Jonathan Brown

Musicians, great and terrible, all play what they think sounds good on their instruments. But there's a difference between o.k. players and great players even though they're both doing what they think sounds good. Sure, skill, preparedness, technique, and experience all factor in that difference, but there's still something really small but really important missing. It just so happens to be something I have found to be incredibly difficult to explain. Simply put, it's why. We all ask ourselves, "What would sound good here?" but excellent musicians take it one step further and ask, "Why would this sound good?" Have you ever bothered to ask yourself why the thing you want to play sounds good? If not, you're in trouble. I love how there are so many types of music. You can get the same song to sound very different by playing it in a different style. With all the different genres of music out there, all of the different artists and songs, each of us a...

Let's talk about language. "Language?" you say. "I thought this was about drumming!" Yeah. Just stick with me. What's great about music is that it's so similar to a language. In most languages you have actually more than one vocabulary; you have one for listening, one for speaking, one for reading, and one for writing. Let that sink in. Isn't that just crazy how you can understand certain words when someone else uses them but not so much when you use them yourself? Or I've found myself speaking words I don't even know how to spell. (I'm referring to the word "pristine" ) I bet if you start looking for it, you'll notice differences in your vocabularies. Anyway... Musicians don't just play music; they listen to it, too. Listening to music can give you ideas about sounds, rhythms, general vibes, emotions, drum fills, instrumentation, taste, melodies, chord progressions etc. The list is practically endless here. You can lear...

I recently played an "acoustic" service with just a kick, snare, hi hat and occasional shaker. With this very simple set up, I had to rearrange the drum parts to fit my context. In other words, I can't play the tom groove that's supposed to happen if I don't have any toms, so I had to come up with different solutions to many parts. It was a fun challenge, especially, not having a crash cymbal. I want to share with you how I came up with the parts that I did or, at least, my thought process. I basically asked myself a lot of questions, and I categorized those questions into 3 basic steps. The first step is to be acquainted with the song. How does the song go?   What is the general vibe?   How do the drum parts normally go?  What rhythms are being played?  What's the primary subdivision? When changing the drum parts to any song, it is important you know what it is you are changing. I wanted to stay true to the original drum parts within reason. I...

The drums have been too loud for a very long time. Many people have thought of different solutions to make drums sound quieter: drum shields, special drum heads, special sticks,  muffling inventions, special cymbals, electronic sets, and the list goes on and on. I believe the only real way to sound quieter as a drummer is to play quietly. Sure, all of those things mentioned above are well, and good, but a drum is only going to be as loud as the drummer plays it. So really, it's not the drums that are loud; it's the drummer that plays them loudly. But having a softer touch isn't enough. It's not enough to just play quietly. You have to have something else called "taste." You see, the drum part that you're playing was recorded in a place where drum volume was most likely not a problem. You can try to play the same part quietly, but your context is obviously different. Here's a good example: If you are using hot rods and the recordin...

There’s a myth out there that some drummers and even worship leaders believe: If you play with hot rods/plastic multi-rods like you do with regular sticks, it will sound the same but be quieter. I'm not sure if you have noticed this or not yet, but that's not true . You see, there’s this thing called “tone.” Those little wooden hot rods will change your tone dramatically. Sure, it’s softer than using sticks, but your tone will suffer. The tone of a drum comes from the bottom resonant head. When you play with hot rods as if they are sticks, the bottom head isn’t activated nearly as much, thus, giving you a really weak tone. The cymbal tone can suffer, too. Often times the whole cymbal won’t be activated as easily, and you’ll just get these weird overtones when you play it with rods. That’s not to say that hot rods are to never be used ever again. There’s a certain attack that only these rods can give you. You have to change you technique when you use anything other than a drum...

Photo by   Jasper Smith Imagine a song with no drum fills. Sounds pretty boring, right? Well, keep imagining. What is there if there are no fills? There’s a beat pattern. There’s a home base. Most songs contain probably 90% beat patterns and 10% fills - and that’s pretty generous for the fills. It makes sense that you should focus on your beat pattern more than your fills, but somehow, fills can get more attention. WHY IS THAT?! I believe it’s because fills get the credit of creating moments. We all want to make moments happen. But a question all drummers need to ask themselves is “ Is the moment I want to create a moment the song needs right now? ” If you’re brave and honest enough to answer “no” you’ll see that the common listener will agree that the song is often better served with your beat pattern than it is with your fill. But what if the song really is better served with the moment you want to create? Well, to really pull it off, you have to play it in time. This is ...