Jonathan Brown

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...

Playing the right rhythms separates the good players from the bad. Playing with the right timing separates the great players from the good players. Let's take a look at just one note. Pretend that this "." is the note. [.] If we zoom in it would look like this. [  .  ] If we zoom in farther it would like this! [     .     ] Now, the space in between the "[ ]" is the correct timing. The farther we zoom in, the more room we have to move the dot around and still be correct. Ideally, we want to place our notes exactly in the middle for a perfectly timed sound. Sometimes it sounds better if it's not perfect. There's a charm to music that has a human touch. The note might look more like this [         . ] It's still correct, because it's within the brackets, but it falls a little bit later than expected. Notes that are late create a relaxed feeling. It's kind of like inviting some friends over to your house. You decide they should...

Why are you on stage? Is it because you love music? Is it because someone asked you to play? Are you trying to prove to everyone you know that you can play drums?  My response is to lead others to worship Jesus. When you do certain things so often, it can be easy to forget why we do them in the first place. It's really easy for me to think, "I'm going to play this part on this song this way, and people might worship Jesus, but it's more important for me to play these specific parts." But w hat if we turn that around? What if we scrap everything we know about playing drums and start with this: Our purpose is to lead others in worshiping Jesus Christ. Notice a couple things about this purpose: 1) There is no stage involved. You can lead others in worship without being on a stage and without even playing drums. What do you do when you're not required to be on stage? Do you listen to the sermon? Do you talk to anyone? or do you at least make yourself...

I have this theory that a terrible drummer will sound sorta good if he plays with confidence and intentionality . So, imagine a what those traits would do for a good drummer! I believe s ome drummers, commonly newer ones, sound better than they actually are because they play like they mean it. I also believe that what separates good drummers from great drummers is the level of confidence and intentionality with which they play. So let's talk about it! I do think there's a difference between confidence and intentionality. When you think,  "Yeah, I meant to hit my snare there," that's intentionality . When you add, "Take it or leave it," to that statement, that's confidence . It's obviously hard to distinguish them because they go hand in hand. My definition of intentionality is planning what you're going to play or having the knowledge of what you're going to do before you do it. Whereas, confidence is more of an attitude that ...

Check 1 Check 2 Check 1 2 3. Testing. Is this thing on? Oh the sounds of the beloved sound check!  When you're playing music, you have to be able to hear the music, whether that's just yourself and/or your bandmates. That's where monitors come in to play. They either take the form of speakers on the stage pointed towards the musicians or these cool headphone-looking things we call In-Ear Monitors (IEM's for short). They're great because not only do they directly give you what you're trying to listen for, but they also isolate unwanted noise, enable playing with click tracks, enable clearly hearing things in stereo, and typically have a higher quality of sound. But probably the most important part of using IEM's is looking cool while using them. As awesome as IEM's are, they do have one drawback that I want to address, and that is they detach you from the room. Whoa now! Hey there! Take it easy! I'm not trying to throw shade on...