What are you playing today? (Music not gear)

River19

Senior Member
So we have the venerable threads of "latest purchase", "what are you listening to" etc. but I can't recall one for "What are you playing today?" so I figured I would throw it out there......

Since we all are players and while the 100s of threads on gear clearly are fun to chat about I was curious what everyone plays day in and day out.

By "plays" I mean what are you playing to music-wise?
Is there a set list you are burning through?
Are you currently gigging day in, day out so you are only playing a very specific song list for a period of time?
Are you working on specific patterns, skills, feels etc.?
Are you playing some of your favorite tunes that make you smile? (remember this playing things is supposed to be fun to some extent)

For example.....my wife headed to the barn about 8:30am (we have a horse....long story) so that means "play time" for me. I didn't have any work meetings until later this morning so........I worked on a track some dude in Germany sent me but the guys time is all over the place on the track and I'm working on a way to break that to him politely. I then burned through a great set of Roomful of Blues tunes.......all this talk about swinging etc lately got me hankering for some burning blues horn sections etc.

So.....what are you playing today?
 
this is my ever evolving playlist


and this is what I always warm up with

 
Im in a weird phase of my life where Im starting to like some of the music coming out of Nashville, so Ive been removing the drums and playing along to that kind of music which is very different considering I grew up listening to Zeppelin, Tool, Neil Young and then Moved into Punk/hardcore in my early 20's. So just a new Phase of learning how to play a different style of music.
 
Im in a weird phase of my life where Im starting to like some of the music coming out of Nashville, so Ive been removing the drums and playing along to that kind of music which is very different considering I grew up listening to Zeppelin, Tool, Neil Young and then Moved into Punk/hardcore in my early 20's. So just a new Phase of learning how to play a different style of music.

Outstanding.

I also grew up on Zep, 60s/70s/80s "hard rock" and "classic rock" stuff including the whole glam metal phase in the mid to late 80s then onto "Grunge" etc. But also listened to a ton of "country" kinda the first wave of "new country" with Garth, Alan Jackson, etc. Nashville now is just a "music city" that does a little of everything with the core being associated with country.

But I still maintain that the "country" genre has been turned into a catch all for anything clearly not Top 40 pop or metal etc. But guys like Stapleton etc are just straight blues rock with some country soul IMHO. To me, if the Eagles came out today, they would be played on country radio......but we consider them "classic rock".

I think as drummers we naturally migrate to the genre's using actual drummers and a lot of that comes out of Nashville today.......whatever the heck you want to label the music......
 
I started playing to jazzand Motown stuff back in the mid 70's as a kid, then added on Rush, Styx and Kansas as I got older, and then diid the deep dive into metal and hardcore punk in the 80's as a teen. Added more "funky" stuff like Primus and Fishbone in the 90's...also expanded on jazz playing...

also did the whole school band, marching band thing, and have been a band director for a living the whole time. Did the college Music Ed degree etc, so I am also into orchestral percussion as well
 
Our band is working up Off The Wall by Michael Jackson, super fun song to play on drums!

that whole album was a play along staple of my 4thh and 5th grade years!!!! The Jackson 5 was my first ever concert back in '74ish
 
My band is working in a new Bass player, it is a Blues band so, lotsa 12 bar shuffles but also originals, some funk and a little rock.
 
We are just getting ready to release our new album and tour for in June - so we're running a set that kind of blends the new songs with the old songs. Those are all jazz/hip hop/funk/jam things. The new album is a lot more esoteric though so it's got some odd time stuff (as you would imagine based on the title) - which is tricky to be funky on and certainly a challenge for our rapper.

We also just won a huge grant for a show we do called "The Spirit Coalescent" - it's a stage show that mixes photography, art, poetry, dance - we just did two shows for that - then we go to this community in colorado for two weeks and the grant pays for another showing, but more importantly it pays for us to get a set of artists from there to create their OWN "Spirit Coalescent". That music is nothing like anything I've done before....a lot of it is like tribal sounding toms - there's a part where I sort create a thunder storm on the drums - another part that is a jazz ballad - it's very theatrical.

Next up we have a project working with South African Musicians - it's fusing north american indigenous music with music from four of their tribes - so it's a mixture of traditional Navajo melodies infused with a little tiny bit of jazz - we provided 6 tracks from the North America - and they are sending us 6 tracks which we haven't heard yet. We head down to South Africa in October to rehearse with the musicians and play tour it in addition to our normal band stuff and play at the WOMAD Festival - so we'll get to play with Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music and we get to at least meet Peter Gabriel, who helped set this all up.

I'm recording a lofi album with a group in a couple months - so I'm deep diving into that style of playing and how to emulate some of those kinds of beats on the drums.

Not too long after the lofi album - I head into the Studio with a couple of guys from my band and Tony Garnier (Bob Dylan's long time bassist / musical director) to record a couple tracks if not a whole little album - so I'm been listening to a lot more of the stuff he does outside of Dylan - his work with guys like Shawn Pelton from SNL, etc. to try and de-jazz/funk so hard and maybe get a little more blues in for that project.


So kind of a mixture of stuff all over the board, jazz/funk/hip hop, show stuff, jazz/indigenous/african, jazz/blues, lofi.
 
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I’ve been on a deep dive into Don Williams for 6-8 months now and have become near-obsessed with the discipline of the drum parts in his music. It’s a worthwhile pursuit for me, as I can directly apply that influence to my own musical situation. I was already 90% there with my approach but being aware of that extra 10% with the drum part discipline has improved my playing and focus on “the song”.

I’m playing with a top shelf singer/songwriter in Bakersfield. We’re averaging anywhere from 12-15 gigs per month, ranging from background music at wine bars and restaurants to large private events and festivals. This variety of gig experience has given me a couple lifetimes of things to work on. From honing the actual physical sound of my instruments, playing with consistency, simplifying without dumbing down, and making it feel the best I possibly can, there is never a shortage of challenges.
 
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Outstanding.

I also grew up on Zep, 60s/70s/80s "hard rock" and "classic rock" stuff including the whole glam metal phase in the mid to late 80s then onto "Grunge" etc. But also listened to a ton of "country" kinda the first wave of "new country" with Garth, Alan Jackson, etc. Nashville now is just a "music city" that does a little of everything with the core being associated with country.

But I still maintain that the "country" genre has been turned into a catch all for anything clearly not Top 40 pop or metal etc. But guys like Stapleton etc are just straight blues rock with some country soul IMHO. To me, if the Eagles came out today, they would be played on country radio......but we consider them "classic rock".

I think as drummers we naturally migrate to the genre's using actual drummers and a lot of that comes out of Nashville today.......whatever the heck you want to label the music......
Yea Chris Stapleton is what got me started down this rabbit hole. Which lead me to guys like Sturgill Simpson, Billy Strings, Arlo Mckinnley, Tyler Childers and even stuff like Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan & Ernest.

I feel like there is a revival of back to basics music in Nashville. Bro Country is dying (thank god) and stuff with a little more feeling from guys who write the music the sing.

I just went and saw Tool in Louisville, Rise against in my hometown of Cincy, Morgan Wallen in Nashville and was supposed to see Chris Stapleton and Marcus king in Nashville but my kids got Covid and I had to cancel.

I used to think you had to pick a genre and stick inside that box but as I’m getting older I realize I have a place for all the music I’ve been into over my life
 
I’ve been on a deep dive into Don Williams for 6-8 months now and have become near-obsessed with the discipline of the drum parts in his music. It’s a worthwhile pursuit for me, as I can directly apply that influence to my own musical situation. I was already 90% there with my approach but being aware of that extra 10% with the drum part discipline has improved my playing and focus on “the song”.

I’m playing with a top shelf singer/songwriter in Bakersfield. We’re averaging anywhere from 12-15 gigs per month, ranging from background music at wine bars and restaurants to large private events and festivals. This variety of gig experience has given me a couple lifetimes of things to work on. From honing the actual physical sound of my instruments, playing with consistency, simplifying without dumbing down, and making it feel the best I possibly can, there is never a shortage of challenges.
I had a similar informing when I played a show of George Jones tunes, good stuff to know.
 
I really like jamming along to dance club music here lately. Single tempo simplicity. It's like a driving metronome with words. I can play damn near anything I want over the top of them because of this.

The stuff I jam along to constantly changes. Tomorrow could be metal, thursday disco, friday hip hop, saturday classic rock. Who knows really, it's just what I feel like on that particular day.
 
Yea Chris Stapleton is what got me started down this rabbit hole. Which lead me to guys like Sturgill Simpson, Billy Strings, Arlo Mckinnley, Tyler Childers and even stuff like Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan & Ernest.

I feel like there is a revival of back to basics music in Nashville. Bro Country is dying (thank god) and stuff with a little more feeling from guys who write the music the sing.

I just went and saw Tool in Louisville, Rise against in my hometown of Cincy, Morgan Wallen in Nashville and was supposed to see Chris Stapleton and Marcus king in Nashville but my kids got Covid and I had to cancel.

I used to think you had to pick a genre and stick inside that box but as I’m getting older I realize I have a place for all the music I’ve been into over my life

Awesome !!! The Stapleton/Marcus King show will be killer. I really dig Marcus and his band.....along with Tedeschi Trucks (which I think falls into a similar music category). I also love Sturgill's stuff. What Miles Miller has done on Sturgill's tunes is subtle in its awesomeness......I covered a few of his songs a few years back and those really groove and it is all about the feel with them.

Awesome stuff guys.......keep it coming !!!!
 
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Been listening to the final mix of my band's latest album almost the whole day, this is going to be epic.... (in my opinion, of course). Much more satisfied this time around than with the first album, allthough it was well received and got a lot of praise as well. September can't come fast enough, then I will share some music with you guys 😎.

Other than that we start practicing our setlist for our show with At The Gates in the end of the month, all originals except for the last one, Sodom - Agent Orange is going to wrap up our set. So naturally those songs gets into the playlist...
 
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Practicing some classic country originals before heading down to play House of Blues in Myrtle Beach this weekend (Friday AND Saturday night!).

Here's one of our originals (if you've not seen the video yet).

 
Great song, great video, great playing! Was that really all one take? I only noticed one place where I thought you might have been able to cut to another take. How many takes did it...take?

Yup, it's a one-take video. It took two afternoons.
 
Yup, it's a one-take video. It took two afternoons.
I always thought your band sounded great. When you picked up your Ludwigs I finally started to come around on the Maples......they really are a great sounding kit. For some reason I am preprogrammed by growing up in the 80s to dislike Ludwig as what they were producing then was "meh" and all the marketing hype on Pearl, Tama, Yamaha, Sonor etc got to me. But today's Luddy's sound fantastic.......they really do.
 
I am lucky in that the two bands I play regularly with play very different music . My Rock/Pop/country trio The Kingfishers had a book of about 300 tunes we can pull out of a hat . We never use set lists and just wing it every gig . We have a four piece version of the band as well and play additional songs with that incarnation as well .

I play in a 21 piece Big Band and we do the Classic American Songbook type songs as well as a lot of Latin and Rock tunes . We go from Glen Miller to Count Basie , Thad Jones , Sergio Mendes to Weather Report . All reading charts gig which keeps my reading chops up . It is challenging driving the Big Band Bus .

same here.

My country/rockabilly band has about 100 songs right now
the jazz band has about the same
my original lo-fi/surf punk band has about 200 originals, though we really only have about 75 rehearsed at any time
my original metal band has about 50, but we just started with a new line up last fall
 
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