Interview with @theBwack (pt.2 ): Tips for Drummers

Posted by Will in Chatter

Here’s Part 2 of my interview with @thebwack. If you haven’t checked out Part 1 yet, go ahead and get caught up before you check out this article. In this post we chat about how he approaches playing with loops, and he offers up some tips for drummers. This is an article you’ll want to share with your drummers. Make sure to hit the Re-Tweet or Facebook Like buttons to the right of this post to quickly share with your team.

What advice can you give to drummers that are playing to a loop, to make the most out of it.

I think like you’ve said before, playing “with” loops and not “to” loops is key.  When we started messing with the whole loop thing, we bought a metronome and started playing with that. It was uncomfortable for a few months. There was a process of learning to follow something thats true, thats an absolute. You realize “I tend to rush when we’re going into a chorus”, or “I tend to drag when we’re ending a song”, so you learn a lot about yourself and how you play-playing with a metronome.

And the same thing with a loop. It’s about getting to a point where following a metronome and a loop is so comfortable that you don’t have to think about it. Thats what I try to do. I try to be at a point where when we’re playing I’m not thinking “am i with it” i’m just thinking “this is fun and this feels good”. I know when i’m starting to slide off a little bit but for the most part its just ingrained and natural.

I know a lot of drummers will practice with a click and then take the click out and bring it back in to see if they could stay with the click, to practice their timing.  Did you ever do that?

Well no, I think thats kinda silly. If you’re trying to see if you can play without a click to a given tempo that might be a good study, but really I’m gonna play with a click 90% of the time.  The songs we don’t use a click on we do it because we like the feel of the movement and not having to be tied down.  Like You Are My Joy, we never do that to click, we’re just going for it, and some nights it’s a little fast, and some nights its a little slower, and sometimes the choruses are faster then the verses but we like the kind of energy that lies in that. That’s a song that needs that feel.  All the other times I’m gonna be playing to a click so I just want to know – can I stay with the click?

How do you approach playing with loops?

For me the first thing I try to do if theres a significant beat in the loop is try to play something different than the loop and something that compliments it. For Example, on Beautiful Collision the drum beat on that is pretty solid and driving and very pronounced. I made the loop part the secondary beat and third beat. They are similar but completely different. They are kinda playing in between notes.  In that song its about playing something thats not contrary to what the loop is doing but complimenting the loop while not playing the same beat.
I’ve found there are few times that I’m playing the exact same thing as the loop, as far as kick drum energy and snare energy.
It can be dangerous because if you’re not 100% locked in it can become very apparent.  So playing something complimentary but different from the loop, you can create energy that comes from all the layers opening up and working together.
As an arrangement too, loops are a great way to add dynamics and make certain parts of a song really grow and blossom and other parts stay very minimal.  Especially if you’re running to a click with a loop, there can be times that everything but the band drops out but since your on a click when that loop comes back in it is really powerful and more evident.

One thing I appreciate about your drumming is that you’re not afraid to play four on the floor.  When you do a four on the floor thing, how do you approach it.

To me, four on the floor with a loop is pretty static. So you’ve got the four on the floor, the big kick drum that everyone is bobbing their head to and if there wasn’t the loop element playing this really static thing, then I probably would feel the necessity to do the open hat (disco thing) or subdivide somehow. But if thats what the loop is doing then I can feel the freedom to let my hands be the speaking force. You know something thats not just static but something thats moving and changing and dynamic.  I just try to have fun with it… and having a loop lets me feel like I can have fun.

Check out the Peter Gabriel DVD “Secret World Live” with Manu Katche (Drummer).  They are using loops and the way he plays the Drumset around the loops is incredible. Basically the loop is driving the song and he’s complimenting it.  It changed the way I thought about playing with loops.  It was like “this is why you have electronic elements in the band.  Same thing with most of the early Alanis stuff, the drummer isn’t laying down this solid time, its more about being a layer.  Stewart Copeland was someone that could take a four on the floor beat and turn it into something with a lot of driving power.  To me he was the epitome of a pop drummer. He took pop music beats and made them exciting.

Don’t miss Part 3 of our Interview with Bwack, Tomorrow at 10 AM EST on the blog!

Will Doggett is a certified Ableton Live Instructor, musician, worship leader and educator based out of FL. He currently works in the Worship Ministry at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale and teaches Ableton Live and Ensemble courses at Ocean's Edge School of Worship . You can reach him by Email and find him on Twitter @willdoggett. He's currently available for consultation and training for churches and musicians interesting in learning to integrate Live into their setups. Want more info? Shoot him an Email!

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