DRUMMER CAFE - Community Forum

Quick background: I am an eternal newbie drummer. 46 years old, started playing about 3 years ago. Just started playing with a worship group once a month at a nearby church. The service is supposed to be one of these casual Saturday night cafe settings (older guys will remember when this got popular in the late 70s).

In no particular order:
- The casual setting really helps. I am generally a painfully shy person so a small crowd with dim lights helps settle my nerves.

- It is entirely up to me to figure out the correct groove to play. John, our leader, hands out lyric sheets with chords annotated. That's it, barely even a suggestion. I just hope 2 and 4 works cause my bag of tricks isn't very big. I grab the songs, put them on my ipod, listen over and over and figure out a basic groove.

- There is never enough time to practice. As far as my ability, I like everything fully transcribed and I want to practice it like 1000 times before I play in front of humans. Nope, I get a new song list (usually five songs) on tues, wed, or even as late as thursday. Right now these are all new songs to me, I'm sure as time goes on we will start repeating.

- At church, people are gracious. No matter how bad I feel I do everyone gives positive feedback which makes me feel great and want to do more. Funny note: One of the vocalists said, "what are they gonna do fire you, it's a volunteer group"

- I was the first drummer that ever asked for a music stand. I thought this was interesting. I make notes, transcriptions, and cues on the lyric sheets and want to use them.

- Another first. John told me I was the first drummer he asked to play louder. This was at a practice session. I was playing softly on the acoustic kit so that I could try to hear the bass and guitars and try to fit in.

- In the same vein, I have had to be careful while following the guitars. I don't know how to say this exactly but... The guy playing rhythm guitar was strumming twice as fast as the tempo I was playing on the hats. Like he was playing 16ths to my 8ths. Well at one point he turned so his acoustic guitar was giving me all the volume. I immediately started accelerating my tempo. That was fun, luckily we recovered.

- Keeping tempo can be hard, especially when going from one up tempo song to a slower one. I have to learn to really focus on the tempo and lock it in.

- Listen, listen, listen and be ready to adapt in real-time. We switched lead vocalists for one song and while I was playing I felt something was wrong. I finally figured out the vocalist was inserting an extra beat after every four measures. I guess to take a breath.

- If something can go wrong it will (my last name is Murphy BTW). Every time, we show up to practice before the service something goes wrong. Could be anything: the audio panel is not working; the audio panel works but the monitor doesn't; someone has the room reserved and we can't practice; the kit (a TD6 e-kit) is literally falling apart. Always be ready to adapt.

It has been a great experience for me and I'm thankful for the opportunity. Because of my shyness it took me a while to give this a try. I am so glad I did cause the payoff is ginormous.

When we played last Saturday, we had a special song with an obvious place that needed a strong accent. John told me, if I felt comfortable, I should play some kind of an accent there, but only if I feel comfortable. (in his terminology he says go wild here if you want) Yeah he is calling for a big fill and I am as nervous as all get out. We practice and I just can't get it. I keep coming out one beat off. Fast forward to service, we start the song, it is like the fourth song, I am thinking to myself, no I just can't do it, I'll just groove threw that part. The part comes up, I'm into the song, that measure comes up and I just drop my fill in without screwing up and go on. John comes up to me later and says that was exactly what he was looking for he thought it was perfect.  Needless to say, that felt pretty good.

I hope this isn't too long a post. I guess I just had a lot to say and I wanted to share my story. Whether you know it or not the Drummer Cafe is where I get tons of useful information that helps me keep trying. The forums threads are priceless. As is all the other content Bart provides.

take it easy,
--pat

Sounds like you're settling in!  Congratulations!

A little nerves are a good thing - keeps you on your toes.  But I suspect you'll notice they calm down.  With continued performances you will gain more confidence in front of people.

Hey Pat, that's fantastic!  Just getting out there and going for it is one of the best ways to put together all that you've been learning about drums, and now you're adding the group dynamic to it.  Just thinking up your own parts is a great exercise in my opinion. That's one of the reasons I joined my Church band about 10 years ago.  I'm still there because I love it.  And yes, the Church folks are very supportive, no matter what the talent level is. 

I've learned some of my most important musical lessons playing in a church band.  The tight schedule and material to learn will get you on your toes fast.  It helps to get into your creative mentality beforehand, of course.

I started playing in a church band about 15 months ago mainly for economic reasons, but find myself now looking forward to Sunday mornings for reasons other than the paycheck.

I like the people I'm playing with, and like the challenge of coming up with grooves that complement what the band is playing and stay close to the original feel of the song.  It's a low pressure situation with an audience that's eager to take part and be moved by the music.  What more could a musician want?

pemfoo
FANTASTIC!  I got back into drumming partly because of a need at church.  The first few times were difficult but exciting and rewarding.  Over time, I've had some truly wonderful experiences and have developed as a musician.  I think you will too.

The cafe has been a great resource for me also. I've learned a lot and got a chance to share some of that with others, had some of my ideas challenged and had good debates. 
God bless and take care....

Hey pemfoo.......that's so awesome you're playing in church.  You're definitely there for a reason. 

The only thing I can suggest to make things a little more comfortable is to start listening to the type of music that you play in church.  I've found this helpful when I first started.....just listening to the music when I'm driving, when I'm working in the garage, etc. 

cc

Thanks guys! I appreciate the feedback.

I am working on how "excited"* I feel before each session. Like everyone said a little is good.

That is a good suggestion about listening to that type of music more often. I think I will try to pickup some more songs to add to my playlist. The good thing is most of it is rock oriented so the basic grooves are familiar. And our leader tries to throw some stuff more familiar to me like Hootie & the Blowfish and The Youngbloods.

* using the word excited in place of nervous based on Hannah Ford's suggestion in another thread.

I started playing at my own church about 4 years ago. They don't use drums much and when they do, it's normally with piano, and mabye a couple of banjos.

Two years ago, I was asked to help out with a group lead by one of my directors, Allan Johnson. [He played keyboard and sang] They had 3 drummers, all of which left for 2 months over the summer and needed a sub. They played comtemporary music [Chris Tomlin, etc.] with a bass, sax, trumpet, piano, keyboard, and another auxillary percussionist. These gigs were a lot of fun, but VERY time consuming. I had to go to a 3 hour rehearsal every week and play 2 services, which meant that I would be there @ 7:30am to set up and not get home until 2 in the afternoon. After about 5 more months of playing once a month, Allan moved and resigned from the church, so I lost the chance to play there anymore.

Almost immediately, however, Allan, the bassist from the second church, and I began playing at churches all over the state. For about a year we played an average of 8 performances a month. We got paid well, and we never had to rehearse. Now, that group has fallen apart, and I'm stuck with nowhere to perform, but I am using this time to practice up so that when I am needed again I will blow everyone away.

Allan has become notorious for changing the set lists on the fly. We were playing a revival for about 3000 people and he called "Celebrate Jesus" in the middle of the set. I had only heard this song once or twice on the radio we had never played it together, and it was awesome.
Also one, time we learned a song on the car ride to a gig. That one ended up okay, but not as good as the songs that we know well.

Allan also asked me to fill in at his new church once. It was very awkward for me, however, because I couldn't make the rehearsal and Allan wasn't even on stage. They had a full brass section and bass and a piano and 4 vocalists, which was pretty nervewracking. There were also about 600 people in the audience. The good news, though is that my jazz band training paid off big time on that gig because they had full drum charts.

Hey Pat,
It sounds like you are doing great.  I agree with Dave about the slight nervousness is a good thing and keeps you on your toes.  One thing I like about Christian Rock is that all types of music are in there. I have almost moved exclusively to those channels.  I got to watch 3rd Day in Concert a few weeks ago and it was really one of the better concerts I have seen. I have been playing for my church for about 4 years now and find that no matter how big the crowd, the only audience I really play for is God.  Until I figured that out, I am not sure that my heart was in the right place. When this started to happen to me, I had people come to me and tell me that they loved to watch me worship.  This is a bit different than hearing that I love your drumming. I am like you still in the fact that I practice the songs to get the general groove and hooks but find when I get there that we reinvent the song to what feels right on that day. Practicing helps but I have really learned to become completely flexible.  My Worship leader and I get along great but he has limited me to the amount of 32nd note rolls that I play.  Bart also started working with me on some of this.  Stay solid and concentrate on the groove and less on doing fast rolls and fills.
This is something that I have really been working on.  Open it up a bit and sometimes Air is good.  Paying more attention to the dynamics of the song. Occasionally, when I am really feeling it, I will through one or two of those rolls in
but not like I used to. In church, it is not about the drummer, it is about God and how the over all song feels.  Hope this helps Pat? Sounds like you are doing great.
                                 Mark,AKA(Nutty)

Hey pf...

Great post!  Keep up the good work!

I'll just bring up the "M" word for a moment...using a metronome really helps me in situations where there are tempo changes from tune to tune, especially if you are not rock-solid familiar with a song.  I use a Yamaha ClickMaster (?) through the headphone monitor system (Aviom) to keep me on target.  (If I could only get the rest of the band to use the click as well...!)

Keep knockin' it out!

What you wrote is exactly how I felt about 2 years ago! :)  Only I found that when I made glaring mistakes during the service, is when people came up to me afterwards and told me what a wonderful job I did. ::)

And now I have people coming up to me any old place and saying "oh, you're the drummer at Grace church, right?!"  Kinda gives me that 2 seconds of celebrity feeling!

This past Sunday I didn't play, and decided to wear a dress to church.

 :o

Probably the first time I've done that. And a lady (that I've never met) came up to me and said, rather conspiratorily, "So you're not playing drums today, huh?" ;D

robyn

You're right Nutty, I think sticking to the less is more concept will be best for the long run. Try to keep the groove feeling good.


Robyn, it sounds like you have arrived! This may sound weird but being labelled a drummer is one of my goals. ;)

--pat

You go hot church drummer dude!  RAWK!

(http://smileyicons.net/s/113.gif)

Pat,
Everything you are saying sounds great.  I think this type of playing sets you up more for the support roll that a drummer should have.  What it has done for me is helped me with Dynamics more than show.  The Worship Director I am working with now, was with a Mega Church for 18 years of 24,000 members and we have earned a great respect for each other.
I have learned that putting Air and Space in a song to let it breath is good. To be able to go from loud to soft or Loud to a dead stop adds so much feeling. He still let's me feel it to a certain extent but a lot less of the Bonham rolls.  Imagine a song like Kashmir with the nice slow rhythm and incredible buzz rolls that he was doing.  That type playing is not for a church. He will let me get away with a few 32nd note rolls if the music feels right but you can see him watch me doing it out of the corner of his eye like giving me the WOW look and he will tell me later if it was inappropriate but generally I have learned disipline from him and where I am putting those works. He will also let me at the grand ending to a song at the end of a service sometimes. He understands that it has to be fun and if it is right for the song, do it. Good luck with it Pat.  You can learn a lot about supporting the music and giving it what it needs this way.
                                     Nutty