Drummers

 

Have you ever played with drummers? Not those folks who play in the back of orchestras banging on pipes and cowbells and kettledrums. Those guys are ‘percussionist’. Not the folks who dress up in military knock-offs and walk up and down a football field banging on drums. That is a ‘drum line’.

I’m talking about the person in the back of a band (dance, rock, heavy metal) with a drum kit.  A drum kit is a big bass drum facing sideways so it can be hit with a foot pedal, a snare drum that is all that is needed to keep the beat, a bunch of tom-toms in various sizes assembled around the bass drum and one or more metal cymbals to accent.

The drummer keeps the beat so the drummer sets the pace for the band to play. This makes drummers necessary because the trumpeter and the violins cannot keep the beat by patting their feet together. A drum beat or drum pattern is a rhythmic pattern, or repeated rhythm establishing the meter and groove through the pulse and subdivision.

While the conductor swings the baton, that is more for direction like a traffic cop. Sometimes the conductor is ahead of the ‘beat’ to bring the attention to the next movement. Sometimes the conductor increase the volume of one section while quieting another then signaling when the chorus should chime in. The conductor has enough to do so it is up to the drummer to keep the beat.

I’ll reference the drummer who gives the dance beat to clubs or festivals. The drum kit hasn’t changed that much since the jazz band days. The different beats are 4/4 or 3/4 or 7/8 and then some. There is a Standard 8th note groove, Four to the floor, Shuffle groove, 16th note groove, 12/8 groove, Motown groove, Half-time groove, Disco groove, Jazz ostinato, Half-time shuffle and many more.

Every dance has a certain beat from Bossa Nova to Disco to Reggae. Drummers can speed it up or slow it down depending on the crowd and the time of night.  Without a drummer keeping the beat, couples would just bounce around bumping into each other randomly.

What makes a drummer so special that they get put up on a riser above the rest of the band? They are the loudest of all the instruments until the amplifiers are turned up. The drummer might be behind everyone else but they get to wave their arms around and create attention-getting antics while making their noise.

The drummer also gets to sit down. All the rest of the band (sans the keyboard player) has to stand up through the entire show. Would you go see a show where AC/DC sat down?

During the quiet ballads the drummer gets to climb down off the throne and take a break. Have a drink, bite to eat, change of clothing (all that twirling sticks works up a sweat) and impress some of the girls before climbing back up and starting the next song with a 1-2-3-4.

The drummer also gets all the girls. The singer and the drummer are chick magnets. While all us string benders and pluckers are out their creating the melody, filling the gaps, and sparking the fireworks with feedback, at the end of the show we get passed by for the folks that hit stuff just like we all did on the kitchen floor with mom’s pots and pans when we were three.

Now I have friends who are drummers. With almost every gig I played, there was a drummer. I’ve even attempted to slap the skins now and then.

My pet peeve with drummers is all their stuff. That pile of drums and sticks and brushes and cases and the list goes on and on. With the anticipation of playing for an audience, the guitarist finds an extension cord and plugs in the guitar and we are ready to go. The drummer has to set up.

Placing all the stands in just the right spot, tightening drum heads with a special key, angling the toms and the cymbals then rearranging everything to find just the perfect position to bang on. The rest of us stand around as if watching a car under construction. We can try to stall by working the crowd with silly stories that only bores everyone or tuning our instruments that will go out of tune as soon as we start strumming.

Once we get the approval from the drummer that everything is just right, we hear the taps of the sticks and the countdown to start the show.

At the end of the show, we plop our axes into road weary cases and unplug the still warm amps and toss everything in the trunk while the drummer has some little girl sitting behind his kit letting her get the thrill of beating on a drum. Hope he has his own ride for it will take another hour to tear down and disassemble his stuff.

A ‘drummer’ used to be a masculine macho position but anyone with rhythm can keep the beat. It doesn’t matter if you are tall or short, black or white or male or female or any variation, a drummer can play soft with microphones picking up every flick of the wrist or electronic pads than can make any sound imaginable.

Everyone should have the opportunity to sit behind a drum kit and take a whack at it. It will release inner emotions and is good exercise.

I have a full drum kit upstairs. Everyone boy needs a drum kit.