Improving Timing

[Julius24]

Steve! Congratulations for the new forum! Looks great...

I would to know how did/do you approach "timing".

I believe that?s the MOST important part that any drummer should develop...
Sometime ago i started to record myself, and i?m greatly improving my tempo and feel by listening to the tape and hearing my own mystakes(time wise)...

I would like to know what was the most important thing (concepts, exercises, books, whatever)that helped you to have such a strong inner clock...

Thanks and see ya!

[STEVEHASS]

Hey Julian,
Thanks for writing man! Greetings from Hong Kong.

I can only tell you what has helped me. Believe me, I have been through it all with my time feel. Our natural instinct is to play with a band. 99.9% of the time the other musicians in the band have not worked on their time nearly as much as the drummer. So in early development we follow the time.
I relate it to intonation for a vocalist or fretless musician. It has to be close to perfect. Sometimes emotions such as excitement get in the way, and altough it feels good in the moment, it's not always the best for the music. BPM=86 should stay in the ballpark, ESPECIALLY if you're playing with vocalists. Then you're dealing with lyrics and if the tempo has moved up too much they may have a hard time singing and fitting all the lyrics into the pocket.
In NYC I watched cats like Shawn Pelton and Joey Bonadio. Two drummers who were first call on the pop/rock scene. They both played with a click during performances. I also would practice with a click religiously. This part is important; I would play WITH a click, not TO the click. What does this mean?

It means I would begin locked, and then notice and make note of my natural tendencies. Would I rush certain fills at 100? Would I drag at 76? Of course I played to click the beginning of my career. Meaning I made little adjustments to nail it. This makes for an inconsistant feel though. You don't want that.
Playing to the click can be harmful. You don't want to develop a depency on it. You're only working with it to strengthen your consistancy.

One of the ways I would do this is to set the click at very low volumes, never use headphones, and give myself a 4 bar count in. I would see how long I could play until I'd start flamming with it. Eventually I would never noticably flam. Of course no one is perfect but you can get close to playing like this all the time. You just need to do it everyday. If I'm out of practice, I flam a lot in the beginning. I try to work with it as often as possible, but it's hard when you're always on the road.

This is what helped me. Now remember, I graduated high school in 1989 so I'm basically a product of the 80s. Unless it was a jazz session, I have RARELY recorded without a click. By the time I came around, the click was standard procedure. There are many great groove players from the 60s and 70s that by today's standards have tempo that wavers. Still they have a great feel. So really it's up to you and the skills you want to develop.

I hope this helped, keep me posted!
STEVE :-)

PS I made a few adjustments to this post. I want to be as clear as possible. Let me know how this works for you.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 06, 2006 06:54 AM: Message edited by: STEVEHASS ]</font>