- PLAY IN TIME. Period. The sign of a good drummer is not how many fills he can play in time, it is the fact that he can play in time. Buy a metronome that you can hear over your playing and practice with it every time you play. Be able to be as steady as a metronome. Use your metronome during practice and worship services as well.
- Learn to control your volume, especially if you use an acoustic kit. If you have a hard time controlling your volume, ask if the church will buy you a drum shield, or buy yourself some brushes or hotrods (rute/tala).
- Vary your fills and play them skillfully. It’s very difficult for a band to get back on track if a drummer’s fill ends a beat too late or half a beat too early. Be able to nail your fills every time. If you can’t, simplify your fills until you can.
- Learn different patterns. Four on the floor doesn’t work with every song. The country “train” beat won’t work with every song. Hint: A waltz beat won’t necessarily work with a driving 6/8 song as much as you might think 6/8 is the same as 3/4.
- Practice. Practice. Practice.
Do any of you have any back to basics tips for percussion (bongos, congas, shakers, djembe, etc?)? While I do play percussion I haven’t had much experience with it in corporate worship settings and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Continuing with our thoughts on what to do when you’re missing certain instruments, what happens when you have no drummer? Here are some ideas:
- As I mentioned yesterday, the drums and bass carry the groove of the music. If you have a bass player, teach that person to play very rhthmically and to be able to create a groove without a drummer. If you have no bass player, teach the instruments you do have to create a groove and play tightly together. Teach people how to play with steady tempos and practice it all the time!
- Use drum loops. You can purchase a loop generator at a music store. While these will not give the personality and creativity as a real drummer (as they are a set pattern that repeats over and over) they can still be very effective in creating a bit of extra rhythm to drive the music. Be careful, though because in order to play with drum loops your steady tempos have to be very good.
- Use percussion. Tambourines, shakers, congas, and bongos and djembe can add a lot of color and rhythm and aren’t too difficult to play. Make sure you do some research on how to play them correctly so you can teach people how to play them and be sure you know how to care for these instruments as well. Sometimes there can be nothing worse than someone playing the tambourine or congas who doesn’t know how.
- Use percussion. Yes I just repeated myself. Perhaps you have a drummer in your congregation, but either your church doesn’t want you to use a full kit or the drummer can’t haul the kit back and forth all the time. Good drummers are good percussionists as well and will know how to play the more easily-transportable instruments. Pastor Wade said yesterday, “The djembe is the most important percussion instrument in God’s kingdom.” He was half-joking, but I think he’s got a great point. The djembe is probably one of the most versatile, least expensive percussion instruments you can find. Invest in one. Don’t just invest money though, invest time in learning how to play it and how to teach it.
- Teach your guitarists to play very rhythmically and drive the rhythm.
- Be okay with not having a drummer. Use it as an opportunity to use piano-driven, intimate songs and teach people to worship intimately.
At the FLY Convention, I was privileged to teach an elective on leading worship. Many people who attended were from churches with no established “contemporary” services (I’m not a huge fan of that word, more on that another time.)
We all want to build up our worship teams to full bands someday, but most of the time that tends to be difficult, especially if you are in a small church or city with limited resources. I want to spend the rest of the week talking about what to do if you’re missing an instrument that can help you fill in the hole without worrying about finding someone to play that instrument right away. So let’s start with the bass, or rather, the lack of bass.
- Almost everyone has another piano player in the congregation. Find a keyboard that can simulate a bass sound and have another pianist playing the bass part on the keyboard.
- If you only have one piano player, and/or no budget to get a keyboard, teach the piano player how to play the bass notes in the chords. Often times you will see something like D/F# on a chord or lead sheet. This simply means that you play a D chord with your right hand (D-F#-A) and play an F# on the bottom with your left hand. These subtle changes in the chord will make the music sound much more interesting.
- Perhaps you have an overabundance of guitar players. Teach one of them how to play the bass. It usually doesn’t take them too long.
- The bass (and drums) usually carry the groove, or rhythm, of the song. Teach the instruments you have to know how to work together to create groove and tight rhythm before the bass player gets there.
- To think completely outside the box…perhaps you have a great bass singer - he could sing the bass part. Think “Tonic Sol Fa” or “Go Fish.” in the early days. (By the way, the original bass singer of Go Fish is in Tonic Sol Fa now)
- See if there are any other bass players in your area that hold similar beliefs and principles as you do and ask if they would be willing to fill in while you keep looking for your own.
Hopefully these suggestions can help you as you continue to search.
