I was reading a post over at the House Of Drumming about non-drummers and their opinion of who is a good drummer. There have been times that I was really surprised by the answers, mostly because I had not heard of the drummer's name before! I just sort of thought everyone automatically answered Vinnie!
I guess other musicians have other criteria. Sometimes I have heard comments about a certain drummer's "energy" or "feel." Often I would leave the conversation just scratching my head trying to reconcile what they might have meant.
I remember one time in particular, before we started the Saturday Night Life service at Calvary Chapel of Redlands. It was a particularly rich time musically in my life, as I was in the right place at the right time. Many seasoned players were lining up to play and I was the young player who was the beneficiary of their desire to make good music. Well, we were working on a tune that we had been playing for a couple of weeks. That night, Al Cablay, a man responsible for getting me a job at the time, and for getting me on one of my favorite gigs of all time, came and suggested that we play the tune again. But this next time, we should do it with a shuffle. Prior to this, I had had not suggestions or complaints. But what was worse was that I had never even heard of a shuffle!
They described it with the usual ackward physical description. Then with the "it sounds like..." attempt. In my attempt to approximate what I was hearing, I realized that there was a whole foreign thing happening that was not working for me.
I walked away, angry at Al for making his LOUSY SUGGESTION, but then I resolved that I would learn how to play a shuffle. I asked a few of the guys in the band what I should listen to. They pointed me in a few directions and I went and bought about 4 albums that had famous shuffles on them. A week later, after furious practice, I came back and conquered.
But the point is, I had to get into the minds of other musicians to see what it took for me to be the drummer I needed to be at that moment. And they introduced me to names that THEY believed were names I needed to know.
Since that time, I have done everything I could to know who my worship leader's favorite drummers were. I have asked for reference points or just keenly listened to conversations about music. I can remember several times, sitting around a pizza, and some person would say, "Hey, have you got the new..." and they would talk, but I would make my plan to go and get that album ASAP!
This really accomplishes several things: First, you bond with your worship leader. You experience music with him/her on a different level where neither is involved in the making, but both are involved in the enjoyment. Second, you gain an insight into what is important to that worship leader's ears. You'll find that he/she has no interest in how fast your singles are or how many 5/3 groupings you can pull off! Third, and I think this is the most important thing: You gain a vocabulary of tunes with which to reference for communication sake. For example, you can do away with the "just play beesh badda badda beesh badda ding dong" and trade that in for "I'm thinking of that groove on "so and so's" album." Now you have really begun to work together.
As a worship leader myself, I have often really appreciated when the drummers I had around me shared my interests. It made working together that much more enjoyable for the both of us.
Hope this helps.
Blessings,
Frank
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