DRUMMER CAFE

That's been a normal part of my playing most of my musical life. I played in bands that hosted jams and played variety 5 nights a week as a house band. A couple of these bands knew 400 to 500 songs. It comes with experience. Playing anything and everything has given me the talent to step right in. Not perfect, but good enough to pull it off. Through the years I've filled in on the fly several times. A drummer gets sick, car breaks down, etc.....You paying money? I'll be going out the door as soon as the trucks loaded. Be there in an hour. Man I love it when that happens....Cold and new people is a blast.    

so how do you guys handle those BIG stops like in, let's say, "Eye of the Tiger"? When you've never heard the song. Are there like forgiven train wrecks along the way?

I echo what BigBill just said. For example, Eye of the Tiger. If you're a pro drummer who's likely to play a song like that, you should know those stops. That's part of having a "vocabulary." Some beats, licks, stops, etc. are part of a pro drummer's vocabulary. If you play classic rock, you should know the drum break in Born to Be Wild, and the cowbell intro to Honky Tonk Women. If you play blues you need to have some shuffles together, and be familiar with the sort of stops that are frequently thrown into blues tunes. If you play society clubdates, you need to know how to play with brushes, and be able to lay down a convincing cha-cha. It's all vocabulary.

Eye of the Tiger is a funny example. The reality is that for most songs, you can kind of plow through without inflicting too much damage on a song. But for "Eye" you'd really need to know the hits. So when a song with some unusual part like that becomes popular, it's smart for a pro drummer to take a moment to figure it out. So keep that radio on, and listen for unusual drum parts - things you wouldn't pick up instinctively. I actually never played Eye in a cover band, but I figured those hits out when the song first came out. Why? Because I though they were cool! I never dreamed that 20 years later I'd be playing that song with the singer from Survivor, but I did - glad I knew the stops!

Also, there's no harm in telling a bandleader you don't know a song. It's up to him to decide if he's confident enough in your abilities to take the risk of plunging into the tune. But again, if you play with eyes and ears wide open, you can probably follow the band through most songs.

Funny this topic came up - I've got a gig like this coming up tomorrow, playing with people I've never met, in a club I've never been to.

I'm helping out a drummer buddy of mine who needed a sub. It's a casual gig at a tiki bar, with a band that plays blues, r&b, and reggae.  Sounds like fun - put me in, coach!  

Hi All,

This is my ad.  Doing fill-ins doesn't require any skills that are superior to your typical gigging drummer.  Good meter and listening to what is going on in the music is most important.   Having a nice pro kit that is well tuned is also always appreciated.  I can't count the number of times I have played with a band and they comment on how good my kit sounds.  (Usually because their regular guy hardly ever tunes his kit. )  Over the years I played in over a dozen different bands playing pop and rock.  I have come to know hundreds of songs.  The arrangements stick in my head and I usually can recall them pretty well when I need to. ( Which is funny because I can never find my keys.)  I usually have at least a few days to a week before a fill-in gig so I will get the bands songlist up front and give some of the tunes a listen if they are not as familiar to me.  Then if neccessary I will spend an hour or two at my kit working out some parts and transitions if neccessary.  Most my fill-in gigs are classic rock or classic metal and that is the genre of music I grew up on.  In my experience playing in and watching these type of bands play I noticed that there are really only about 150 tunes that all these bands seem to have in common.   If you know these tunes then you can get a bit of work.  I have declined opportunities to play with other types of bands if their material is obscure to me.    A lot of fill in work is "seat of the pants" type stuff and I really enjoy it.  Certainly some mistakes are made, but hopefully nothing to noticable and there are usually just as many unexpected and really cool moments.   I usually don't charge too much because bands in my area playing this type of music don't get paid too well.  I mostly do it for the fun of playing with other accomplished players.  In case anyone is interested here is the link to my web-page.  It is pretty basic but gives most the neccessary info and I hope to add some video to it soon.

Val