Today, I have listened to old and new(er) recordings. I am not very often in the mood for practicing rudiments, cool new fills, new technics or the dubbel bas drum I set of to learn couple of months ago. But when listening to these old recordings, only a couple of years old, I thinking; "is this really me! Am I that lousy!?". Then I put on the same song from a later recording and thinking "That's the way that song is supposed to be played! I kick as!" and suddenly I have the perspective of my practice and I am certainly in the mood for practicing!
So, this is a very good tip for you to do as well! Take a couple of songs, as many as you like, as long as you love to play to them! Record them today, and play the best you every did! Then put that recording away. Do this once every month, just so you don't forget how good the song is or how you are supposed to play it. Then after a year or two, take the first and last recording and compare them! You are sure to be surprised! ... in a good way!
Today the new Meshuggah album, "Koloss", was released, at least in Europe. I listen to it while writing this so I havn't listen thru it all, but it's really great!
One song I had intention to redo since the guitarist had "something else in mind" :-/ Nevertheless, it's he who wrote it and the only thing to do is to rerecord it. Had fun doing it!
The second song was for the same project! For this song I was totally free to do whatever I liked. I looove that! No one to tell me whats wrong and didn't sound like they intended! A lot of fun recording this funk-inspired-power/thrash/progressive-metal song! Hope I may publish it here soon!
The third is one of mine solo project! I't is a kind of rock-n-roll kind of song inspired by Rolling Stones and bands like that. I have no name for the song yet and I hope to be able to record some voicing for it soon (and perhaps some new guitar tracks). This one will be great! :-D
Well, Since I wrote a post about drummers that influenced my playing style I feel I have to list some of the music styles that have influenced me. Styles had have stronger influence on me than a single drummer, due to I am a musician, not a drummer and I listen to good music, not a single drummer. And I play to music, I play with music and I play music! So here are some of the most important
70s rock
If you read my previous post, you noticed there was some 70s rock drummers, so it will be no surprise that 70s rock is one of the music styles that have influenced me the most. When I started to play drums, bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Kiss was practically the one thing I listen to! I remember playing to Deep Purples 'Living Wreck" in my grandmothers basement (where I had my drumkit. Rest her soul, you really, really patient woman!).
Jazz
I just recently have begun to listen to jazz (perhaps the last five years or so) but this music style have influenced my greatly! How does that come? Well, first and foremost, my drum teacher was old school and jazz was the mother of all music and jazz was the music you should know how to play! If you could play jazz, you could play anything (but then again, why would you play anything else when you know how to play jazz!? :-P ). Here is one of the greatest jazz band ever!
Grunge
As a drumming teenager in the 90s I couldn't help to be influenced by that times new music style; The Grunge! I just loved the heavy melodic rhythms of Sean Kinney (Alice in Chains) and even more lovely drumming of Matt Cameron (Soundgarden). At the time I was not able to cover Matt Cameron but I loved to play to Alice in chains. These great rhythms have influenced me greatly!
Progressive Rock
The progressive have some influences from both heavy metal (including grunge) and jazz! My main influence from this genre is of course Dream Theater but also bands like Rush! Isn't this a genre to die for, especially if you are a musician! The technics, the beauty, the melodis ... the everything!
Funk
So where does it all end up? In Funk of course! What does this genre not have (a growler perhaps)!? It's fun to play, fun to listen to, it's technical and melodic and just about a great time! You can play as heavy as John Bonham, fast as Mike Mangini, technical as Dave Weckl or you name it! I often find drumless tracks online to drum to and record (I will post audio clips in a later post)! Here is a clip with Stanton Moore and Sprung Monkey.
John Bonham
Yes, my number one influence and drum good for many years. I love his heavy but, oh so, melodic sound. He's technics is astonish, not forget to mention the base drum technic! Mixing all kinds of music styles and master them all, he is my true and major inspiration and influence!
Ian Paice
I not a fan of Ian Paice, sorry to say, but his drum playing have influenced me a lot. During my first years as a drummer I listen to a lot of Deep Purple and in particular In Rock! He has (often) a more fast pace and rawer sound than Bonham
Mike Portnoy
I have always been a fan of polyrhythms and always tried to incorporate them in my playing, with questionable results, but after listening to Mike Portnoy I have realized what could be done with polyrhythms. And not just polyrhythms but also back beats and other really cool stuff as well!
My Drum teacher!
As a young drummer, still struggling to even be able to hit the drums without missing them, he learn me the JAZZ! And of course as a young man still formable I incorporated the jazz into my veins!
Terry Bozzio
Perhaps he haven't influenced my style as much, but he deserves a honorable mentioning here, since he makes the above drummers look like amateurs. And, yes! That incorporates The professor as well! :-P
Mac Book Pro
The hard ware I am using is a ( almost on the day) five year old 15 " Mac Book Pro, 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo. I have maximized the memory to four GB (667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM). The computer is running Mac OS 10.6. I haven't dared to upgrade to the latest Mac OS.
Audacity
I use this program for adding drums to drum less music, that I don't need to edit or do anything extra with. I usually open a track and add the drum less mp3 and plug in the output to my TD-9 Unit. Then I adjust the volume to my satisfaction and record the drums directly in Audacity. Couldn't be more simple!
Logic 9 Pro
There is, of course, projects that Audacity isn't enough, e.g. when recording an entire song or when I really, really need a click track (yes, audacity has that feature to, but no!)!
My level of expertise is low, I only have a weekend crash course as a background. The course have, however, given me a really good ground to stand on and the means to seek new knowledge and new ways of doing things.
The way I write music, in the extend I write my own, I usually record the guitar in Logic, then add the drums. Last I add bass either with the keyboard or with midi directly in Logic. Sounds surprisingly good!
Eeh, I didn't tell you what I thought of the Pro-mark sticks. They where really nice! The weight was perfect! I really want my sticks to be light since I want to do the beating, my sticks should do it for me! So, they where no Vic Firth American Classic 5A, but what the hell! They will do!
Here is my list of pros and cons with an electric kit!
Pro
Silent, I can play at home, in my house, even after the kids went to bed
Diversity in sound. I tent to play in a lot different styles and I can easily adjust the sound of my kit accordingly
Mobility! Just fold the kit together and take it under you arm (perhaps a tiny bit simplified ;-) )
Easy to record! Both midi and audio is connected to my sound card! Just press Record on my computer
One pad can have to different sounds depended where you hit it, for example one cymbal pad can be a thin crash and a china. Not an ultimate solution but it solves the third paragraph of cons below.
Mix in! You can easily mix in drumless music and get a nice balanced soundstage.
They don't break your sticks! I have never broken a pair of drum sticks on my e-kit!
Tuning! You don't have to tune your kit. You can if you want to, but you don't need to!
You can record what you play instantly with the controller
They take up a lot of less space than an acoustic kit
Cons
Just not the right feeling. It's good but not quite as good as acoustic!
Sound! I don't know about the TD-20 or the TD-30 but the TD-9 is not just as nice sounding as an acoustic kit! However it sound hell of a lot better than a cheep acoustic kit!
Adding new stuff! My TD-9 has a limited number if in ports and they are all taken already. If I want to add more drums/cymbals/whatever I need another control unit and they cost a lot of money! Whit an acoustic kit I would not have this problem
An electric kit can never, ever look cool on stage!
Leaking of trigger signal to other pads. If you hit one trigger sometimes (not often) you get the sound from an other trigger, especially within the same pad
No snare strainer.
The love of a new cymbal! Yes, you can buy a new cymbal for your electronic kit, obviously, but you probably wouldn't spend hours and hours listen to it, touch it and feel it before deciding what cymbal you are going to buy!
Personality! Yes, I love my TD-9 kit, but it will never have the same personality as my long last Perl First Session (my first kit)
Did I mention that it will never, ever look cool on stage!
The Drumkit
When I was about to by my self my new kit two years ago, I though much about what kind of kit I wanted. I had always played acoustic kits and that was what I was into this time around as well. But along the way I realized two things.
My kit, kind of...
1) If I have an acoustic kit I can't play at home. 2) I want to record my drums and my budget does not allow for a good kit and good microphones/triggers and stuff.
So for these to reasons I decided to go for an e-kit. I primary decided for an Roland HD-1, but I realized very soon that this was not what I wanted. I started to look into the TD-4K and TD-9K and soon I had a brand new Roland TD-9K in my house.
The bass drum pedal is and Perl P-902 (not in the picture) which I'm very happy with. I have supplemented the kit with one Roland CY-15 Ride cymbal and one additional pad (PD-8). I couldn't be more pleased (... well, If I had the new Roland TD30K, then perhaps I could be more happy)
Sound card.
As I stated above, one of the reasons I bought a electronic kit was that it is so easy to record but for that I need a sound card. The card I choose was a Roland Edirol UA-25! A really price worth sound card with stereo in/out, midi in/out, digital in/out and a lot of other really sweet stuff. You can read more about it here.
The Guitar and amplifier
I begin with my amplifier and then I end my Roland line up (no, Im not sponsored by Roland :-P ). My guitar amplifier is an Roland Cube 30. It's a fairly nice amplifier, good enough for my home studio! It has some good sound configuration possibilities, so I can easily make my sound pure metal or a more acoustic tone. Perhaps one how actually knows how to play the guitar has need for a better amplifier, but as a drummer, it's good enough for me!
My guitar is an Gibson Epiphone Les Paul model with a warm nice sound. Perfect for my needs. Perhaps its not the best metal guitar, but for blues, rock and music like that it's a really nice guitar. I'm sorry but I do not know what pickups there is on the guitar, so I can not go in further on that.
Keyboard
The keyboard I use only to try bass licks/rhythms I use in my music. The keyboard is an old Casio CTK-631 I bought ages ago.
Damn you, Vic Firth! These are my all time favorite drum sticks (american classic 5A) and now I can't buy them anymore! At least not in my local music store!
Why? Because Vic Firth's retailer is making it impossible for small local music stores to keep them. This to priority 4Sound, who have their filthy, dirty hands in Vic Firth cookie jar!
Sooooo.... what to do now? Should I order them online or go to another store to buy them? I like my local music store and I want to support them as far as I can! So what did I do?
I bought another brand! Pro-mark American hickory 5A! They feel a bit long and I dont like the looks of the top, but what the hell! Hopefully this goes well! I'll try them out tonight when practicing with the band! :-D
By accident I watched a documentary with Hugh Laurie yesterday and was at once thrown out of the funk mist I currently was roaming around in and I was immediately dragged into a Blues. The documentary was about Hugh recording his album "Let them talk" and a journey through New Orleans with blues as his companion. I'm sure you can find it online somewhere, but I you live in Sweden you can find the documentary here (it may work in other part of the world, but Im not sure).
Never the less, now I cant help myself, I sitting in my music room and playing my guitar (wich I cannot play, since Im a drummer), and trying to learn the blues. A minor blues scale, E Blues scale... up and down in a frustrating low tempo! In the background I have my own recorded blues drum track (damn, Im good! :-P )! After a quick stop at Youtube I discovered this clip that helped me to make the tunes sound a least a bit like blues.
So, I am a part of this metal project! Really exciting metal project with many different influences, like funk, folk music and jazz! We are not a full band yet, only a drummer (me!), guitarist and a singer. We have recorded the guitar already and now it's my time to record the drums. The problem is that this song is inspire by Kamelots "Center of the Universe" and I haven't played double base drum that much. I am learning, but old dogs learn slow. I am currently able to play 16th in 130 BPM but that's it. I'm sure that it will take another six month before I can play 150 BMP comfortably and for about five minutes without stopping :-)
To start off this brand new music blog I'll tell you something that my daughter said to me. I was playing "Village Greene" (Elvin Jones plays the drum), and I was digging it and feeling it and I told her that "THIS is Music, this is music!", And she looked annoyed at me and said "yes, I know"! I Love my girl!
