David Stanoch -- Lesson Session: Thoughts on Timekeeping

Thoughts on Timekeeping

For what it's worth...

In my business, time is the foundation. My initial enthusiasm with the musical art of drumming was steered by my guitar teacher who was frustrated that I didn't have a solid sense of time. I started playing the guitar at age seven, simultaneously becoming exposed to the instrument's technical foundation on the fret board (fingering scales/melodies, and harmonic chording) and, at the same time, learning the laws of music that one becomes familiar with in reading and playing music (reading notes and rests, understanding their values, applying them to time signatures and the other basics of notation).

At age seven, it didn't all come together in a groove. After a year or two, my teacher suggested I listen more to the rhythm of the drums--the beat. I did, and watched drummers play as well. My first experience behind a set of drums was exhilarating--I was easily able to do a few basic beats & fills I'd watched another drummer play. My mother secured a place for me in the school band and I was hooked. After struggling with so many notes, scales, and fret positions on the guitar, drumming, initially, seemed a lot easier to hang with. It started to change as I got serious. I began to realize that I couldn't really tell if I was speeding up or slowing down in more subtle, less obvious, tempo zones. This made me rather insecure when faced with criticism on the subject. "Lay it down!" "Take MY tempo!" "Don't rush!" "It's slowing down!" These were things that I can remember people literally sometimes screaming at me before I was barely a teenager. That can mess with your head and your heart, but I loved the feeling of playing those drums and being in the eye of the hurricane on the bandstand, which is right where every drummer--and no one else--on stage lives in performance. I decided to get serious about understanding the concept of time and how to feel it from the inside out.

Looking back, I made some smart moves:

- practicing with a metronome

- hooking up with players more experienced than myself--specifically for focusing on time & groove

- recording my playing in these situations and studying what everyone else hears when I play

- subdivide, subdivide, subdivide.

I also got a lot of good advice:

- play along with certain records/drummers

- practice first with the metronome then the same thing again without it, recording both and listening back to notice any differences

- practice any one idea at a wide variety of tempos to learn your comfort zones and breaking points

- practice any one idea at a variety of dynamics, crescendoing and decrescendoing, then play continuously through extreme dynamic contrasts each lasting a bar or two at a time (notice where things tend to rush or drag)

- practice with the metronome hearing the click as "2 & 4," or even as just "1" or "4"--this works your "inner clock" much better than playing along to a quarter note pulse or sequenced sixteenths that spell it all out for you all the time (the time is still perfect but you are responsible for "more" of it, filling in the cracks and keeping it together).

All of this was applied over several years of growth. In the process I realized I could harness my timekeeping with greater control but I still needed more depth of feel. Nowadays, a drummer needs to be able to groove in the old school, organic, real time way (like African drum choirs, blues, jazz, latin, and rock 'n roll bands) and in more inorganic, quantized disciplines (playing with loops, sequencers, Pro-Tools, hell--even drum corps). It is one thing to have good time--it's the foundation for a drummer, as mentioned before--but it's still just one thing a good drummer needs. Color, shading, and imagination are also important in a drummer's interpretation to the music he or she plays. Yet all these things are essential in timekeeping as well. They are, in my opinion, what separates a truly great drummer from the others who play the drums.

What does that mean? Well, I mentioned wanting more depth of feel at a certain point. One way was to improve my application of not only dynamics but also interdynamics--that's another subject altogether. The other was to understand and be able to apply color, shading, and imagination to my feeling for both organic (real time) and inorganic (quantized) time. The only way I know how to get it together is simply through playing a lot, specifically with:

a.) other musicians

b.) loops and sequencers, and

c.) both a & b together.

It also helps to have some insight. Perfect time is an important goal but it's actually kind of dull after awhile, in my opinion, if it plods along and everything's...perfect--like a machine. I think time feels better if it breathes a bit--like you and I do. A strong sense of good time is perhaps the better skill to have. Knowing how to subdivide within a quarter note pulse helps keep the time even but there is also a level of depth, combined with feeling, in knowing how and where to "place" the downbeats for maximum effect. Max Roach said that, in his day, the best players weren't as concerned about time that was so strict as to be inflexible as they were with having the sensitivity to be able to steer the time to generate the proper feeling for any piece of music. Jack DeJohnette speaks of the directions of both forward and backward motion in timekeeping. What does it all mean? How do you get a handle on these concepts? In an old Paul Simon song he sang, "You can sit on top of the beat, you can lean on the side of the beat, you can hang from the bottom of the beat, but you gotta admit that the music is sweet!" This actually explains a lot about what I'm talking about.

Once a player learns to control both organic and inorganic timekeeping, and is able to both anticipate and apply where to phrase the time, then you're in a zone of confidence in any musical situation you feel comfortable in. It helps to understand the duration of different values of notes at a variety of tempos. Drums don't have much sustain unless you play a roll or let a cymbal ring, but if you sing quarter notes and half notes, for example, first at 250 bpm, then 150 bpm, then 50 bpm, etc., like a horn player would--feeling the attack & release of each note, you'll get a clue about where to center your attack when emphasizing steady time and expressing a deeper feel in directions of rock steady, forward, or backward motion. These directions are commonly referred to as:

a.) Spot On the beat. Studio pros call this "sitting on it" or "burying the click" because your attack is so dead center and rock steady you virtually cancel the click out ("you can sit on top of the beat...");

b.) On Top of the beat. Pushing the attack by slightly anticipating it, driving the time forward without actually rushing ("you can lean on the side of the beat..."); and,

c.) Laying Back on the beat. Pulling back, delaying the attack somewhat, without actually dragging ("you can hang from the bottom of the beat...").

Often the music requires a certain approach, like those listed above, for the proper feel and vibe. Sometimes I find myself "balancing" the time by, for example, laying back if I feel the bass player or the band rushing the pulse or certain figures, or getting more on top if I feel the time staring to lag. This can also require flexiblity in where I center my attack during the course of a single tune as well. I might strive to "keep everyone out of the same end of the boat" to avoid rushing or dragging the tune. These are usually subtle nuances that may arise while I focus on "the big picture" of making the song I'm playing shine.

After this hurdle of awareness, there are more to ponder. The mysterious "gray zone" of rhythm springs to mind--also referred to as "elasticising" the time, or playing "in the cracks"--the ability to phrase the rhythm in a way that is flexible and can't be written down. In this approach the time, per se (the downbeat pulse), is not elastic but how we subdivide within it is. Typically it refers to examples of eighth or sixteenth note subdivisions that are not phrased exactly even (or "straight"), but also not exactly what I'd describe as usually:

a.) a hard or "tight" swing (like a shuffle rhythm that you could lock ALL of the notes of a triplet cleanly inside of); or

b.) a true hemiola grouping of 3 over 2 (think of the rhythm "1-2&3-" repeating)

but rather a flexible interpretation between these extremes and straight eighth or sixteenths (there are other examples as well).

Many forms of music around the globe incorporate this flexibility and drummers, in particular, can quickly appear very "square" (aka "not happening") in certain genres of, for example, African, Brazilian, Cuban, Funk, Gospel, Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, and Rock 'n Roll music if they cannot supply this flexibility to the rhythm (and also steer the direction of its motion) over a strong steady pulse. Staying relaxed helps. To get a rhythm really grooving, Jeff Hamilton would say, "Don't worry if it's a little sloppy & don't sound nervous." Some players produce this instinctively and others have to work for it.

A very important concept to consider here is that much of all this depends on how you use the space between the beats. Think of the rests as the notes turned inside out. The space needs the same focus and attention as the notes you are playing. Time and space working in harmony will affect how you'll play those notes in a way that will even out your time flow, providing a deeper feel for the music you play. Either way, in this day and age, awareness of these concepts are key to developing and applying them.

Yet with all this insight and ability I realized at a certain point that now I'm the one, in certain situations, that hears the lack of a strong time foundation in some players I share the bandstand with and it's frustrating. What do I do about that?! I read an interview with the late, great, Jeff Porcaro where he asked rhetorically "What does it mean to have good time?" He basically stated that one half of his clientele thought he had good time if he plowed unwaveringly through a tune, no matter who or what around him threatened to pull the time in one direction or another, and the other half thought he was a time wizard if he could follow their emotional and unsteady flow of time through various parts of a song. I could relate to that. I find myself at times playing gigs with sequencers (or to a click in the studio) where I have to be spot on with the track and still add fire and feeling to the music or, conversely, in show orchestras where I have to hold a fifty piece group together in real time (and perhaps outdoors) and "drive the bus." Then there's avant garde jazz groups, or symphony orchestras, where the ability to play effectively in and out of time, perhaps following a conductor's purposefully unsteady phrasing, is essential. They all demand a strong understanding of time but different approaches to applying it, so yeah...what does it mean to have good time?!

Again I come back to the idea that a strong awareness of the concepts of good timekeeping are the key to playing the game, combined with discipline, relaxed concentration and the openness of understanding that:

a.) playing with different people may require flexiblity and adjustments in approach from one situation to another and, lastly, in the words of Bill Bruford...

b.) "When in doubt--roll!"

Whether you choose to stay firm or bend, remember to do it with conviction! Steering the ship and leading the band builds trust and relaxes your fellow musicians. It's how you assert that authority that makes all the difference.