The Very Avoidable Mistake I Made at a Recent Rehearsal

Time to get real with you guys. The last several emails I’ve sent out have been about dealing with failure - overcoming it and using it to learn. The truth that I’ve tried to reiterate is that you’re never going to avoid failure, no matter how good you are at something. However, you can use the failure to learn and to overcome.

I failed at being a good drummer the other day at a rehearsal, and I’d like to share this story with you since I think it might help you out.

Speaking of avoiding mistakes, check out this video while you're here about the "5 toxic drummer habits you MUST avoid at all cost."

Ok on with today's story!

We were rehearsing this moderate-tempo, four-on-the-floor song that was very long and repetitive. The tune also didn’t have a lot of dynamic contrast throughout…It built up after a minute or so then stayed up the rest of the song. I launched into the first chorus, enjoying the rock ’n roll, driving feel. When the second chorus came around, I played the same part and kept the energy high. But then when we went into the bridge things didn't feel right.

This song has a 24-bar bridge section that actually consists of a “bridge 1” and a “bridge 2.” Both are dynamically huge, and the band drives it the whole way. So what went wrong?

Well technically, nothing. But as I got farther and farther into the bridge, I found myself feeling frantic and almost sloppy. I was trying to make the bridge feel really huge and fun, but I was running out of headroom to do so. I was washing and crashing on the ride, but that still didn’t really feel like enough by the time we got to the end of the bridge. I felt this “musically stressed-out” feeling like I had tried so hard to get the band where I wanted us to go…but didn’t quite make it. I felt like I had almost made it up the hill on my bike, only to get exhausted and head back down the way I came.

So what happened, and what exactly did I do wrong? Fortunately it didn’t take me long to figure it out, and thankfully there was a board mix from the rehearsal I could listen to to confirm my suspicions.

#1: I played my cards too early. I got too big too early, so I didn’t have anywhere to go when the bridge came around. In some songs you can get away with this, but this wasn’t one of those. Here was my fix: Rather than play those first two big choruses with open hats, I decided to keep the hats closed. This made them feel less high energy than before, but they still felt much bigger than the verses. In the verses I was just playing a light snare cadence thing. “Bigness” in groove is all relative to where you were previously dynamically. If you’re super chill, you don’t have to get very big in order to feel huge and high energy. This scenario was a healthy reminder of this.

#2: That two-part bridge became tiresome and exhausting because I didn’t change my part from the first part into the second. As soon as I opted to play open hats at the first part of the bridge, then transition to the ride for the second part…it felt WAY better. This gave me the headroom I needed to finish strong. 

#3: I also simplified the snare cadence part I was playing in the verses,just to let the groove breathe a little more. By starting off simpler, I had more options for where to go in the next verse. And so on, and so on. 

I hope you see the theme here! 

Choose your drum parts based on what’s coming next and where you’re going.

Or more specifically, choose your timekeeping device (closed hats, open hats, ride, floor tom, rims, crash, etc.) according to the sections of the song and where you’re going next. 

If you consistently do that, you’ll never run into the frustration I ran into. Songs will “play themselves” so to speak, and you’ll feel great about your parts as you lay them down. This is a great, simple, thoughtful way to approach most rock songs - and it’s not hard to do. 

Now why did I fail at making this particular song feel great? What was it about this song that made it such a challenge that day? I’ll explain a little more…

The vibe on this recording is sort of “acoustic-driven,” rather than rock. The recording is acoustic-guitar-heavy, and there’s a whole bunch of percussion accompanying the drums. You really can’t hear on the record whether the drummer is on hats, ride, or whatever else. The percussion and the acoustic guitar are the driving factors in the mix, and those are used to progress the song. So in theory, I should have been fine playing what I originally played. But there’s something you always have to keep in mind:

When you play a song with a band, it will almost always feel different from the record.

You and your band are different people playing different instruments, and you may need to adjust your parts to make things work for your audience and for the room in which you’re playing. In our case here, I needed to become a key part of progressing the song dynamically since we didn’t have a percussion section laying down hand drum beats - nor did we have several acoustic guitars. We took more of a straight rock approach, which put the drums a little more in the “front of the mix,” so to speak.

Always be aware of the big picture of what you’re playing. If you’re able to listen to a board mix from a rehearsal, that’s a fantastic way to critique yourself and identify mistakes like I did. Doing this lays the big picture right out in front of you so you can quickly pinpoint problems. Know that sometimes the part on the record doesn’t work perfectly in your environment, so always have your ears turned on. Always be thinking musically, making sure everything you play feels right.

I hope this story / lesson helps you out, and I hope it’s not too heavy on the abstract. I like concrete tips and concepts, and I know this one’s hard to put on paper. In case you’re interested, though, you can download my hand written chart for this song right here. Check out how I went through and labelled what I was going to play in each section with color-coding. I did this right after that rehearsal, and it helped out a ton. Also, give the song a listen on Spotify! Go hear what I’m talking about so that everything makes more sense. Whether or not this is a genre you play much (this was a church rehearsal I was talking about), this overarching concept applies to every area of music and any band you might play with.

And if you'd like to dig into deciphering my charting method, be sure to grab my free guide, 5 Steps to Learning Any Song in Under an Hour. Enjoy!

Stay Non Glamorous, and God Bless,

Stephen

P.S. - The song in my story reminds me of a great pop-country song from 2002, "Somebody Like You" by Keith Urban. That tune is a great example of pacing your drum parts and saving your "biggest stuff" for the very ending. Check it out!