Playing for unplugged sessions

iTranscend

Junior Member
We are currently planning a few unplugged sessions with my band, which has proven to be quite a challenge for me as the drummer. Normally, I tend to play with quite a lot of power and energy as we are a rock band, but the challenge now is not only that I'm gonna have to lower the volume of my playing to a level that the other instruments can be heard without any amps, but I also have to tone down my playing and simplify it quite a lot. Do you have any ideas for how this can be reached? Playing with brushes or some other kind of stick? Changing my kit for like bongos or something like that?

Worth mentioning is that we are of course gonna put more emphasis on our ballads, but we are also going to play some of our songs that have a lot of energy. Do you have any experience with approaching and rewriting these kinds of songs in such a fashion, and with maintaining the intensity of the playing without hitting hard and often?
 
I have done this many times for live Radio shows, etc.
I just use a Jazz kit.
4 piece with an 18 inch bass and only a ride, small thin crash, and hats.
I use 7a maple wood tip sticks and plastic brushes.

Play what you normally play, just play it lighter.
 
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A dowel bundle, such as Pro-Mark Hot Rods or Vic Firth Rutes, can help you bring the volume down to a level between sticks and brushes without feeling like you are tapping the drums. If it's really low volume, invest in some brushes. I also keep a bunch of very light sticks, such as VF SD5 Echos, around for those gigs. They're so light, they break if you play them too hard - kind of built-in volume control.

Learning to play with intensity while controlling your volume is a great development tool.
 
Check out the Nirvana MTV unplugged videos on youtube. Dave Grohl (definitely a hard hitting drummer) is using wire brushes in that video, plus he's also changed his playing style to be much quieter than it normally would be.

Another option if brushes are just *too* quiet for the gig is to use "hot rods":

promark%20hotrods.jpg


Also known as rute or bundle sticks. They produce a sound kind of similar to the one Dave has in that nirvana video, but they are a little louder than brushes.

Yet another third option would be, like you said, replacing your drums with another instrument. You could try a cajon drum: Cajon Video It's a fairly inexpensive, easy-to-learn instrument that can imitate the sound of rock drumming on a drum set. I've been using one a lot recently, they're great for acoustic gigs and casual jam sessions. There's a lot of threads here on drummerworld about buying cajons, how to play cajons, etc. if you want more information.
 
Any time I've done this I've used a pair of Hot Rods, and scaled back my kit to as basic as possible.

At times, I managed to borrow a small conga to augment what I had.
 
Me, unplugged, in 1996, or 97

nde17.jpg


Two 10" splash cymbals on a DW hi-hat clamp used a closed hi-hat, a 16" crash used as a crash-ride, a mounted tambourine and my normal snare drum. Played with Promark Hot Rods.

The "bass drum" is a 12" tom, with the bottom head removed, with a small piece of foam, mounted on normal tom clamp at a 90 degree angle. Because I used a DW pedal with a base plate and velco, and was plying super lightly, I was able to get away with the pedal not attached to the drum. I must have had a small piece of carpet (or maybe the stage had carpet, I don't recall) so the velco of the pedal held to that rather than the drum.

Other than once cover we threw in for that show, we played out normal set. I just had to adapt the parts to not having any toms, and the fact that we weren't playing at our usual all amps on 11, high energy show.
 
There's no need to rewrite your songs, buy new drums, or use different sticks to play at a softer volume. All you need to do is practice playing at softer dynamics. It may be challenging at first, but if you practice playing softer dynamics for a prolonged period of time you will become very comfortable with it. It will also make you a better musician (something that buying a new drum or stick will not do)!

Now, if you want to change the textures and tones of the songs and wish to achieve this through new drums or sticks than by all means do that. But don't be fooled into thinking that the instruments and implements you currently have aren't capable of playing soft dynamics; they are, you just need to practice playing softer.
 
That is very true Inspired Drummer,
I played many an unplugged gig with a standard 22 inch bass drum kit and hickory 7a sticks.

I only began using my jazz kit along with maple sticks for this sort of thing a few years ago.
I owned a small kit so I used it.

I found a track from a low volume radio live gig that I played with a standard sized kit and standard sticks.
 

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There's no need to rewrite your songs, buy new drums, or use different sticks to play at a softer volume. All you need to do is practice playing at softer dynamics. It may be challenging at first, but if you practice playing softer dynamics for a prolonged period of time you will become very comfortable with it. It will also make you a better musician (something that buying a new drum or stick will not do)!

Now, if you want to change the textures and tones of the songs and wish to achieve this through new drums or sticks than by all means do that. But don't be fooled into thinking that the instruments and implements you currently have aren't capable of playing soft dynamics; they are, you just need to practice playing softer.

Valid point.

Most of my "unplugged" gigs were at coffee houses, where their physically just was no room for a bass drum, let along a full kit. I had no choice but to strip down to bare minimum.
 
I am a big fan of the cajon. Like others have said, it's easy to learn, and I would add easy to adapt to your playing style. Audiences love it, and it allows you to get pretty intense energy-wise while maintaining coffee shop volumes. Sometimes with my band which is usually acoustic, electric/piano, bass, and drums will do acoustic gigs. The AG stays the same, electric guy will do just piano, I'll play cajon, and the bass player (who also sings harmony) does shaker eggs. You may need to teach them proper technique. I did ;) Plus setup and tear down takes two seconds.
 
There's no need to rewrite your songs, buy new drums, or use different sticks to play at a softer volume. All you need to do is practice playing at softer dynamics. It may be challenging at first, but if you practice playing softer dynamics for a prolonged period of time you will become very comfortable with it. It will also make you a better musician (something that buying a new drum or stick will not do)!

Now, if you want to change the textures and tones of the songs and wish to achieve this through new drums or sticks than by all means do that. But don't be fooled into thinking that the instruments and implements you currently have aren't capable of playing soft dynamics; they are, you just need to practice playing softer.

This really depends on the style of the music. For instance, if this was something extreme like a death-metal or speed-punk style band playing, you actually do need to adjust your playing style, and depending on the room, etc, it may be impossible to play songs the way they are normally played. I'm all about playing with dynamics, and I agree with what you said most of the time, but there are certainly times when you can't actually use a regular kit with regular sticks and play songs the regular way, no matter how awesome you are at controlling your dynamics.

I also want to take a moment to vote for cajon as something that EVERY drummer should have in their arsenal, whether or not they use it often. It is amazing the stuff I have done with it. I am actually playing a musical at a threatre in January just using cajon. The theatre is too small to have more than just piano usually, but because I approached them about cajon, I now get to play there. Good times.
 
Check out the Lidwish bass drum beater. It will let you play more normally but keep the volume down. You can use their sticks, brushes or cane sticks but if you are used to playing "powerfully" it's hard to keep a kick down when you are hitting the drums normally with Hot Rods.

My favorite rod thing are the Vic Firth Steve Smith Tala Wand. They have a foam core with the rods around the outside. Much less of that thwacky brush sound than regular rod bundles.
 
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