DRUMMER CAFE

Can anyone suggest good examples of drumming in 3/4 time?  That's waltz time, not 6/8 or shuffle time.

A friend of mine wants drumming to accompany his acoustic guitar work, but almost all of it is in waltz time.  

I've always figured the waltz is when the drummer gets to take a break.  In my record collection, every waltz either has no drumming or just a ride pattern.  Every beat I try gets stale really fast, and there's only so much tinkling of cymbals I can stand.

Any suggestions, other than telling this guy once again that his acoustic guitar waltz stuff would sound better without drums?

OK - here's one more for you.  Check out what Jimmy Cobb is doing on 'All Blues' off of 'Kind of Blue.'  You can definitely apply what he does to a waltz feel.

These are all good selections and what you have now is three examples of how to play a waltz feel with your guitarist so that you don't have to keep playing the same thing.  To summarize your options:

1.  The thing about Max's solo, is that he covers so many different areas of drumming.  You get some basic ostinato stuff in there with the feet (1,2,rest...1,2,rest...1,2,rest...etc.), you get a melody outlined on the drums and you get a solo.  Most important for you, is the waltz application where you can use your kick and hi-hat to play it.

2.  In 'My Favorite Things' Elvin shows you the jazz ride pattern of playing the waltz.  You can also throw your hi-hat foot in on 2.  

3.  Jimmy Cobb shows you how to apply a waltz idea on the snare with brushes.  

Now, take these and use them in 3 different songs with your guitarist!  Let us know how it works!  

I believe you are correct.

And typically speaking, the Miles Davis tune "All Blues" is written in 6/8.

I think we may be getting a little too hung up on the 3/4 versus 6/8 thing. Both time signatures have six eighth-notes per bar, so it's up to the performer and how they interpret it.

The 6/8 time signature got it's start from classical music composers, while writing triplets in 2/4, decided to make it simplier ... not having to write all those number 3's above the three note groups (or triplets), so they came up with the compound meter ... 6/8. Traditionally, 6/8 is felt in two ... while 3/4 is felt in three. But that's all theory and what we see on paper. You can interpret it however you want, but most composers use the meter to naturally outline the phrasing of the melody. The accompaniment may stray from this ... which may make it confusing ... as in "All Blues".  Add the swing factor ... and now you've got a whole new set of things to deal with.

Just a thought.

Daddy0:

Thanks for the offer but I have the album. Josh Freese has really been an inspiration to me. As for the changing time signature in the song, I really can't argue or discuss because i'm a dirty newbie   but I get the same feel and time through the whole song so I'm just going to agree with Bart about interpretation.

I play in a church band also... well, I practice with them and I'm replacing the drummer when he goes into the army in a few months.

Thanks for the explanation though. it helped.

I agree 100% with you B-man.  I just want to clarify that I was simply pointing out that one can take what Jimmy Cobb did on All Blues and apply it in a waltz setting and it would work.

I mean hell, to go to the other extreme for an example, Metallica has a song called 'Nothing Else Matters', which is clearly in 6/8 but one can easily perform a waltz (the actual dance) to it.     So yes, we are getting hung up on the time sigs which is why I didn't mention them in my original post.  I just wanted to give examples of different types of things that could be applied to a waltz feel.  

TMe - I hope you're not confused now!  

Jeez. I'm probably more confused now than anyone.....

more modern rock in three:

in addition to 3 Libras, most of the album Mer De Noms by A Perfect Circle is in 3.

a lot of Weezer songs are in 3.

the verse of Schism by Tool is in some multiple of 3.

Those are just some ideas from easily accessible populaar music.  If you really want a true traditional Waltz feel you gotta play something that fits the um-bob-bob feel which putting a snare accent on the 4th beat of of a bar of 6/8 won't do.