Often, we get into musical situations where the people around us are not at the level we want them to be. At this point, we have a few ways we can choose to react but basically we can either be upset about the people around us and which causes us to make the situation worse, or we can do our absolute to make everyone around us sound the best we can make them sound.
Now if you're a true master, you can do your absolute to make everyone around you sound the best you can make them sound, while simultaneously being upset with them! (that's a joke guys, just a joke ....)
If we really think about it though, if we're getting pissed off when we're playing with people we think aren't as good as us, then there's also a high chance that when we're playing with people who think they're better than us, then they're probably pissed off at us. Which means the only way to get a band with any positive vibes is to ensure that EVERYONE on the bandstand is of the EXACT SAME LEVEL (whatever level even means) and if that doesn't happen then we all have a right to bitch and moan and be pissed off.
Just doesn't seem like a very productive way to approach ensemble playing, considering that the perfect environment is only going to happen 1% of the time anyways.
I think as drummers, we have an ability to effect positive change and a make a crappy situation sound less crappy. But there's a LOT of homework to be done to being able to be that kinda of a drummer.
1)KNOW THE STYLE OF MUSIC YOU ARE PLAYING - WITH ALL THE INFLECTIONS IN THE DIALECT OF THE MUSIC,NOT JUST THE DRUMS
A drummer that really knows how the music should sound comes from understanding the music and the history of the music from an aural and emotional perspective. I've seen it happen when a drummer knows the music so well and plays with so much authority, that his feel for the music is so strong that it draws the rest of the band into his world. The sound of the whole band (as imagined in the drummer's head) was able to be transmuted to the rest of the band members, and each of them started getting influenced by what the drummer was playing to the point where they were playing more stylistically accurately and with better feel than should have been within their normal capabilities. This can happen when a drummer knows not just how his own parts should feel, but also how the rest of the musical instruments should be phrasing in the music and has a strong enough imagination to play in such a way that that whole feeling of the music gets communicated to the rest of the band
2)SIMPLIFY TO UNIFY
Sometimes the temptation when things aren't going well is to go into "practice on the gig mode" - where you assume that since things are not going great anyways you might as well get some chops practice in. But this is both foolish and disrespectful (can you imagine if you knew someone on the bandstand was doing that to you???) . Drummers have a great chance to unify the band by playing simply and clearly so that everyone knows exactly where the time is and so that everyone on the bandstand can find a common place to start from and build together
3)DON'T DRAG, BUT MAKE YOUR BEAT BIGGER
Too often, when the band doesn't sound great, the thing that pisses us off as drummers the most is the lack of rhythmic accuracy from the other musicians around us. We start wanting to state the time more and more. And we keep trying to make sure that all the attacks of our notes are in the exact same place, thinking that is what creates a groove.
The problem with drummers is that the nature of our instrument leads us to think of note values as only the initial attack. But in reality all the parts of the drumset have a sustain, and how we hit them determines both the attack and the sustain we get.
Imagine a bass player playing a walking bassline who didn't care about his sustain. He could hit all the quarter note attacks right at the perfect spots but with varying velocities and his notes would die out at different points of the beat. That would be a bassline close to impossible to play with.
But as drummers, we hardly ever think about the rest of the note after we've made the initial attack, and we leave it completely up to chance.
When i'm in a situation where i'm trying to help out the band and to state the time, I make a special effort to make sure that EVERY NOTE I'M PLAYING IS LASTING EXACTLY AS LONG AS IT HAS TO. This means that if i'm playing quarter notes on the ride cymbal, i'm listening to the complete amplitude of each quarter note and making sure that each note starts, ends, and dies out in exactly the same place. I'm making sure that the drone of the sustain of the ride cymbal has a constant shape from note to note to note ... and while i'm doing all that i'm also make sure that all the notes start and stop in the right place.
Anyone can hit notes in the right place - but it takes a musician to be able to manage all the sustain, and rests, that are required to make music.
A drummer that is able to do all of those tasks perfectly will be able to create a time feel that feels like a web and a cushion that the band can rest of, versus creating a timefeel that feels like a bunch of dots that is simply setup to tell the band where they are wrong.
Here's wishing all of you the ability to bring good vibes to whoever it is that you're playing with
Wen