On the drums again

Last night was the rehearsal with Vincent's group. I was hyped up about it because this Sunday will be the last service I'll play for until mid November. I thought I was quite disciplined in playing to the click track. I also felt "organic" while playing with it. The ease (although I lost my "one" somewhere in the song) of playing with the click made playing in the band felt really good. The hours I spent (abeit not long) air-drumming on the bus or MRT helped a lot. The only thing I was very cross was that I couldn't deliver the drum introduction for "Made to worship" where the 4th snare was a open roll, but I played it like a closed roll having a diarrhea. . I didn't know it was so difficult to incorporate a roll into a groove. Something has to be done to my rudiments. Arhgh. So what I did was I changed the beat and played something more funky, a la Chad Smith monster groove.




With the excitement of playing comes the joy of mixing and matching cymbals. I brought a long my K Custom 16" dark crash so that I'll have two of the same crash on my left and right. I kept the HHX extreme crash in the middle. Added the Meinl Byzance 10" splace to the two splashes that were already there. What I love about this Myzance is the dark and almost dirty-quasi-thrashy sound. A great contrast to the Sabian (which sounded traditional) and the Pasite (which was too bright-sounding). The 12" china is now on it's own (the Byzance used to sit on it to give a effect of a "stax"). I replaced both hi-hats on my left and right. For the main hats, I changed the top to a Zildjian Mastersound top while retaining the Paiste bottom that was already there. The auxillary hi-hat was changed to a Sabian 12" David Gibraldi's Signature mini-hats. Lastly the ride cymbal was replaced by the "mother" the Paragon 22" ride.




During the rehearsal, we played an instrumental part for quite a few bars (longer than usual). I thought I could do a monster fill in the middle of it. So I tried, but dang! I came in short! When I crashed for breat "one", I was actually at "4" Arhghhh... so I found my "ones two threes" and continued playing until the next repetition. I attempted the monster fill again. It's the kind that's played in phrases of 3 over the bar-line that creates tension then reached the climax and released using triplets over the drum set.I didn't play exactly like him, but it was something inspired by Mike Portnoy's monster fill in the guitart solo of "The Spirit Carries On". This time I nailed it and some gave the look that said "nice, but dun do it again". Yes it's true. Musicially it adds to the music, but for something to play in a worship service, it might be a big distraction. Will I attempt to do it on Sunday? I don't think so. Such ideas are great drumming-gymnastics, but it might throw muiscians off. It's ok if the fill is HUGE if the space in the song calls for, but playing phrases over the bar-line? That might throw people off. Nonetheless, that was a moment for me last night.




"I play my best for him... on my drums"

- Little Drummer Boy"

Soli Deo Gloria