learning a song (comfortably numb)

Jay2013

Junior Member
Hey Guys,
I just started playing drums and I was trying to learn comfortably numb by pink floyd and couldn't seem to understand the pattern for the bass drum, sometime its just one hit and seems that randomly he would hit it twice.. can someone explain to me if it really matters if I were to hit the bass drum twice sometimes rather than once.. do I need to play it exactly like the drummer does when it comes the bass pedal.. Thanks
 
Whatever you do, it should not be random. If it sounds random to you, listen again and try to figure out the pattern. The pattern is supposed to serve the song. The song is not random and so the pattern isn't either.

Apart from that, if you just started I would recommend:
Hit the bass drum once each time until you do that nice and regularly. This can take a few days or weeks.
Then hit it once, then twice, then, next measure, once then twice again, etc etc, and become fluent at that too.
Now you already know two basic beats. Maybe it's time to step back and ask yourself whay is the difference between the two beats, what is the effect on the listener and in what cases you would use one or the other. Experiment, fool around with them. Then learn a next beat. There is no "need to do it like the other drummer". Copying the other drummer may be a valid objective if it is realistic to do so at your beginner level, but whatever you do, don't do random things. Learn the basics.
 
When you start to study drum parts, especially for music other than pop rock, you'll find that there is not always a repeating pattern. Sometimes the drummers improvise. So there might not be a pattern in Comfortably Numb - if one is not readily apparent, I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to pattern-fit. He's probably just playing 2 when it feels right to him. In that case, you have two choices - either memorize when he plays 2, or do what he did and play 2 when it feels right to you. That's what I would do.

Eventually you will get a good feel for when 2 sounds right and when 1 sounds right. Many times you'll play along with the bass guitar, other times, you'll just play by feel. Learn some other songs too, those with defined patterns and those without. See how the feel changes, and notice how the kick drum parts accent other instruments, build intensity, etc.

Have fun learning and experimenting!
 
When you start to study drum parts, especially for music other than pop rock, you'll find that there is not always a repeating pattern. Sometimes the drummers improvise. So there might not be a pattern in Comfortably Numb - if one is not readily apparent, I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to pattern-fit. He's probably just playing 2 when it feels right to him. In that case, you have two choices - either memorize when he plays 2, or do what he did and play 2 when it feels right to you. That's what I would do.

Eventually you will get a good feel for when 2 sounds right and when 1 sounds right. Many times you'll play along with the bass guitar, other times, you'll just play by feel. Learn some other songs too, those with defined patterns and those without. See how the feel changes, and notice how the kick drum parts accent other instruments, build intensity, etc.

Have fun learning and experimenting!

Yea....very good answer. Pattern memorizing can be tedious and then sometimes not really serving the purpose to improve, thus, if you grab the authentic figures, for instance in this case 2 kicks....or in other cases maybe its an a1 or a3.. In some cases just learn the authentic kick sequence and if it is randomly used, then use it how you would.

Other songs like Immigrant Song would not follow that thinking....you gotta play the authentic sequence repeatedly
 
Not to derail this thread to much but I was looking at the sheet music you posted and Ih ave always had a question about half and whole notes that show up on the bass drum sometimes.

I am pretty new to drums but my understanding was that whole and half notes were really not made for drums since we cannot hold the note for a specific amount of time, is there some technique on the bass drum that actually allows the use of half and whole notes?

I noticed them on this song in bar 30, looks like it would go

1 + 2 e + 3 4 +
H H S HT FT S FT
B B

with both bass notes showing to me like a half note (open note with stem)
 
...
I am pretty new to drums but my understanding was that whole and half notes were really not made for drums since we cannot hold the note for a specific amount of time, is there some technique on the bass drum that actually allows the use of half and whole notes?
...

Treat the note value as indicating when the next note should start, without worrying that you cannot "hold" a note on a drum.

In the case you gave (bar 30 of the music linked above), bass drum hits on "1" and "3".
 
There's a ton of tunes where the drummer seems to have either changed his mind, or forgot what he was doing. In the case of Comfortably Numb, when I played it, I wouldn't even think abouth the bass drum part. Just keep it consistent with the way I started it. Like shemp said, if the bass drum part isn't too important or overpowering, nobody will even notice. In Comfortably Numb, the primary job is to just maintain the beat.
 
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