I received this question recently, and I thought it would make for a good “email lesson.” However, you can let me know if you still have questions about anything, and I might make a video going deeper.

Miking the Kick

On just about every gig I play where I bring my full kit, I’m miking my kick drum. Unless I’m in a very small, intimate setting, I always want some extra low end beef from the kick.

I can think of one specific example where I didn’t mic the kick, and that was at a private dinner party event in a small space. We were playing lightly while folks had conversation over dinner, so it was important we stayed very much in the background. I think this is the only scenario where you don’t want that extra low end. Otherwise some extra “foundation” to the sound is nice.

I like to be super simple and place a Shure Beta 52 inside my kick, laying on a towel. This may have started because I was lazy, or maybe it was just years ago when...

On a gig a couple of months ago, I made one of those “drummer mistakes” where the drummer goes one direction in the song and the lead singer goes another. Looking back, it’s pretty hilarious. There are really only two ways you can handle this type of situation, so I’ll share with you my example…

I was playing with three other guys I’ve played with pretty regularly over the last 7 years. We’ve played all sorts of cover gigs together since college, and we’ve learned to play very well together. Most of the time we’re good about catching each other’s signals and knowing where the other is going musically…But I happened to miss one of these signals on this particular night.

We were playing something sort of funky, and we were jamming on it while the electric guitar player soloed. I remembered a few times in the past that we had launched into a double time feel on a jam section like this, so I prepared mentally for our...

"Stephen, they need you to play drums Sunday."

My mom’s words smacked me in the face then echoed back and forth in my 15-year-old head. They what?? I laughed to myself. How do they even know that I play drums? No one’s supposed to know that! I just started lessons two months ago! This is crazy.

But somehow word had gotten out and I was getting dragged into the high school student worship band at church. Turns out their regular drummer had graduated high school and the replacement hadn't worked out. Little had I known 5 minutes before this moment that I was about to play my very first gig with just two months of drum lessons under my belt. I didn’t even own a real drumset at the time.

I was totally unprepared, terrified, and looking for a way out of this. I remember laying in bed that night praying about it, saying “God if you want me to go way out of my comfort zone to do this, you have to go with me and somehow enable me to do what...

On a recent gig, something out of the band’s control went terribly wrong and shut the entire show down an hour early. In all of our combined years of gigging, none of us on stage had ever had this happen to us before...

This was a typical Friday-night, 8-12 type of cover gig, and we were approaching the 11pm mark. The club was getting busy, and the dance floor was getting crowded. It was almost time for the final set - the set with all the upbeat top 40 hits everybody loves - to finish off the evening. A few of us in the band were hanging out at the back door to the venue, chatting with one of the bouncers as our set break wound down.

To our surprise, it was pouring down rain outside. Looking out across the parking deck you could see a blinding wall of rain coming down out on the street. “I hope this doesn’t keep folks away tonight,” worried the bouncer. “We’re coming up on what’s usually our busiest time of night.” The wind started to...

Don’t tick off the sound guy.

I recently saw what happened when a band made this fatal error.

I was playing a show with an original band I play with often, and we were opening for another band traveling through from out of town.

The venue asked us to arrive at 2pm for sound check for a 7pm show. This kind of schedule definitely isn’t ideal, but we’d scheduled our day around it and it wasn’t a big deal. We arrived, set up our gear, and we started soundcheck. We have a good relationship with the front-of-house engineer at this particular venue, and he’s always done his job well and gone out of his way to make sure everything’s working well for us. We checked every instrument, got monitor mixes fine-tuned, and we played through a tune. This was a super thorough sound check, and we were glad. Everything sounded and felt great, and we were pumped for the show that night.

Something seemed weird though... Where was the headlining band? Where was...

I played a gig a few weeks ago that tested my patience and ability to adapt as a drummer. This was pretty much a logistical nightmare for several reasons. It all started when I rolled into town…

The venue was at a downtown area where there’s a historic city-center square, surrounded by all sorts of hip restaurants, bars, and theaters. As I arrived on the square this Friday night, I was shocked to see a sea of at least 2,000 people on the lawn and flooding the streets. Crosswalks were crawling with folks. Sidewalks were crowded. Parking spaces were filled. Good thing I got here early.

Evidently a big family event was going on downtown, and EVERYONE was there. But the *fun* part was that the venue I was playing at didn’t have any parking (of course). And the valet lots were full. So myself and my bandmates had to take turns unloading each other’s vehicles on the curb in front of the gig location. Somebody would unload then go look for...

I was on a gig recently where I played something completely wrong. This was no small mistake. This was one of those scenarios where the drummer just launches into something else and the band’s left staring and wondering. BUT…there was still a silver lining, which is why this story is worth telling. ;)

This was the second show I’d played with this particular band, and we were covering numerous pop songs and even a hiphop tune or two. One such hiphop track was “Poison.” If you were ever into old-school 90s hiphop you probably remember this one. It’s one of those drum-machine-style tracks where the intro or the turn is a drum loop. Songs like this likely inspired Bruno Mars’ “Finesse,” where the song kicks off with a solo drum beat.

Rarely on gigs like this are there opportunities for drum solos. It really just depends on the band and whether they like to put their drummer on the spot and hope he can throw...

What is your default? What’s the one thing you rely on that you can gravitate toward and lean on in a tough musical situation? In other words - What are you so comfortable doing that you can excel at it while chaos ensues around you? A recent gig made me think about this…

A drummer friend in town asked me to sub for him on a cover gig. I eagerly accepted, mainly because I like the challenge of learning new songs in a less familiar genre. Sometimes I get so into the groove (no pun intended?) on my regular gigs that it’s easy to stop growing as a musician. When the opportunity came to play with people I’d never met at a venue I’d never played at…playing a lot of unfamiliar songs…I jumped at the chance.

My friend sent me a setlist of the tunes they most commonly played at this particular club, so I got to work charting about 30 songs. I enjoy gig prep, and I love being forced to listen to stuff I don’t hear everyday in order...

One time I was playing at a special event early one Monday morning. This was sort of like a “corporate breakfast” kind of thing, where the band would play a little and someone would speak. All the musicians arrived at our bright-and-early call time around 7am, and we prepared for soundcheck. The schedule allowed for a quick soundcheck, followed by about an hour of rehearsal. Should be easy enough since we were only playing three songs. Or so we thought…

This was one of those times where from a technical standpoint….EVERYTHING started going wrong.

The keyboard player couldn’t get any signal out of his keyboard to front of house. The singer’s in-ears weren’t working at all. There was a horrible buzz in everyone’s in-ears that couldn’t be found or explained. No one was able to hear the click and tracks since signal wasn’t making it from the MD’s laptop either. The planned schedule came to a screeching halt, and before...

Song learning usually consists of 3 simple steps for me. If there’s a recording or demo of the song, I’ll listen to it and write a chart. From there I’ll jump over to the kit and play through it, and I’ll be good to go. This sounds pretty simple and straightforward (and it really is!), but there are a few key things you want to look out for and make sure you do. The question of “what’s the best way to learn songs” is one I get frequently, so I hope this lesson-style email helps you out!

Step 1: Listen to the Recording

Really listen to the recording. Whether it’s the original record that you’re covering, a vocals-and-guitar demo your bandleader sent you, or a fully put together demo of a new arrangement, listen to the recording thoroughly. In other words, a quick listen in the car doesn’t count. Listening via your phone speaker doesn’t count. Listening to it with any distractions going on around you...