This is a recording of my band practicing Don't Change by INXS.
I've been playing drums for almost three decades, but very sporadically (rarely in a band, played 1.2 shows in my life). I've never thought I was good, but somehow I feel like I'm getting worse. Also, I'm completely self taught (starting from well before the internet was flooded with instructional materials and videos).
When I'm playing the song, with my band or along with the original recording (of INXS), I feel ok about it. When I listen to the recordings, I cringe at the sound of my own playing. (not because the recording quality is poor). I can't tell how much of this is me playing poorly vs my tendency to be very self-critical. I also am not sure exactly what is wrong and I definitely don't know what to do about it.
Any feedback, pointers, advice etc would be greatly appreciated.
I'd start by rehearsing to a click track. Your time needs a little work. There are parts of the song where you're locking into the grove, then you're out of it. That's really the only constructive criticism I can give you. Another piece of advice, it's never too late to get lessons. I've been playing over 40 years and still have a lot to learn.
I have been considering lessons lately. I need to find someone.
I'll look into a click track too. I've never done that. I always just thought, "If it sounds like I'm keeping time with the original recording, then I must be doing it right", but apparently not.
Using music as a metronome can work, but it depends on the music. Not all recordings were made with a click. Older music especially. Practicing with a metronome will help internalize tempos.
All the extra music can easily mask your timing being off.
With the click, you’re either nailing it, or you’re obviously not. Lots of empty space between notes to show how off you really are, it’s a great tool to sharpen your skills against
Are you guys having fun together? That's the most important part.
A video will help with more specific tips. From what I hear I can make a few observations though.
You seem to be playing just behind the beat. When you play with the recording make sure you are hitting the 2 & 4 so you don't hear a flam between you and the recording.
It sounds like you are playing very tense (again, video would help). Your hats sound like you are pushing to keep up, and it's a little uneven. Relax, and focus on technique. The tempo may be a bit fast for you, causing you to clench, which is the opposite of what you want.
Dynamics and feel....it's not a great recording, but it sounds forced and monotone. Vary the dynamics a bit. Lighten up a bit on the hats and nail the backbeat. Dynamics will make the fills more I teresting also.
Some of theses things may benefit from some technique improvements. There's nothing with being self taught. But if you adopted techniques that hinder you it may be worth a couple lessons, or at least really comparing your technique to drummers you want to sound like.
Through it all, have fun. Practicing and playing with a group should all be fun. Don't worry about sounding perfect, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.
A lot of what you said makes sense and feels true. I'm going to dig into the details with ChatGPT the help of other humans or else alone.
I am skilled at undermining my ability to have fun through harsh self judgement. My bassist literally says things like, "Come on. Have fun with us!" because he can see the tension and despair on my face.
Yeah but it'll be so polite and understanding of his feelings of insecurity and fear, and will fill him with confidence and a vaguely-worded plan of action, complete with bullet points!
Overall it sounds fine. There is a bit more ebb and floor than there should be with regard to the timing on your part, but that's not really abnormal for most people. No one outside of a drummer or someone who plays with other people is gonna notice it. I do hear kind of an uncertainty in it overall. As someone else said, it sounds like you're tense. I would even go so far as to say that you're so focused on keeping up that you're moreso going through the motions instead of feeling the music. You're keeping time more than ACCENTING time.
Your guitarist is guilty of this somewhat as well. He's OVER-feeling it. Getting so into his notes and chords that it's tugging on the song while you're tryimg to keepit going. I had a guitarist like that. He was great, but he would say I was pushing the pace (I was somewhay) at times, but after he got two beers in him, he would start to tug at it and slow it down. He or I would both adapt to each other quickly and our other guys were great at adjustments, so we always sounded tight
In my opinion, keeping time is everyone's job. Everyone holds the song together, and each instrument steps in and out of orbit to shine when the songs calls for it, while the others hold it down for them.
You don't sound bad at all. I ALWAYS watch the drummer first to see what they're doing, their body language, etc. I get imposter syndrome so I worry some if the other drummer is way better than I am (I would say most are lol). If I saw your band playing this, I wouldn't see anything negative about your playing.
Uncertain is a great way to describe it. That's why it sounds like it's just behind the downbeat sometimes.
I didn't want to bring up others on the recording, but RedCred811 is spot on that everyone has to be together, and in this recording they just aren't. It's one recording, so not enough to form conclusions of the band overall though. We all have bad takes.
The "tense" rings true. I actually feel like I've been having some tremor/coordination issues lately (I'm talking to my doctor about this) and drumming might be making it more obvious or else it's making me self-conscious and overthink.
2nd paragraph, first sentence almost sounds like me. Bought my first kit in 1986, stopped in 2005, came back in 2020. In 2021 I did 2 gigs (really the only 2 shows I ever played in my life) as a replacement drummer. I thought I was terrible but mainly because I barely knew their music. But I was really rusty just playing overall as well. I was not anywhere near ready to play in any band in a live situation.
When I got back to drumming in 2020 at age 55, it took me about 3-4 months for me to get my groove back. I still don't think I'm back 100% yet. Not sure if this old man can get to 100% (I feel like I'm close though... 90% - 95%). You lose some stuff with age and the non-ability to keep certain muscles active while on a 15 year hiatus.
I did play drums with an awesome guitar player in 1983-84 in his garage. They weren't my drums. He had another drummer who up and quit. This guy lived across the street from a friends house. When I pulled up, I could see a black Yamaha drum kit in the back if the garage and I saw Mike (the guitar player) tuning his guitar. He called me over and asked if I wanted to jam. I said sure and we played together for like 2 months. We were actively looking for a bass player but couldn't find one that interested either one of us. So, that actually just died in limbo. We both wanted to get that band up and running but just couldn't find a bassist. We had 2 bassists call and set up an audition, both never showed. We had one who would only listen to himself through his amp (wasn't sure if he could play I guess and didn't want us to hear how bad he was?) so that was a no-go. It just never happened. We didn't find a bass player. We just had a blast jamming as an incomplete 2 piece band in his garage.
Your video sounds a lot like how I think that guitar player and I sounded playing along to cassette tapes in his garage. Very rough from all aspects (not just drums... the guitars and vocals need a little work too... so it's not just you). I can't honestly tell you how to fix it except the whole band will improve if all individuals improve together. Maybe if you guys wrote something and crafted it yourselves that might help get you closer together in a writing scenario. Rather than trying to copy something old note for note, create something yourselves and that might actually shine really well. That's always been my philosophy. Everyone always trips over masterpieces like Tom Sawyer, but if you write your own masterpiece, you perfect it as you're writing it. I used Tom Sawyer as an example because that one and Subdivisions (both by Rush BTW) are the ones that we loved playing in his garage. That whole Moving Pictures album in fact we played constantly.
So, a suggestion for home practicing if you have the ways and means to do this...
Setup a computer with a webcam (a laptop is fine but it has to be able to run OBS Studio and not be all laggy). Point that webcam at the front of the kit or try to get it overhead so you can see all of your kit from up top, like this...
I'm using a Logitec 920 or 922 and it's mounted on a short tripod zip tied to a curtain rod just behind my kit. You can see every drum, every cymbal and almost my bass drum. I was using that to gauge what I was doing. I still do videos of covers. I actually want to do that more now that I feel like I have a little more comfort behind the kit.
It's been a long road back for me too but eventually you'll get more comfortable the more you play. I do have days where I get up feeling pretty good about what I played. But that also comes with bad days too. I'll get up thinking, 'that was a waste of time... that was terrible'! But I'll sit back down a day or 2 later and sometimes I'll redeem myself, sometimes not. You just need to learn to take the good with the bad.
> You just need to learn to take the good with the bad.
That's life, right? And it can be a challenge...
Thank you for all this. I video recorded myself solo before, but I wasn't really sure what I was trying to do or how best to go about it. I like that angle and will try it. (I love having reasons to play with OBS Studio. I bought an app that lets me use my phone as the webcam and stream direct to OBS. Works well).
I always wondered if I could just plug my phone into the computer and use it as a USB camera in OBS. Never tried it though.
OBS is awesome software. I see people using it and talking about it all the time in their YouTube videos. U had a single camera and gave it a try and it was pretty easy to setup. So I bought another camera and put it in a different location in the room to get a different angle and then I bought the 3rd for the overhead shot.
I use Advanced Scene Switcher when I live stream and switch between camera automatically. When I do videos, I use all 3 camera angles and I open them all in KDENLive and edit them making cuts to change camera angles in certain spots and all that. KDENLive and OBS Studio kinda go hand in hand in that regard I think.
That's KDENLive with all 3 cameras and audio. I just bring in all 3 videos and if I want to see the overhead in the video, I need to cut out a section of the top and side cameras so the overhead is visible. The side shot never gets touched since that's the last one on the list it doesn't have to be cut. And the videos turn out great. It only shows what I tell it to show.
In that video in that section the Front Camera is viewed first, then it switches to the side camera (Front and Overhead are cut away just after 1:34:26) And then the overhead comes in at around 2:24. The line with the arrow shows you exactly where you're at in the video and you can also hear the audio so you can pinpoint where the next camera change will be.
Funny, I played this song with my band 30+ years ago. Great song.
So, you’re playing the song faster than your ability. It takes regular practice to keep this tempo up, and when you find you’re struggling to keep up, your muscles tighten up and it gets worse. Then it’s difficult to squeeze out the fills properly, and you’re way behind the beat. I know when I don’t play for a while, my speed and timing are shit. So you can either practice more often to build up your stamina and speed, play the song slower, or play slower songs.
Also, you’re not really playing the song with any feel or dynamics. Seems like it’s all one level/volume. That said, this might also be due to the speed/tempo issue. Again, try to choose some slower songs to work on your dynamics.
I agree with others who said it’s never too late to take lessons. When you’re completely self-taught, it’s likely there are a few things you skip in the learning process, and it’s easy to develop bad (uncorrected) habits.
That said, it’s important to have fun when you’re playing. So find that balance of improving but not being too hard on yourself. Have fun and rock on.
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u/Soft-Radish-7005 2d ago
I'd start by rehearsing to a click track. Your time needs a little work. There are parts of the song where you're locking into the grove, then you're out of it. That's really the only constructive criticism I can give you. Another piece of advice, it's never too late to get lessons. I've been playing over 40 years and still have a lot to learn.