Al Heeley Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 Constant frustration for me as a bassist trying to get the drummer to keep steady tempo. One band I play with (middle of the road pop/blues stuff) has a more senier drummer and he's always sagging the pace, I find myself [i]willing[/i] him to play faster, ending up a little in front of the beat and making it sound less tight. The other band I play with is punk rock stuff, more powerful and fast, the drummer is quite young and always racing off getting faster and faster as the song progresses. It's quite a challenge playing Babylon's Burning at 150bpm. I find myself straining to will him to settle back and end up playing a little slow which again makes the sound less tight. I've tried the drums and I'm no good at it, but the wrong tempo really really bugs me.I got a tempo/metronome app on the ipod to try out next practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leschirons Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 (edited) We have had this problem for 6 months now, in two bands as it is the same drummer. I felt it had to be mentioned a while back but the guy had just lost his father unexpectedly so it was decided to say nothing at that point. It came to head when a couple of pros who were friends of our French guitarist both told him that it could be a great band if we changed the drummer. Our guitarist politely tried to tell him we had a problem (slowing down, sometimes before the intro had even finished) and basically he was told the HE was a guitarist, and I'M the drummer etc etc. A common problem, and I've only ever found this with drummers, is that they think because they've owned a kit for 15 years, they're good drummers. Anyway, I decided to go for it last week and confront the problem. (Just me and him) I did this using politcs and lies basically by telling him WE had a problem as a rhythm section and WE are slowing down. (I'm no Randy Hope Taylor and am aware of my shortcomings as a player but my timekeeping is good) Anyway, it worked. I gave him a spare metronome and he used it at rehearsal. I taped it to the hi-hat stand. The difference was amazing, not perfect as it takes getting used to using a met whilst in a band situation but we're well on the way. I have had a unit built that plugs into the headphone socket and sends a signal that lights up 4 white LEDs on a separate unit so the whole band can keep an eye on the tempo. These problems are common and the main reason they don't get solved is the friendship and feelings issue. No-one likes to be criticised about their abilty and it's a delicate situation when a band has got together for the sole reason of having fun. Personally, I welcome constructive crticism as I see it as part of the road to improvement. Edited January 21, 2010 by leschirons Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4000 Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 A little extra momentum as a song progresses I can live with far easier than slowing down, which I generally abhor. Sadly that's been one of my problems with Rush live, because the times I've seen them they've tended to do it. However Bilbo's comments about organic timekeeping are (as I would expect) right on the button. Music doesn't have to be metronomic; in fact I'm sure if you put a metronome against most of the great albums you'd find they were all out to some degree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimR Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 One issue I had with the drummer in my last band was that he thought to make anything sound better we had to play it faster. (I believe this is known is most pro circles as "the amateurs disease" or similar) It came to a head one night when we ended up listening to the original of Walking on Sunshine because I was fed up with playing it so fast, and him saying it was still not fast enough. A quick trick is to count the number of beats in 6 seconds and multiply by 10. So after a couple of bars I said it was somewhere between 100 and 110. I didn't really care whether we played it at 100, 110 or even 120 I just wanted a definitive tempo rather than his attempts at playing it faster each time to try to get it sounding 'good', to the point that singer couldn't get the words out and people couldn't dance to it. He disagreed with 110 straight away and said it had to be much faster, then continually speeded up his metronome to try to get it to match. Eventually he got it up to 180 before giving up and trying again from 100, finding something close and giving one of those looks people give when they've been proved completely wrong and still can't admit it. Another thing he used to do was go with the bass, so if I played behind the beat he slowed and if I played ahead he speeded up. He would then complain I was rushing or dragging. His background was marching band where everyone plays on the beat! But he was solid, start it fast and keep it fast regardless, which meant that there was no lift for the chorus and then drop back for the verse or any other subtleties like that, certainly no slowing, even if it was obviously too fast to start with. Once the tempo was set, it was set. In the latest band the drummer sings some numbers and has a habit of slowing during the songs he sings if there is a syncopated bass drum, and he also has a habit of compensating for the guitar solos that slow down and speed up. We've sort of got round the singing by getting him to play straight bass drum and let me worry about the syncopation on the bass. The guitarist needs to practice his solos, I'll find away of broaching that subject soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mykesbass Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 (edited) [quote name='bilbo230763' post='719973' date='Jan 21 2010, 11:49 AM']There is one drummer in Suffolk who is legendary amongst other drummers for his technical skills[/quote] Who be that, boy? (in my best Ipswich accent)! I saw a drummer working with a device called the Beat Bug - it registered his snare beats and let him know if he was wandering. The guy was scarily accurate. Would strongly reccomend them to anyone who is fanatical about time keeping. Edited January 22, 2010 by Mykesbass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I'm very lucky, in that [i]all[/i] the drummers I've played with in the last 15 years or so have been rock solid and metronomic (but not at the expense of feel, thankfully). There have been a couple of ropey ones in my dim distant past though. Springsteen's 'Born To Run' speeds up quite dramatically throughout its length. [quote name='Mykesbass' post='720837' date='Jan 22 2010, 09:30 AM']I saw a drummer working with a device called the Beat Bug - it registered his snare beats and let him know if he was wandering. The guy was scarily accurate. Would strongly reccomend them to anyone who is fanatical about time keeping.[/quote] IIRC, when Phil Gould was with the increasingly sequencer-laden Level 42, he never played to a click track... he didn't need to because his timing is uncannily accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcrow Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 variations in tempi go hand in hand with dynamics you mentioned classical music this is the land of varying tempi and definately well noted dynamics we usually wind down a song at a slower speed...over a few bars but try to keep the same tempo going throughout the most common failing is speeding up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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