everyone sound good. Why is that a bad thing?
Is there anyone in the band who's job *isn't* to make the whole sound good? Fire them immediately!

But real question here is who ever said making the band sound good was a bad thing? I've not seen that stated on this or any other thread. Not once. If you don't like the way some people play drums, that's fine. Do you think Vinnie has maturity issues when he blasts off? That's one of the things people hire him for, and no harm in practicing for that role if that's what turns you on, though for sure not on a blues gig. Time and place, and all that. Are you just talking about blues here?

If a drummer has a problem with "just" keeping time, either he hasn't gotten past the "ego" stage...and can't forget himself long enough to realize that people are counting on him to lay down the road for them...and/or he doesn't understand what role the drums play in a band.
What is this "ego" stage? You make it sound like ego is a bad thing. I happen to think that players need egos. The bigger the better. My ego would be badly bruised if I played inappropriately and stepped on others' toes or otherwise made a mess of things. I also never forget myself when playing - not when just laying it down, or tearing it all apart. Ego is a good thing if it can keep me from making a fool of myself and if it gives me the confidence to simultaneously follow the music and my muse in a way that sounds good.

The other thing about ego is this: you'll never make everyone happy with your playing, and to even try is to guarantee failure, so you might as well make yourself (and your properly-selected bandmates) happy. Think back to what made you start playing to begin with and keep that as your core principal. If sitting back in the shadows feathering the bass drum while "listening to the music" is what makes you happy, then go for it. That wouldn't make me happy and isn't what inspired me to take up drumming all those years ago. Then again, my kind of playing wouldn't make you happy, and that's cool too.

I'm sure my playing wouldn't make the Subject Guitarist happy either, but I'll lose no sleep over that, I promise. If you think my attitude toward drumming and music further sullies the reputation of our little fraternity ... well, I won't lose any sleep over that either.

The second you force things to satisfy a personal agenda....it ruins the vibe.
Maybe, maybe not. This kind of ties in with ego. I'm not exactly sure about what you mean by forcing things, but I'll assume you mean square pegs in round holes. That much we can agree on, but this reads more like, "leave your own ideas at the door." And "personal agenda" reads like a pejorative.

I definitely have a personal agenda, I admit it. In fact, I won't have it any other way. My personal agenda is to put the best drum part with the music that's what I'd want to hear as the voracious consumer of music I am. Sometimes that's laying all the way back; sometimes it's pulling out all the stops. I love watching/listening to drummers that just nail it, whatever that may be for a given piece of music. What I don't like is "phoning it in", executing rote memory exercises from the practice room as a substitute for creative inspiration, or dumbing it all down in some cynical attempt to meet some phantom expectation - possibly from some narcissistic guitar player not wanting to ever notice the drums.

The song is so not about the drums
What song is that? Some songs don't work without active and noticeable drum parts. This is such a broad statement, though I'll assume from this context that you're thinking drummers should devalue their creative role.

Drummers can't be selfish ...
Again, where did this come from? True, songs don't generally exist as vehicles for a drummer to solo over, but I don't see that that needs stating. That said, I don't believe that means drummers need to be so hyper-vigilant about withholding their DNA.

...After THAT is provided....OK then you can get creative. But you can't get creative without having that foundation...
True enough. If a drummer can only be solid OR creative, then of course: solid wins every single time.

But why is this as an either/or proposition? FWIW, I've always seen them as being on parallel developmental paths - not in series.
I vote to change the phrase from "keeping time" to "creating time". Creating great feeling time is not an easy thing to do, why do people minimalize it?
Ha ha! Why you gotta be getting all egotistical with "creating" time, when the time is already there just waiting for you to mark it?!! Just kidding (sort of).

Not that I DON'T (edit) think you're making very valid points, Larry, but this post was so rich with ideas ripped from just one cross-sectional aspect drumming, while ignoring many others, that I thought a little balance was in order. That, and I think this particular troll of a guitar player can go get bent!
 
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MikeM, thanks for saving me a lot of typing.

Agreed on all counts. Drummers tend to have an inferiority complex. There are many musical styles but we tend to talk as if there's only one role for drummers in all of them.
 
Mike we generally approach drumming from an opposite angle to one another, so there's not much to agree on, and that's great. The only thing I can do is call them like I see them in my own world. If I did a point by point counter to everything you said....I don't want to do that. I'm not looking for universal agreement, there is no such thing. So your points are all acknowledged. I very much disagree with almost every single point you made, but we know that already, and it's cool.

I know the "creative" thing gets your goat. As long as the foundation is there, for sure create away. In fact yes that is preferable in a huge way to someone who is all foundation and limited at really breathing life into the song. I'm not against creativity. As long as it elevates the song as opposed to weighing it down. There's good creative and bad creative. There's the rub. The problem I see is, most guys don't do the required thing (foundation) they just want to do the "creative" stuff. So it's ungrounded, and totally misses the mark. Vinny always has the songs back, bottom, sides and top and on top of all that he spins his magic, the epitome of a drummer.
 
Lazza, it looks like a "tribal" game that some musos play in response to the musically incompatible players they've come across. After all, one guitarist might think of a drummer as a ham fisted basher but another might enjoy the energy and power. A Thomas Pridgen disciple might not be the best fit in, say, an Air Supply tribute band. Connie Kay might not have been a great fit for Mars Volta either.

In rock, all instrumentalists can play without dynamics, out of time, fluff notes and overplay.That was pretty well rock and punk's roots - straight out of the garage, rough, spirited and informal. The teasing strikes me as trying to encourage certain behaviours from other players - in this case, a tacit suggestion for drummers to hold things down more solidly or smoothly and not drown out the bass, vocals or soloists.

I must have been lucky because every guitarist I've played with has had a good attitude towards drummers and my main jam buddy is a bit of a frustrated drummer and loves drums and drumming, and took Latin percussion lessons (congas and toys) for several years. But then again, I learned to hold back playing in a band at age 20 where our singer didn't have a strong voice and I needed to to control my volumes.

As Charlie Watts once suggested, it's difficult to maintain intensity and flow at low volume. Eve after 5 years with a loungey band I still feel like a long way to go to feel in control when trying to burn at low volume.
 
As a former full time guitarist, my thing with drummers (and what I endeavor to do as a drummer) is providing a foundation that you can count on. It's more than constant fills. It's changing the pattern constantly. Poor rhythm guitarists do this too. A soloist or singer needs to feel confident in what is going to happen behind them. Keep playing the same thing long enough that people know what to expect. A drummer suddenly altering or subdividing a beat. Or worse, stuffing in some poly-rhythmic fill, is like standing on two bowling balls on an ice rink. Most of your concentration goes to keeping track of where things are. There are folks with such an immense groove that they can get away with this stuff and you still feel confident that you will still be in the right place. Dennis Chambers comes to mind. Most folks trying this will derail the feel of the song leaving a soloist marking time waiting to see how it all comes out. Disrupting the flow of what they were in the middle of doing.

Having played a lot of blues, the other thing is lightswitch dynamics. A great blues guitar solo has an ebb and flow to the build. It sort of ratchets up in a sawtooth kind of thing. It's not a linear swell or sudden balls out wail. At least with a good player. A good solo will tease the audience, build anticipation for the payoff. Give them a hint only to snatch it away and make 'em wait for it. The drummer has to stay behind the soloists dynamics or they force them into the peak before they finished what they had to say. Too many folks are off to the races the minute 4 bars of breakdown have passed. The blues is one of those genres where "take your time" really means something.
 
A soloist or singer needs to feel confident in what is going to happen behind them. Keep playing the same thing long enough that people know what to expect. A drummer suddenly altering or subdividing a beat. Or worse, stuffing in some poly-rhythmic fill, is like standing on two bowling balls on an ice rink.

When the singer starts... the band has to take it down to a simple structure. Doing that underscores the lyric. Do this and you get a call back.
 
I have a hard time with this whole conversation. It seems like so many of you want drumming to be this linear thing where there are certain requirements that must be met to be "good". So many of my favorite bands have musicians that would be considered less than exceptional, but in their ignorance they created great music that didnt fit neatly into any catagory. Drumming doesnt have to be anything. It can be the Butthole Surfers two stand up drummers or Grotus' drummers beating on pots and pans. It can even be the Blue Man Group playing on PVP pipe. It can simply carry a rhythm or it can be a solo instrument, but to try and say that the drums MUST have dynamics or they HAVE to lay a foundation completely misses the point.

I play the drums in a very straightforward manner, and as a guitarist I prefer drummers who do the same. But I would never tell Sunn 0)))) that they need a drummer to lay a solid foundation in order to be a great band.
 
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