Good tips, Dan, to which I'd add (if I may): - use fills to signal structural changes, such as chord changes/modulation, start and finish of verse/chorus/bridge. If you can't think of a fill, try dropping all the drums out for a bar or just leaving the hats going or anything, really! Keep it fresh and surprising, as long it stays appropriate to your song. - remember most drummers have a maximum of four limbs! - drum tuition books are better for learning about timing and feel, than tab books, imo. The book I love is Toro's "Ten Commandments of R'nB drumming" and it is almost entirely practice pieces, with a few bits of tab for illustrative purposes. Also recommended "Play Rock'n Roll Drums" by Joel Rothman, WISE Publications and Christopher Norton's "Essential Guide to Pop Styles for Keyboard", Boosey and Hawkes. Yes, Keyboard, but it also sketches in drum accompaniment possibilites for each style, which are very good for building your chops, on using Doggiebox. I'll shut up now. Adrian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Costello" <stellaswindow@earthlink.net> To: <doggiebox@lists.zygoat.ca> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 7:10 AM Subject: [Doggiebox] "D'oh! 4/4 rock beat again!?!" syndrome
On 02/02/2005, at 6:21 PM, adrian.delso@btopenworld.com wrote:
if you write songs, then I would strongly recommend that you always write your drum parts, afresh every time.
Strongly agree. Especially if you want the song to have its own groove... and a big part of the defining characteristics of a groove is how well the bass and other instruments interact with a drum track. My feeling is that if the drum track is a stock beat, the whole song will either fit it and sound stock as well (which is OK if you WANT that... but don't settle for it if that's NOT what you want), or fight against it (in a bad way) and be mushy. I understand the speed concerns, though... something else upon which I'd like to comment later. And yes, I agree with Carl that programming published drum TABs can be educational... as long as it's used for good, not for evil. Learn from them, then build your own that fit your songs even better.
Three suggestions to get away from the typical 4/4 rock beat: 1. Switch a snare drum hit with a bass drum hit in the same place (or two) all the way through the pattern, or just leave one out. (ex. instead of "bass- snare- bass- snare" each measure, try "bass- bass- bass- snare" or "bass- snare- snare- bass" or "bass- .....- bass- snare" etc.) 2. Write lines two bars at a time. So instead of each measure being basically the same... "bass- snare- bass- snare" think in terms of a longer pattern to be repeated: "bass- snare- bass- bass snare- bass- bass- snare" 3. Expand each measure within DB (creating more subdivisions of each beat), and put the bass drum ANYWHERE but beat THREE. "B / / / S / / B / B B / S / B /" "1 / / / 2 / / / 3 / / / 4 / / /"
Hope this helps. DC ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zygoat Doggiebox discussion list - <http://www.doggiebox.com> To unsubscribe, view archives or change your options: <http://lists.zygoat.ca/mailman/listinfo/doggiebox>