How can you tell a good drummer and a bad drummer apart?

[cheddatom]

Deftones used to play about with tempo quite a bit too, you'd never say they weren't "solid"

Edited September 14, 2016 by cheddatom

[skej21]

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1473848321' post='3133514']


Thing is, there's keeping time, and there's keeping time with the band.

Listen to any live footage of Guns n Roses during their first album. Steve Adler is not a rock solid time keeper, but they slow and speed up as a band, which kind of adds to what they were doing.
[/quote]

I probably should've phrased that as 'dictating time'... Fluctuations and a rubato feel are fine as long as it's clear that one person is leading and you know who to follow. You can't have more than one person dictating time or it just gets too loose and sloppy. One person needs to be setting the time and the others playing off it IMO. I always prefer that to be the drummer.

[cheddatom]

most of the bands I've played in seem to all follow the same time/groove. No one person is setting the tempo, we're all just working together off the same tempo, or at least after the count-in or intro we are

[Dan Dare]

Good drummers make you smile and make everything feel right with the world. It's no effort to play with them. Poor ones make everything a chore - you play harder to try to nail down and emphasise the timing and finish the gig with blisters...

[scalpy]

Can't remember who said it but they were referring to Cindy Blackman

A good drummer keeps time, a great drummer creates time.