the beat

[Hank Gagnon]

i read about it but what does playing on top of the beat and playing behind the beat mean?

[Bart Elliott]

I suggest reading my article, Playing on Top, in the Middle and Back of the Beat, and listening to the audio playing examples I created, for starters.

http://www.drummercafe.com/education/lessons/playing-on-top-in-the-middle-and-back-of-the-beat.html

This is a fairly in-depth article, so after you've checked it out, let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

[Scot Holder]

Great article, Bart!  I love the canoe analogy, and the examples really make the difference for me - really bridging the words to application.

For the track you chose, I really like when you are playing on the back the best - it just feels good for that tempo. 

A funny thought occurred to me while reading your article: For very high tempo songs, sometimes it seems that the whole band is on a wakeboard behind a ski boat going 50 mph.  Any sudden movement will cause a catastrophic crash!  ;D

[Bart Elliott]

Thank you, Scot ... glad you found it helpful and insightful.

[Andrew Stoutenborough]

Helped me too...thanks. I always have the tendency to play either behind or in the middle of the beat. I've been having a difficult time grasping the task of playing on top of the beat. The flam sound really helped break it down. The canoe analogy makes perfect sense.

Thanks also,
Peace.
Andrew

[Matthew Warwick]

I remember I didn't use to be able to hear subtle differences of behind, on the center, and on top of the beat. When I first read that article and listened to the clips, I was perplexed because they literally all sounded EXACTLY the same to me. Luckily I've developed my ears since then.

By the way Bart, I have to ask...in those clips where you hit the snare behind and on top of the beat, are you "ahead" and "behind" the beat or are you "on the back of" and "on the front of" the beat? What I mean is are those snare hits still touching the back or front of "the click" or are they a little bit off of it altogether?

To me, the best in those clips was the one with the behind snare hits. When playing with a metronome tend to place my entire beat at either the center of the beat or just a hair behind it. Whenever I get ahead of a metronome or song and I listen back to it on a recording, it always sounds uncomfortable to me.

I still have yet to learn how to do play snare hits behind the beat proficiently, though, as I often let my right hand (and right foot if it's a 4 on the floor beat) be dragged back to match that snare hit instead of making the snare hit flam with my right hand (and foot sometimes). This makes me drag noticeably.