Drummer Goals
- Sensitive to the Holy Spirit
- Play in time with the metronome
- Good understanding of time signatures
- Dynamics is key
- .Lock in with bass player
- Attentive to song leader during praise
- A firm understanding of the 100% rule
- The dynamics of a song is often led by the drums.
The drums are definitely the backbone of any good band. A solid drummer will hold other tempo challenged musicians into a locked pattern, providing them with a sense of security and freedom to play with abandon, knowing the tempo will be held. Let’s look at two things that can really help to hold a band together.
- Snare placement (in time) has a big impact on the perceived tempo. All other things being equal, an early hit snare will cause other musicians to reset the tempo in their mind a little faster to match the “new” tempo. Somehow a late hit snare doesn’t tend to slow the band down (it can if taken to extremes), it usually sounds very good.
- The drummer has the final word on dynamics for any song. If the drummer and the bass player decide that a particular chorus is going to be big, then it’s going to be big. Likewise if they don’t kick in, that chorus is going nowhere.