When I Counted Off a Song 30 Clicks too Fast…
When I first started playing drums with other people early in high school, one thing terrified me most and caused a great deal of anxiety every time I had to do it.
The count off.
Whether this was a “pshhh pshhh pshhh pshhh” on the hihats or a “ting ting ting ting” on the ride, nailing the count off for a song was an important necessity. (After all, you screw this up and the whole band’s gonna fall apart, right?)
I first started playing drums with the high school worship band at my church when I had just begun my junior year. This was the first time I’d ever really played drums with people, and this was especially the first time I’d played in front of a crowd. I’d been playing piano recitals and concerts as a kid since 3rd grade, but playing drums was an entirely different beast. It was way out of my comfort zone when I first started.
One Sunday morning, probably just a month or two into my drumming-in-public debut, I had to count off a few songs in the set. So far I’d done an ok job past weeks of getting count-ins right, but for some reason things just weren’t clicking for me this particular morning. We were flowing straight from the first song into the second, and it was my job to count off the 80bpm-ish song #2. I gave a proud “pshh pshh pshh pshh” on the open hats to cue everyone into the full-band intro. I instantly realized I was waayyy over tempo. Probably by at least 30 clicks. I bet I counted in around 115. This was bad. Everyone in the band hurriedly kept up with me, exchanging panicked glances. I immediately had that feeling that everyone in the room knew my mistake, and I felt like every eye was on me. I was now facing my worst fear. I had failed, and my short-lived drumming career was over.
Then an epic time-warp occurred. This was one of those songs with a big energetic intro, followed by a band dropout for the verse. The singer started singing the first verse, and within about 3 words we had dropped 30 clicks down into the correct tempo. There had been no train wreck, no falling apart, and nothing too dramatic or horribly embarrassing. I still wanted to crawl under a rock for the rest of the morning, but at least the mistake wasn’t extremely obvious to everyone else. And at least nobody called me out on it while on stage (I’ve heard horror stories of that happening!).
I doubt this was the last time this happened, but for some reason this particular instance sticks in my mind the most. I think I know why.
On that Sunday morning my junior year of high school, I began to understand the power of melody in music. If you’re trying to remember the tempo of a song without remembering how the song actually goes, you’ll probably mess it up (unless you’re a robot with some sort of perfect-time mind power). I had made that very mistake. I assumed I’d just remember how fast to count off, but in the heat of the moment I completely blew it. I didn’t have the melody or riff playing in my head beforehand, so I was literally throwing darts blindfolded.
Though I didn’t totally grasp this then (and plenty of follow-up learning experiences reinforced this), I started to understand that I needed to know the melody of the song just as well as the singer - even if the sole purpose was so that I could count off confidently. I quickly began to apply this knowledge, and I developed a system for “tempo memory.” I made a list of every song we’d ever played in the student worship band, and I memorized all of their tempos. Whether it was a slow 68bpm or a quick 172bpm, I locked them all into my memory. I made sure to not only know the song’s tempo, but the song’s melodies as well. After all, knowing one without the other would be useless.
I developed a “tempo library” in my head. This allowed me to count off a song accurately as long as I knew the target bpm. If I knew I needed 144, I had a song in my head for that. If I needed 108, I had a song in my head for that. The funny thing is, today I still remember most of these songs and tempos 10 years later.
I’m sure there have been more recent incidences of imperfect count offs on my part, but this system helped me get much better at being at least 95% correct on every count off I ever did. Additionally, knowing the melody of the song in question helped a ton. All I had to do was get it playing in my head, and I could nail it even in the heat of the moment.
My guess is that many of you guys have been there. None of us are “naturally good at” nailing a tempo perfectly every time. We all have to practice this. (That’s another element here! I literally would practice counting off songs along with my metronome.) But I hope this story and these concepts have given you some solid info to chew on. I hope this story and discussion will help you to strengthen your timing abilities or at least lessen your “count-off-anxiety.”
Feel free to shoot me any additional thoughts or questions!
God Bless,
Stephen
