Your Thoughts upon Dynamics in Bassdrum playing.

[DPFRD]

Well, if you're playing music, there has to be dynamics and control of them. One thing I know, there are a hell of a lot more cats that use dynamics in their kicks than just Steve Gadd. That observation alone would send me on a hunt for a new teacher.
You have to look at it in context to what you're playing. You're not going to be slamming the kick in an acoustic jazz trio, cause it will sound like shit and cover up the whole band.

One possibility for the fleeting energy and groove within the band when you modified the dynamics could be your comfort level. If you're really used to playing the kick in one way, and then are told to modify that, it could cause subtle changes in your feel that the band could really pick up on.

Trumpets and trombones and whoever don't just play loud all the time, so why should we? I'm sure there were dynamics written in the chart, and I'm sure none of the markings had an *except in kick drum- written next to them.

The frustration just come with new concepts, I myself was working on kick dynamics recently. I played my kick in accordance to the dynamic markings, but I had to learn how to play heels down in order to get really soft p's pp's. My feel evaporated when I first tried this, but once I got comfortable, it was on.

Dynamics are an all important factor in making music, so if you shun them, even in only one voice, you start to take away from the music.

One of my old percussion instructors told me a story about John Bonham, arguably one of the biggest kick drum sounds ever.

He said he saw it on a vid of the session for When the Levy Breaks (this song title has dawned a new meaning recently). He said they were recording and after word the engineer said the kick drum was too loud. Well, since Bonham recorded using the room sound, there was no simple twist of a dial or slide of a slider to fix, so Bonham sat down retracked the thing with the kick just a little bit softer perfectly. There's another dude that used dynamics in his kick.

IMO I would start practicing using dynamics, cause it will make a better musician out of you, and you will be able to work with people better if they ever need you to lay off the kick.

[Klemme]

Thanks for the Reply man!

Well one thing for sure, i'm not gonna fire my Drum Teacher, I love him [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'm aware of dynamics in jazz-Situations etc. I just never thought of Linear Dynamic progression in contemporary Pop/Funk/R'n'B. And yeah, i wasn't comfortable playing in with another dynamic punch on the bassdrum, and therefor it changed the groove completely. I'm working on it at the moment. I just don't know if it feels right for me in a musical situation to change it. I allways thought of a change in dynamics in a pop situation would mean go down on the cross-rim thing and closed Hi-hat etc. I'm the Burrying the Beater kinda guy, so never thought of dynamics on the bassdrums. works fine at the moment, but it could be a nice thing to work on and see what happens.

Thanks for the story about Bonham!

[Klemme]

Ok i went to this Jazz-"camp" i don't know what you guys call it, but it was a 10days INTENSIVE stay at a "highschool" you know,"Grundtvig". However we had a few Doctors come up here, and one of them besides from Jonas Johansen ( Danish Drummer with NH?P), Steve Swallow ( all know him ), we had a tenor saxophone player called Hans Ulrik to come in to our group, we played contemporary Pop and Funk, and we played a really laid back pop tune, where i was really laying myself into the back-beat and a strong Bassdrum.

He Kept on complaining about my bassdrums was too powerful in sound. I didn't get it, when I took it down in Dynamics, the intensity of the whole band just faded. The Groove was really ME when we just were laying everything we had into it. It was a frustrating experience, that this academic maniac couldn't feel our strong musical feelings in this groove.

Spoke with my Teacher about it too, he said he only knew one drummer who's using dynamics in his bassdrum, and that's Steve Gadd.
He said that it could be a good oportunity for me to seek into Gadd's secrets about it, but said he never really thought about it himself when he played.

I'm puzzled about this, as I consider myself a Drummer who listens alot while playing. HAving a Strong Bassdrum, that doesn't follow the dynamic process in a tune is something i've allways played with and all of the buddies i've played with enjoyed it. But I'm rather confused.

Any of you guys have any thoughts about this Topic?

Thanks alot if you guys want to share some experiences here.

[cjbdrm]

Was this sax player talking about 'balance' on the kit, or dynamics?

The first thing you need is a good balance between your hands and feet on the drumkit- this will depend on the style(rock- louder kick, jazz- softer kick, etc.). Dynamics usually pertain to the whole kit at once, in my knowledge. Personally I've seen Steve Gadd up close(in person- no compression!)and he uses dynamics better than any other drummer I've seen, but it's on the whole kit simultaneously. One can play softer or louder depending on the section of the tune or depending on the tune, but changing the dynamic of your bass drum during the tune without changing the rest of the kit? Doesn't seem right to me, unless it's to correct the 'balance' between snare, hihat/ride, kick...

The only place I really hear the dynamic of the bass drum changing would be in a jazz context- but for 'time', it shouldn't change without the rest of the kit going along with it, IMO.

But we're talking about keeping time, right?

[Klemme]

Yeah it's a great laid back pop-tune, so you can call it Time-keeping yeah [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

I feel i have a balanced kit, and sound engineers tell me that too, in most live situations they say, they don't need to touch a thing on the board when they open it up.

Thanks for the contribution with the Heel-up/Heel-down Combination Andy! I'm gonna check that out to. I got a gig comming up this Saturday where's it's groove-based Impro, so I just gonna fire up about these Ideas and Listen to the responses that musically comes to me. Gonna be very interesting [img]smile.gif[/img]

cjbdrm: What i'm basically doing is to maintain the same level of the Bassdrum in the verse, intro, chorus etc. except for the outro where there's a Bass-solo, where i take it down a little - doing so to leave some space and dynamics to open him up.

I did however move dynamicly around the set ( etc. build it up nicely, with the last verse on the Ride, right after the book. )

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 19, 2005 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Klemme ]</font>

[peter c]

Great subject!

Dynamics is key, all the time
but especially in jazz, when it
concerns the kick.

They are looking for time, not
from the low end but from the
high and remember that in jazz,
the kick is used MUCH more for
accenting and color than for
pocket and especially in big-
band situations. Ask Dazz.

Oh! Make sure your heel is
down too!!!

[img]cool.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 19, 2005 11:51 PM: Message edited by: peter c ]</font>

[Andy Edwards]

I grew up with David Garibaldi's approach to dynamics; that is that most of the time you are basically playing two typeds of dynamics-accented and uanaccented.

More recently I have been trying to introduce this concept to my bass drum work using heel up for accents and heel down for unaccents (I got this from Thomas Lang)

Already this has started to open doors for me and is well worth experimentin with I thibk