You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Not Get Lost in a Drum Solo

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam answer a listener's email about what other musicians can do to avoid getting lost during drum solos.The ending theme song for today's episode is "The Grape Escape" by the Stefan Sirbu Trio. To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail]'s episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? You ever get lost? All the time. Well, once I was lost, but now I'm found. I'm Adam Menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. And today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. It's award-winning. Annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download. It's a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonius Monk, John Cage and John Coltrane.

Visit Oxfordamerican.org slash Y-H-I-T-I-T-D-A-T-A. You know what? I love, as you know, the Oxford American, one of the things I mentioned last week that I love about it is the advertisements in it. And I was just looking, what's so great about it is things, you know, entities like Georgia and Louisiana, New Orleans will do ads like for tourism.

Yeah. And it's usually like Southern Heritage, and not the bad kind of Southern Heritage. Let's be clear about that. Like a, want, want, wah, wah. No, about like music. Like Georgia has this, George on my mind.

It's kind of for the state of Georgia, but it's a great painting of Ray Charles at a grand piano. Amazing. And a quote from him, music is powerful as people listen to it. They can be affected. They respond, Ray Charles.

Yeah. And it just talks about his connection with the state. You know, we love the Oxford American. And just in general, for our European listeners, if you're planning a trip to the States, do not sleep on the American South. Oh, exactly.

It's probably the most culturally fertile and still culturally intact regions of our country. Yeah, and I mean, in terms of like, you know, historical things, and it doesn't start, but a good place to start is right here in St. Louis, about a mile from here, the Scott Joplin House. That's right. In terms of, you know, historical physical places to see and to walk on Beale Street in, that's a little corny, actually. But it's still Beale Street in Memphis. I was just walking there.

Yeah, if you're coming from, if you're a tourist in the United States from Europe or Asia or Africa or anywhere, Yeah. Hit some of this. What about Antarctica? No. No. It's too hot for you. All right, what are we talking about today?

Today, we're talking about how to not get lost in a drum solo. And we were just saying, have we done this episode? We just did an episode. This is a question from an email, so maybe they can catch our episode from a couple weeks ago, how to avoid getting lost. But that wasn't drum specific. And this is a fairly specific question. Maybe we should do an episode of how to not get lost in the You'll Hear podcast episodes. That's tomorrow.

So are we listening to this or are you going to spin it out? No, no, no, this isn't a speak pipe. This was from an email. This is from Alan. Alan asks or writes, I often find myself getting lost in the form during an extended drum solo and don't really know when to come back

into a section of a tune or the head. It can get quite embarrassing in the bandstand. Thank you for your honesty. It is hard to keep up, especially if the drummer is doing something very rhythmically complex. I have trouble hearing if a drummer is keeping the form or going free

when he or she gets into very complex patterns and polyrhythmic ideas. would like to know how do you learn to hear drums to those better, and I am looking forward to your advice. Thank you, Alan. I've got the answer. Number one, listen. There you go. And that's it, really. That's it. But Alan is already hitting on a couple of things that I think could get into a territory of being the drummer's fault.

I mean, I appreciate Alan is very humble in terms of talking about being embarrassed on the bandstand and don't know when to come in. but it's really a two-way street, as we would say, right? Yeah. Between the drummer and everybody else who's not playing. And some of this stuff could probably hold true for any solo in which everybody drops out. I don't know why that always happens with the drums. I actually like doing things like when the bass player continues and even bass and piano,

the whole rhythm section or guitar during a drum solo. I think there's some interesting things. But inevitably, you're going to have a drum solo where nobody else is playing besides the drummer. Right. And I think that's where the two-way street, it's up to the drummer, obviously, to be creative to do his thing and for us to listen and know where we are in the form.

But if it's getting to the point where you don't know if they're going free or not, I think the drummer's dropping their end of the bargain a little bit. I totally, totally agree. Of course you do, because you're a pianist. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't know any great drummer who actually doesn't make it incredibly clear where the form is.

Do you know what I mean? Even in the solo, I feel like the great ones really understand that that's part of the solo not to confuse the entire band. Not that it's confusing. And sometimes, listen, even when they're keeping it basic, you have to pay attention and you have to have some responsibility

to keep the time. Yeah. But if they do go free, all the drummers that I play with, at least, are very clear about now I'm coming back in. Now, I think you hit on something very important. You said, you don't know any, if I heard you correctly,

you don't know any great drummer that doesn't make it very clear where they are in the form. Right. Now, what's important, I think, to unpack, as we would say, is that you didn't say make it very obvious. No, it doesn't have to be obvious. In fact, many great drummers, I would say, don't make it obvious unless there's a musical

reason for it. So what we want to get into, and look, we're making a big assumption that you're playing with a good or great kind of A, not to rate drummers, A, B, C, D, EF, but let's go ahead, why not? Yeah. A or B kind of drummer that you want to get to that point where you can kind of feel where they're feeling the time and not necessarily marking it in an obvious way, but in a clear way. So you have to get into their style. And you also have to be confident yourself in terms of

that you're feeling the time and the form in the same way they are, even if they're not making it obvious at a certain point. I think that's very important. So I think we have some ideas maybe for some practical strategies. If I'm not, if I'm reading you right, am I reading you right? Yes. Okay, good. I'll start with this. Read me like a book. to what you just said about understanding how they're feeling the time. Like the first one is listen to the drummers that you play with and get to know their tendencies. Yes.

Because some drummers, you know, hopefully everybody has perfect time all the time, but that's not the case. A lot of drummers that I've played with tend to pick it up a little bit during the drum solo. Yeah. Time leans forward a little bit. Yep. And so I can recognize that.

Some lean back. And if I know that that's the case, then I know that, okay, I'm not ahead of them. They're just pulling back a little bit. I need to stay with them. I mark this by, and I don't know what you do, but I tap my foot quite a bit during drum solos, and it's just the drummer, or even training fours.

You know, I'm more than I would during my solo. I'm trying to hear where they are by tapping my foot. I'm trying to keep the pulse with them. That's my first one. The second one that I find was a game changer for me early on was learning to listen to the bass drum. It's the last thing I think we hear in the jazz, in a jazz drum scenario, right?

because the symbols and the snare are so prevalent. Listen to the bass drum and the high hat to try to find where the beat is because oftentimes they'll mark that form or the time or the phrase with the bass drum. Right. And it's not always going to be like a one or the end of four or whatever,

but there will usually be some kind of a pattern or sort of discernible pattern that most drummards will do. That's a big part of their style, how they treat the bass drum out. Yeah, if they're doing polyrhythms, I mean, you know, they're probably including the bass drum a little bit,

but it's the least likely to get way out, right? To me, it's the most likely to be on form. Yeah. You know, one thing that I like to do, especially if I don't know the drummer that well or if I maybe kind of know what they sound like but haven't played with them a lot. I think when you're in a situation

where you really know the drummer, you're playing a lot, I find I don't even have to think about it. Like, I just come in, I mean, I can almost, I'm not necessarily zone out, but kind of just get so much into enjoying what they're playing and then sort of come in on instinct and it sort of works. But that's sort of rare because you have to be playing with someone like kind of all the time to feel like that. That's a level of relationship that, yeah, he has to be very comfortable. But if it's somebody good and you know that they're not like going into free or doing some unclear things,

what I would do is first of all try to hopefully know the forms so well by yourself because it shouldn't be the drummer's responsibility to, Their responsibility during the solo is just like any solos is to make a tell a great story from the beginning of solo to the end. It's not to make the form clear and to mark it unless that's part of their story to the other players. Their thing is to do that. So I think that you can think about two different ways on the form. You can think about the melody where you're actually hearing the melody go by. And it kind of depends on this type of tune. Something like a night in Tunisia where the form, the melody really denotes the form in a very.

clear way. There's a repetition of sections, but then the bridge is so different in terms of the melody that you can just sort of sing in your head the melody as the drummer is soloing. And that's another thing. You should be tapping your foot, sing the melody that'll help you keep the form so you know whether you're on the first A, the second A, the bridge. Now, we might just note, as you're tapping your foot, like, you might not want to tap it loud and sing on mic during the actual drum solo. That's going to be a little mud. This is more internal and like light tapping, right? But don't you think, though, too, that most of the drummers that you play with, if they're playing a solo overnight in Tunisia, they're likely going to kind of land somewhere near

at the end of their phrase, right? They're going to give you some kind, not, it's not a clue, they're just good musicians, so they're making musical phrases that are not obvious, as you say, but like makes sense. And so like no one's going to go over a polyrhythmic thing and then like halfway through that polyrhythm expect everybody to jump in right on one. I mean, you should ideally, but like that's kind of a jerk move, I think. I think so too. The same thing, if they're playing totally free and just be like, Gah. You know what I mean? Like, what is that? Yeah. You got to

make it clear if you've been free and if you're playing a lot of over-the-bar stuff. I mean, you don't have to button up every solo or every phrase, but it makes musical sense. Right, right. The other part of that, the other way that I find is

opposed to listening to the melody too is save for a tune like a night in Tunisia. This could work where you're listening to the harmonic form go by kind of singing that along where you're thinking about the chord changes almost like the baseline, the root note, something kind of what the chords are as you're going through,

not thinking about the melody, but thinking about the form. So again, this sort of relies on you really knowing the form to be able to hear it without playing it, but even if you need to kind of think about what does it feel like playing those chords, you're still in time, maybe you're tapping your foot as well, but you're using, basically you're having some kind of guidepost, some sort of guard rails

as opposed to just listening to the solos. Now, if you know the drummer like we talked about before, so well and you know that they're going to bring you in and then you can kind of feel your way through the form that's what I love to do. And that's kind of top level if everything is lined up perfectly. But many times I'll sort of just sort of try to hear the form and when I say hear the form is just really hear the changes

in my mind as much as I can. Not necessarily think about what I would solo. Still trying to, like you do want to listen to the drum cell because there's things that you can use maybe later in the arrangement or whatever but I didn't mean to be like you should still listen to the drum cell. You should be listening to it all the time. And you know what?

It actually doesn't hurt to throw in some landmarks actually play, you know, the top of some A's, the top of the bridge or something to, you know, don't, don't. Yeah. Give the drummer. That can be a little annoying, though. Well, not every time. But, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you're really struggling with it.

That could be calling out the drummer like, do you know where you're at? Because I do. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. But you can do that in your mind. That's kind of what I'm saying is like even if it's not appropriate. There would be times when it's appropriate to play it. Yeah, yeah.

Sometimes it's sometimes it's appropriate to even just like market a little bit. Absolutely. I mean, I do that a lot. You do that. And there's many appropriate times. But even if it's a kind of thing where that's not needed, you can do that. And I do that in my mind. I'm kind of like, bam.

And then you're hearing it. What that does is that links up. I mean, a great drummer is going to be hearing the form as well. Like we always think, oh, it's just a rhythmic thing. Not at all. Like they're hearing the form. They're hearing the chord changes. And it gets into a little bit of a murky area exactly how that's manifested,

but they do hear that. I mean, I know that. And so that links you up closer to what they're doing as well. Structurally. One more piece of advice. Alan is to get better at hearing them, I would recommend listening to them and in fact transcribing a drum solo, maybe by Max Roach or by someone who's pretty clear with language and form. Even just to be able to sing it, you know, to be able to mimic that sound with your mouth

or even take it to the piano somehow, the rhythms. That could be very, very good. I wouldn't write it out. I'm saying be able to like know that drum solo so well that you can sing it back. that would go a long way in helping you understand what the drummer is hearing. Absolutely. And I mean, I remember, I'm just remembering something

that I did years ago, I think that worked pretty well. I'd recommend in terms of ways to practice this would be to take a solo, especially when you're talking about having trouble hearing if a drummer is keeping the form or going free.

Yeah. Or when he or she gets into very complex patterns and polyrhythmic ideas. So if it's kind of a straight-ahead swinging thing, especially if it's a little bit faster or something, take a solo. Is this your swinging neck?

Yes, my swing neck. kind of moving your neck back and forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like you would take a solo, and especially one, well, you could do it if you kind of know it or even if you don't know it that well on a recording and play along with the drum solo. And you might start with, don't solo, whatever, start with just walking a baseline. It's great advice. If it's like straight. This is why you're the best. It's great advice.

You know what I'm saying? Like you walk with that. And then what's happening is you're starting to hear that what the actual foundation of the groove is that's not there with the bass player normally while those polyrhythmic ideas are going on. Then you could take it to just comping behind. Now, the only thing with that is the more you hear the solo, the more you kind of learn it. So it doesn't help you in real time where the solo is going to be something, you know, that you don't know.

So you might want to jump around to different drum solos on recordings that maybe you don't know that well. But that can work well, baseline and then comping. And then, you know, Alan, if you do get lost, just practice blaming it on the drummer, you know, giving him a weird look in front of the audience. That's always good. Yeah.

Practice going, you know, coming in in the wrong place and then going, whoa! Right, right. That works. Well, and then, but you know what? A lot of times when I'm coming back in, I'm not even, if I'm not that sure, there's some ways. So, first of all, don't charge in on one. We don't have to play on one.

The bass player has to play on one. We're assuming that Allen's a pianist, yeah. But I mean, really, like, or in any case, you don't have to come. You can be like, like, once you really hear it. Now, I do that with Greg Hutchinson a lot. Like, Greg is, now you're talking about always playing the form. He always does. But he gets into so much complex stuff.

But I trust him so much with the form that I don't worry about, I definitely don't worry about coming writing on one because sometimes it doesn't fit what he's going to play anyway. Yeah. But I know that it's going to be established. So I just wait to musically, wherever I come in, and even if I don't quite line up until two bars later, it doesn't matter. Totally. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, they'll let you know. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Thank you so much, Ellen. Yeah, that was fun. For the question, even though we just did something similar, I think we nailed this, buddy. You know what? We can repeat ourselves with the best of them.

Then a reminder, too, for limited time. You'll hear it listeners can subscribe to the Oxford American for only $25. visit Oxford American.org forward slash Y-H-I to subscribe. Did you say $25? Today? Because I'm looking at this

the Southern music issued which is the current winter 2018 and the retail price on this. I don't know if do you ever buy magazines at the airport? I'm big into that. That's what you're going to pay

at the airport. 1695, my friend. That's for one issue. Not our you'll hear it listeners. You'll hear it listeners will go. I mean if you're really anxious if you can pick it up at the airport. Speaking of listeners,

we have another listener tuned to end the show today. This has been fun. This has been really fun. If you have a tune that you'd like to hear at the end of a you'll hear it episode, just send it to Andrew. It's good. It's good.

Yeah, yeah. Send it to Andrew at openstudionnetwork.com. Today's tune is The Great Escape. I love that title. This is by Stefan Sirbu. Stefan Sirbu. That's a cool name. Yep.

Thank you, Stefan, for submitting this. Until next time, you'll hear it.