Studio Drummer – Less Is More

*LESS IS MORE!*

It’s often hard to understand this until you’ve played sessions for a long time.  But take my word for it.  It is the biggest rule of studio playing that you must learn to embrace.  

Listen to David Beal lay it down on Unchain My Heart by Joe Cocker.

Fantastically solid playing.  No frills and un-needed bells and whistles.

Just exactly what the song requires!

Listen to all the greats here.  The execution, the groove and effect of their playing is top shelf and yet most often you’ll find that there is very little going on.  You’ll notice the space.  The air in their playing.  The simplicity of the fills.  Yet what they’re playing is highly refined and perfect for the song.

Knowing what not to play is what takes the years of experience and refinement.  Of course this is not always the case and you’ll hear more complexity at times for differing types of music but it is the general rule.  I highly advise you to not try to reinvent the wheel here. 

Practice a state of mind when you listen to a song where you are truly listening to all aspects of the song.

Listen intently to the lyric of the song, the emotion of the song, the key points of emotion in the song.  Listen to the dynamic or the ebb and flow of the song.  Where does the song rise in emotion or intensity?  Are there points in the song that move you emotionally or where certain chord changes or melody or lyric move you that you could support, enhance or subtlety mark in your playing.  Very important!  Listen to the vocal and make note of key moments such as emotions, fills or entries where you don’t want to ‘walk on the vocal’ as they say, meaning that you don’t want to clutter or distract the listener. 

*YOU WANT TO SUPPORT AT ALL TIMES.*

Make note of rhythmic phrases that other melodic instruments are catching and understand and internalize the rhythmic phrase and make note of them on your chart.  For example make a musical decision in this case whether you’re going to strongly mark that rhythmic phrase or perhaps just catch elements of it.  Instead of adding crashes you could just catch the phrase with your bass drum while still grooving over top of it.  You might decide to allow the upper structure instruments to catch it and play right through it, which also may be the appropriate decision to make.  There are times when if everybody jumps on a phrase it becomes ponderous.

The more you think this way as a studio musician the more in step you are with the music, the artist and the producer.  This brings up another fact that

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Studio Drummer – Be A Lover Of Music

*YOU NEED TO BE VERY WELL VERSED IN ALL MAJOR STYLES OF MUSIC AND THEIR DISTINCT DRUMMING STYLES AND TUNINGS.*

If you’re a rock drummer start listening to the top country drummers.  Are there great country studio drummers?  You better believe there are, they’re killer!  Study the style, what makes them authentic? Remember! What you play means nothing if it’s not connecting intimately with the music.  It also means nothing if what you’re playing is stylistically wrong for that particular type of music.

What does that require of you? 

*YOU HAVE TO BE A STUDENT OF MUSIC, A LOVER OF MUSIC!*

You have to be, there is no other way.  You can’t short cut your way to being very spiritually connected to music that you’re suddenly involved with in a session.  You have to connect at a spiritual level and a great deal of that is just simply this: be a music lover.  

Notice I didn’t say a drum lover.  I said a music lover.  My personal belief is that you’re love of music should supercede your love of drumming.

You should also experience this on a session and I hope you do get to this point.  You should be able to say to the artist or producer, “I hear very little of my own involvement on this track or.. I don’t hear drums on this at all.” The reason being is that you’re listening to the song and in tune with what the song requires.

Again the song and the artist always come first.  The drum kit can be forefront and deserves to be at the appropriate time, but in the right context and the right musical situation.  When that is authentically the case it’s a very powerful experience and the instrument again comes into it’s own.  But when we’re supporting a song or an artist we are also powerful.

When I was in the touring band Idle Eyes I learned this lesson clearly.  It was near the end of the bands existence and I knew it.  I was getting bored having done so much road work.  I started to overplay.  The band we were touring with, Tom Cochrane and Red Rider had a great session drummer who came out on the road with them named Jorn Andersen from Toronto.

He came up to me after a show and said something very memorable to me that I never forgot. 

“Don’t try to make it something that it’s not!”

I knew immediately what he was saying!  He heard the overplaying and he heard me trying to play this pop music like a fusion drummer.  I decided at that point to take that to heart for the rest of my musical career.

The biggest golden rule of all…

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