Another great thread, Wade!
I make no attempt to disguise the fact I pretty much wing everything I do, including templates. Even the more complex tracks I've added to are still jammed, except I mark out change overs or specific phrases - call it sight-reading my computer! Only when I can't hit specific phrases naturally or there's a particularly long set of 'un-guessable' sequences (I'm looking at you Marc and Oli!), I do spend a few minutes practising through those.
Why I do it is something else entirely and now I think about it, there's all manner of reasons. Which I'm just going to empty onto the page in no particular order.
Time. Time is never, ever on my side and is part of the frustration of contributing to the loops for me - I just cannot invest the effort I want to in the tracks because I'd be uploading one track a month if I'm lucky. Instead, being able to jam through it allows me to get through four or five loops in a single sitting (I usually manage to record for up to an hour). That approach is reinforced by the fact my kit is eight miles away from my house and I'm often too knackered [read: lazy] after work to be bothered to head over and record. I often bookmark loops whilst at work and think of ideas for what I can play as I listen which get completely forgotten by the time I get to sit down at my kit, often several days later!
Apart from the physical constraints on when I can record, I guess the other reason I jam everything is 'because I can'. That isn't meant to sound arrogant (but probably does!) but I rarely find it difficult to jam my way through a track. A combination of 34 years' playing, substantial formal training in most of the styles through Musician's Institute and private teachers as a youth, plus a strong family background in music combine to allow me to operate with a natural level of musical intuition and insight. It's hard to explain, but I find it easy to 'lock on' to the mindset of a song and instinctively identify key phrases or themes (often second-guessing them) as they happen in the music and rapidly respond to them. That's a fancy way of saying I'm good at 'blagging it'! As my first drum teacher taught me: if you make a mistake, do it again and make it look like you meant to do it!
I've spent years and years and years just playing along to anything and everything and it does eventually become instinctive. I've also been attending regular jam nights over the past couple of decades and just rocking up and running with whatever you're given really focuses you on listening to the musicians around you.
Even to this day, the bands I'm in I do not 'learn' the songs verbatim - I learn their structure, have an idea of the key rhythm or style plus any phrases or stops but after that, I just 'sound like' the song - every gig is therefore slightly different for me. Helps keep me sounding fresh and stops me getting bored, in truth.
70% of a successful jam is not *what* you play but *how* you play it. In my book, a simple drum pattern played well and with feeling gives greater pleasure than a fancy beat played choppily or incongruously. That's not to say I don't overplay because I do. All the bloody time.
Finally, most tracks I 'sight read' the waveform on-screen. Just by looking at it, you can see where the changes and dynamic shifts are. That is often enough to guide me through a track. I also think it's easier for drummers to jam along because we don't have to worry about being in tune!
So that's my brain dump on the matter as to why I wing everything. There is no shame in planning a track - I wish I could spare the time to do it properly but I'm lucky enough to get away with jamming it and still sounding like I belong (usually). It's like the rest of life, really: making it up as you go along!
As usual, I've written far too much. Sorry.
Edited by
mpointon on Luglio 03 2017 11:35
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