As the old saying goes, “It may not be new, but it’s new to me.” That was my reaction when I found out that Modern Drummer has posted a collection of bios from their 2007 publication, Drum Gods, on their web site. While I missed the original publication of Drum Gods in 2007, I did get the follow-up Drum Gods II when it published last year and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Bios included in the online collection are:

• Elvin Jones
• Louie Bellson
• John Bonham
• Dave Grohl
• Gene Krupa
• Buddy Rich

I also discovered that you can order hard copies of both Drum Gods and Drum Gods II from the Books and Library Index on the web site.

Lake 32 will be performing live at Just Bill’s Place on the evening of Friday, June 12th. There is a huge line-up of bands for this show, so it should be a great evening of live original music.

We’ll be sharing the stage with Revelation 7, Daddy Dank & the Goodness Gracious, Nedra and Coinslot. The doors open at 7:00 PM and there is a $6.00 cover charge at the door. This is an 18+ show, so bring those new high school grads with you if you like.

Just Bill’s Place is at 2543 Woodson Road, Overland, Missouri. For a map and drive directions, just click here.

This should be a great evening of live, original music. Me and the rest of the guys in Lake 32 hope you can make it out and support the local St. Louis music scene.

See you there!

Last Saturday, May 23rd, I had the privilege of attending a master class conducted by R&B drumming legend, Zoro, at the Mike Ehrhard Studio in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Unlike many other such events I’ve been to, this class was unusually intimate in a studio room that only sat twelve or thirteen people and one drum kit comfortably. However, it was exactly this quality that made this such a great event.

Zoro was playing at his DW kit (provided by St. Louis’ own Drum Headquarters for the class) when we all walked into the studio. He was playing along to a Motown tune on his iPod, just jamming along with the funk beat the way all of us do in our own rehearsal spaces. Honestly, it was a little surreal to walk in and see someone as famous as Zoro tracking along with a song like I had just earlier that morning. It helps us to remember that the famous are really just people living their lives after all.

I took a seat just to the right of his kit so I could see all the footwork and hand details of what he’s playing. When the tune was over and the room filled, we all engaged in a casual conversation about what he’d just played and Zoro introduced us what he likes to call the “Four Ts”:

• Time: The core tenet of any drummer and the primary purpose of percussion in any musical group. Regardless of outside influences, the meter of any piece of music is the responsibility of the drummer. Period.
• Technique: Technique is not a style of playing. It gives the drummer the tools he/she needs to express themselves on the instrument. The same way a baseball pitcher throws the same pitch a thousand times until it curves exactly the way it should and the muscles of his arm just know what to do without the brain having to even think about it, so does a drummer need to hammer on good technique until it just becomes part of the way we play the drums.
• Touch: This is what makes every drummer’s sound different. We all find ourselves playing the same general grooves, whether they originated with us or another drummer. But it is the way we play those grooves, what we do with them, that makes them unique, even though they would look the same on paper. Want a good example? Find a transcription of John Bonham’s shuffle groove from “Fool in the Rain” and play along to it. You can play the notes on the page, but it still won’t capture the exact way Bonham played that groove. I should know, I’ve been trying for years.
• Taste: This is as much about what we don’t play as much as what we do. Taste is something that comes with experience. It’s about playing for thousands of hours, both alone in the woodshed and with other musicians. It’s about discovering what works and what doesn’t and applying the previous three Ts in a way that is musical and appropriate to the gig you find yourself in. It’s about playing for the song above all else.

With this as a foundation, we spent the rest of our two hours together discussing specific ways to improve technique, tips and tricks for navigating the “business” half of the music business, Zoro’s spiritual beliefs about music and drumming and, of course, listening and watching him play alone with other tunes.

The most impressive demonstration was when Zoro focused on the Mozambique, a funky little afro-Cuban groove that, played straight, looks like this:

Zoro demonstrated several variations on the basic pattern and then played along to the most famous recorded instance of the Mozambique, Steve Gadd’s incredible groove on Paul Simon’s “Late in the Evening.” Yeah, he played it busier than Gadd did on the recording, but he never altered the main pattern and did some incredible fill work around it. It was a very good lesson in how taking simple concepts and building on them can be the difference between a good player and a great player.

Another important concept he discussed his how to play multiple levels of a groove. Zoro said, when he approaches a groove, he begins by practicing it at its most basic level and plays it until he feel completely comfortable with it. Then he begins to add additional color to the groove, keeping the basic feel, but adding cymbal and tom work. He continues with this until he feels like he owns the groove top to bottom. Logically, this allows him to better serve the artist he’s playing for:  If he/she wants more he’s got it, and if they want less, he can back off to the bare essentials of the groove. This is an excellent strategy, especially in a time when drummers tend to try and focus only on making their grooves as busy as the song will withstand.

All in all, this was well worth the time and the $35 it cost to attend. If the opportunity ever presents itself to attend one of Zoro’s clinics or master classes, I highly recommend you take advantage of it. You’ll learn a lot about drumming and the life of a professional musician, but most of all, you’ll learn about the power of playing for the song above all else.

Join Lake 32 for their biggest show yet! On Wednesday, March 11, Lake 32 will open for national touring act and two-time Grammy award winning Paul Brown and the Killing Devils at the legendary Pop's nightclub in Sauget, IL. Doors open at 8:00 PM.

Tickets for the show are $10 in advance or at the door for this all ages show. For advanced purchase, you can buy your tickets at Ticketmaster or email us at band@lake32music.com and we’ll set you up.

This is a HUGE opportunity for Lake 32 and we’re grateful to Paul and Mike Major for the opportunity to open for them. So come out and spend an evening listening to some great live, all-original music! Thanks again for all your support and we look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, March 11th at Pop's!

So many of the instructional DVDs produced by big name drummers these days focus on the basics, but simultaneously assume a certain level of proficiency and maturity as a player.

So Hudson Music Digital stepped up to the plate and produced a series of videos available from their web site featuring legendary player Tommy Igoe which start with the basics of playing the kit in a very cool way. Basically, you visit their web site and select from a collection of videos which cover the gambit of styles: Rock, funk, jazz, latin and so on. The most expensive video is $3.99—try to get a lesson from someone of Tommy’s stature for that kind of money.

I bought the Intro to Funk lesson this morning and totally dug it. I recommend you download the video to your laptop, attach your headphone to the computer and play along. The best part of these lessons: Rewind.

Be sure to check this out. It’s a great value and, with the money crunch everybody seems to be in these days, getting a high quality instruction video without having to pay $30 for it is really nice. It’s terrific to see Hudson embracing the iTunes style of business with their instruction content.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a showoff. It’s actually one of the main reasons, as a child, I became a drummer. I remember watching Buddy Rich on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and was hooked. The drums seemed an instrument that couldn’t be denied. Of course, as I grew older and a little wiser, I came to find that this was both good and bad.

Unfortunately, the very thing that attracted me to the drums in the first place caused me to struggle when playing with other musicians. What I know now but didn’t know then was that those incredible, chop-laden solos I watched Buddy play sounded right because the rest of the band was supposed to let Buddy take center stage. People went to see The Buddy Rich Big Band because they wanted to see Buddy blow it out on the drum kit, and the rest of the outstanding musicians in the group facilitated it.

This, of course, is almost the polar opposite of what is expected of drummers in most playing situations. Sure, we might get a short solo in between phrases here and there, but we spend 99% of our time acting as the pulse and time-keepers of the music. As such, stretching out can not only step on your fellow musicians’ toes, but can also severely impact the music itself.

Time has passed, and as I’ve matured as a person and a player, I’ve worked hard to tailor my playing to serve the song. It hasn’t been easy—the temptation to throw mega fills in the mix is still powerful, but I’ve developed some strategies that have helped me approach my playing more musically, keeping the needs of the song front and center.

Relax, Don’t Do It 
The simplest sounding things are usually the hardest to achieve. This is one of them.

As performers, we are naturally inclined to draw attention to ourselves and what we’re doing on stage. We need to resist this instinct in order to be be better players. This requires a mental awareness about what we’re playing that is unusual for many of us. Honestly, one of the reasons I enjoy playing the drums so much is because the act puts me mentally completely in the moment. Letting your subconscious drive your playing can make it extremely difficult to play consciously, but it’s necessary to be really aware of what’s happening with the music and the musicians around you.

This act of playing consciously requires a lot of practice. Honestly, I’m still working on mastering this myself. For example, I have pretty well nailed this skill when I’m in the studio. In recording Lake 32’s first EP, I found it relatively easy to drive my playing consciously. Recording is a very methodical process and, thus, makes it  easy to focus on many things external to yourself. The fact, that the studio offers you multiple chances to get something right doesn’t hurt either. When we play live, however, this becomes an order of magnitude more difficult. The energy created by being on stage combined with the presence of a large crowd cheering you on puts you in the position of fighting both the adrenalin rush and your own subconscious desire to simply play what you feel.

Don’t get me wrong:  I’m not saying to disregard what you feel in your music. Indeed, as a art form, it’s our emotions that can make the music compelling for others to listen to. Rather, we need to learn to balance what we feel would be the best thing for us to play and think about what would serve the song the most. This balance can, of course, be result in a fast, complex rhythmic pattern or a simple flam on the snare drum or a single hit on the bell of the ride cymbal. The answer is not eschew anything complex in our playing, but rather to learn to listen to the music and make a conscious decision what fits better. Sometimes the best option will be that crazy Neil Peart double-kit fill, and sometimes it’ll be a bop-badda-bap on the snare right before the chorus.

One of the smartest pieces of advise about playing was given to me by my college instructor, Rich Holly:  “It’s what you don’t play that makes all the difference.”

Play Less, Listen More
My day job requires me to do a lot of consulting work. I spend several hours a week sitting in a room with other technology professionals discussing a multitude of different topics. I learned a long time ago that, in these kinds of discussions, it is far more important to listen than it is to speak. This is especially true when you’ve never spoken to a particular group before and, while you know your subject matter very well, you have no context for where everyone else is in the conversation.

My regular strategy in these situations is to start off by talking briefly about my experience and areas of specialty and then ask an open-ended questions like, “Tell me what you all are working on these days.” This provides people with a forum to talk about themselves and what they’re passionate about, and an attentive consultant can learn a great deal from actively listening. In fact, I’ve been in three hours meetings of which I perhaps spent fifteen total minutes talking and the rest was just me listening and asking pointed questions.

And it’s always remarkable to me how I can walk out of a meeting like this and have someone say, “Thank you so much. This was extremely helpful for everybody.” Inevitably, a colleague who attended the meeting with me will follow-up and tell me how smart everybody there thought I was.

In these instances, I’m often reminded of my favorite quote attributed to Samuel Clemens:

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

We tend to assume that others want to hear what we think. Most of the time, this simply isn’t true. More often than not, they want you to listen to what they have to say and provide targeted insights where appropriate. This is true in the consulting world, and it’s true in music as well.

When playing the drums in a band situation, there’s little doubt that you’re the one in charge. Regardless of what the guys out front say, the drummer sets the tempo and the feel of the song. If the other guys in the band don’t follow what the drummer is doing, especially if he or she is doing it with authority, they’re the ones that will sound like they don’t know what’s going on. With this power, of course, comes responsibility.

Interestingly, being a “great” drummer more often than not means listening to your fellow musicians and tailoring your playing to work with what they’re playing, not focusing on your own voice in the mix. Some of the true gems of your contribution to the song will come from an interesting little rhythm the lead guitar player consistently puts into his solo on a particular song. If you’re listening, you can find something you throw on top of your groove that will accentuate that rhythm and make it something really great instead of a just a neat rhythmic idea played in passing.

The key is to be an active listener while you’re playing with other people. This will make you a better musician, your playing more musical and earn the gratitude and admiration of your band mates.

Think About Melody Before Rhythm
I’ll grant you, this probably sounds like a strange thing to tell a drummer, but bear with me—I’ll explain.

Building on the idea of being an active listener, you need hone your skills in what you’re listening to, and a great place to start is with your lead singer and guitar player. For the most part, they drive the melodic characteristics of the song, the very thing that people will walk around humming and whistling to themselves after listening to your music. As such, it’s incumbent on the drummer and the rhythm section in general to look for opportunities to support the melody line whenever possible.

An example of this my own playing is in the Lake 32 track About Nothing from our EP. Chris’ vocal line right before the second chorus differs slightly from the melody in any other part of the song. Essentially, he sings over a rhythm based on a quarter note triplet pattern for about one-and-a-half measures. I lay down a pretty consistant groove through the verses, but when I heard that vocal line, I switched up my playing to simply compliment Chris’ rhythm by playing quarter note triplets between my kick and snare while maintaining a steady eighth note pattern on the hi-hat. It was subtle enough that most people might never even notice unless they knew it was coming, but it helps the flow of that part of the song tremendously, in my opinion, and makes the song sound tighter. Have a listen for yourself. Select the song About Nothing from the Lake 32 ReverbNation page and pay attention around 1:19 for the change-up. Again, it doesn’t last long, but it’s an example of playing not only for the song, but for supporting the vocalist with the melody of the tune.

Be Aware
The underlying point to all the above is pay attention. It sounds like common sense, sure, but it’s harder than you think. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out to see a live performance and the drummer just seems out of sync with the rest of the band. Almost always, these drummers are obviously focused on playing something monstrous and not prioritizing the sound of the band. Right along side keeping solid time, this is the most important job the drummer has in a group.

Actively listening, contributing and complimenting:  This is what playing for the song is all about and represents an evolutionary step forward in the way you approach your instrument.

It’s been a hectic week in the software world – too much work to get done and not nearly enough time to finish it all. So, since my weekends are for drumming, I decided to kick it off right with a little Steve Gadd and a tremendously musical solo performed with with Michel Patrucciani Trio live. Now I’m sharing it with you. Happy Friday, everybody!

Lake 32 currently has two gigs scheduled for the month of November.

First, we're performing at Playoffs in O'Fallon, Missouri on Friday, November 7th. This marks the first evening of live original music at Playoffs, and we'd love to see a big turnout for that evening. We'll be opening for local band Three Fortys around 9:00 PM. I've heard a few of our St. Charles country fans say they were hoping we would find someplace to play a little closer to home. Well, here's your chance to come check us out and not have a long drive home.

We are also scheduled to play at Cruisin' Route 66 on Saturday, November 15th. In addition to Lake 32, you'll be able to see Fivefold, Tin Can Carnival and 3JC. The show will start around 8:00 PM. Since this is my birthday weekend, I expect a big turnout and a plethora of beers to be purchased for me. Click here for a map to Cruisin'.

If you're free we'd love to see you at one of these gig. Remember, you're not just supporting Lake 32, but keeping the local live music scene alive and jumping.

And people say I bring too many drums to gigs.

This past Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending a clinic with world-renowned percussionist, Terry Bozzio. The clinic was held at Ladue High School in suburban St. Louis, and it was standing room only. The clinic was the latest sponsored by Drum Headquarters, our local Five-Star drum shop. As always, Jim Uding and the rest of the Drum HQ crew did a great job.

Terry came out after a short performance by a student group, Ladue Percussion, and played four pieces over the course of next fifty minutes. If you've never seen Terry play live, it's really awe inspiring. It's not just the sheer size of Terry's kit, but the fact that he has a huge array of toms on his left that are tuned chromatically and an additional set of toms to his right tuned to an ionic scale and in a lower octave. This, in addition to his eight tuned kick drums and a massive array cymbals, chimes and bells, gives him a tremendous range of sound and allows him to play incredibly complex melodic sequences on the drum kit.

Also utterly jaw-dropping is Terry's independence. All the pieces he playing Wednesday night involved laying down a base ostinato on the kick drums and a varied set of hi-hat-like apparatus, and then implementing melodic lines over top of it. As Terry pointed out during the Q&A section of the clinic, he generally tries to come up with two or three melody lines per piece, and then, of course, solos in the center. And some of Terry's solos were amazing. His ability to lay down incredibly complex polyrhythmic patterns over a consistent, 4/4-feel ostinato is mind boggling. He really is a one-man percussion ensemble.

Terry's Q&A session was a lot of fun as well. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

"This instrument is uniquely American, the drum kit, and often doesn't get the credit and respect it deserves. It seems, more often than not, to get lumped in with the tambourine and the harmonica."

"Music is part of the human condition, like light. If you take the frequency of a note in an octave and increase it into the millions of cycles, it becomes a color, so it's and integral part of our lives and the universe."

"His question was, 'How much did your kit cost?' Honestly, I don't know how many pieces are there and I don't think I want to know how much it costs. I just know it was free for me." [fist pump]

Also, even though I'm sure that Terry is tired of telling it, I particularly enjoyed his telling of how he got the gig with Frank Zappa back in the early '70s. I won't recount it all here as I probably would get large portions of it wrong, but it's definitely worth hearing sometime in Terry's own words.

After the Q&A, Terry played one more piece and then did a terrific finale with three high school students on marimbas and a vibraphone. It was an amazing piece and I really have to hand it to the students who pulled off an exceptionally complicated piece. I can't imagine having played marimba like that as such an early age with Terry Bozzio pounding away right behind me. They showed tremendous poise and professionalism.

Overall, it was a great evening. I would have enjoyed some of the staple clinic kinds of activities, specifically more instruction and tips-and-tricks, as well as the meet and great afterward (Terry had been traveling all day and needed to leave immediately after the clinic), but having the opportunity to see one of the greats perform in such a small venue was terrific. Again, many thanks to Jim Uding and the folks at Drum Headquarters for continuing to bring big-name performers and clinicians to St. Louis.

Here are a few more pictures from the clinic:

I really enjoyed John Blackwell's first double-DVD set, Technique, Grooving and Showmanship. In fact, I think some of his tips on open-handed playing are the best I've found. Hudson Music announced yesterday that they are releasing a new DVD set next week called John Blackwell Master Series. According to Hudson's write-up, this three hour DVD features John in front of a live audience, playing some of his original compositions and focusing on laying down a solid groove without overplaying. Here's the video trailer from Hudson:

It looks like Master Series will be available on Amazon on October 21st. I know I'll be ordering my copy early.

A couple of months ago, I posted about the "Drum Your Way to Hollywood Contest" that Dixon Drums was sponsoring. Well, Dixon announced the winner about a week ago and I wanted to be sure to mention it here. The winner of a Dixon Demon drum kit and a trip to Hollywood, CA to play live Westlake Studios in front of an A&R panel is Lou Mars. Here's a video of Lou's winning performance at Herried Music in California:

Congratulation Lou on a job well done.

The Drum Channel announced today that they are officially in public beta and, as a celebration of that fact (and as a way to get people to create profiles on the site), they are hosting a live online simulcast of the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert in New York City this coming Saturday.

Getting access to the concert will require you to create an account on the site. Just enter your name and the username and password you want to use. No other real personal information is required and please don't enter real credit card information into the form! The site is not yet setup with an SSL key and any personal financial information you enter will not be encrypted when you submit it. Simply use the default credit card information they provide in the form and you'll be all set.

The memorial concert for Buddy will take place at 7:30 PM Eastern/4:30 Pacific, with pre-show interviews and such starting at 6:00 PM Eastern/3:00 PM Pacific this Saturday, October 18th. The drummer line-up includes Neil Peart, Chad Smith, Terry Bozzio with Efrain Toro, Tommy Igoe, John Blackwell and Nick Rich. With an assembled group of drummers like that, this should be a great concert and I highly recommend you invest the two minutes it takes to setup and account so you can watch it online.

How would you like to get together with several thousand of your fellow drummers across the US to try and set a world record? You'll have your opportunity on November 2nd if you participate in The Big Beat.

Five-Star Drum Shops across the country are gathering drummers to set the world record for the most drummers playing the same beat simultaneously. The following Five-Star stores are participating and taking registrations for this event:

• Donn Bennett Drum Studio, Bellevue, WA - bennettdrums.com
• Buffalo Drum Outlet, Buffalo, NY - buffalodrumoutlet.com
• Columbus Percussion, Columbus, OH - columbuspercussion.com
• Resurrection Drums, Hollywood, FL - rezdrums.com
• The Percussion Center, Houston, TX - percussiononline.com
• Memphis Drum Shop, Memphis, TN - memphisdrumshop.com
• Just Drums, Toronto, ON - justdrums.com
• Drum World, Tulsa, OK - drumdaytulsa.com
• Stebal Drums, Willowick, OH - stebaldrums.com

Please be aware that, based on my visits to each of these sites, each location is managing their local event differently.

If you want to participate, your should register early to ensure that you get your bag-o-goodies. All participating drummers will have the opportunity to win cool prizes from some top drum manufacturers and one lucky winner will get a Ringo Starr autographed drumhead. So, if you live in one of the nine of the cities above, get out and register for The Big Beat today. If I did, I would.

My band mates in Lake 32 and I recently had a "difficult gig." This particular event was an outdoor performance featuring several bands spread throughout the day. We showed up about ninety minutes early, which is customary for us, and discovered that:

• Our style of music was significantly different than all the other bands playing that day
• Most of the other bands were made up of teenagers, and the audience in attendance represented that demographic well
• This "family friendly" event wasn't quite as family friendly as those of us with, well, families would have liked
• The event, which was held for a very worthwhile charity, had, well...let's say a lot of interesting surprises

Needless to say, all of these factors combined made for a challenging afternoon. That situation got me thinking about some of these things we could have done in advance that would have helped us make a better decision as to whether this was the right gig for us to take or not.

As Much as Possible, Avoid Accepting Difficult Gigs in the First Place
"Easier said than done," you say? Well, there are several questions that, had we had asked them before making a commitment, would have allowed us to better judge whether we were a good fit for the gig or not. Here are the questions I recommend you ask and get answered before accepting any gig:

Where is gig being held and how many people do you expect to come? This first question can be optional, but is probably good to know when considering a gig. Is this an indoor or outdoor gig? Is live music common at the venue, or is this a one time thing? If you're playing a club, you can get a feel from the owners what kind of crowd usually shows up on any particular night. If you're playing with a band you know, you might have a feel for the kind of crowd they'll draw based on their history. Honestly, most bands I know working to make a name for themselves, like the one I'm in, will play even for a small audience if it helps get their name out there. If you can make fans out of just a few folks in the audience, that can help draw more people to future gigs.

What other bands are scheduled to play? If you're not familiar with them, what style of music do they play (or see if they have music samples online you can listen to)? I this question may be the most important. If you're scheduled to play with several other bands, it's important to you and should be important to the people hosting the performance that your music fits well with the other acts. Otherwise, you're at risk of really bringing an audience, one who's really into the bands before you, down in a big way. In my specific example, we ended up playing our standard, modern rock set after several nouveau punk bands in a row. While the mostly teenaged crowd in attendance seemed to like us, they weren't anywhere near as into us as they were the other bands, and understandably so. We just don't play the kind of stuff to which they like to listen. The advise I would give you in this case is, if the lineup isn't known when you're asked to play, answer with "We're interested in playing, but we want to make sure we're a good fit for the other bands in the lineup. Can you give us a call when you have a better idea who else is playing?" When you get the lineup, do thirty minutes worth of homework to check out the bands' music on their web site or mySpace site.

Who is providing the PA and sound services? What kind of equipment do they use? This final question may be the most logistically important. Your band is only going to sound as good as the sound guy lets you. We've had a few gigs where, on stage, we're thinking everything is going great only to look out at the audience and see people holding their hands over their ears because the guitar is way too loud or the vocals can't be heard over the drums. Knowing who is going to be managing your band's sound and having an idea if they've invested in good, dependable equipment should be a contributing factor to your accepting the gig or not. Again, people will only remember that you didn't sound very good -- rarely does anyone think to blame the sound guy.

Playing the Difficult Gig
So, you asked all the questions and got what you thought were the right answers, and you still find yourself in the middle of a difficult gig. Here are some tips to help get you though it.

Above all, be professional. There's nothing worse than looking or acting discouraged or hostile when you're performing because you're uncomfortable with the situation. I've been on gigs where I wondered how bad it would be if I just left before we were supposed to play. It is so important to go through with the gig and try to engage your audience as much as possible. Who knows, you might even make some new fans, but at the very least you will look like you belong on stage and will probably get positive feedback from the hosts. That can help you land future gigs and will boost your reputation in the local music scene.

Pay close attention to your audience. When you get on stage and start playing, pay attention to what your audience is doing. Are they bobbing their heads to the beat? Are the smiling? Are they yawning? Are they pointing their fingers and laughing? First, don't let negative reactions affect your playing. Remember, you're there to do a job and it's not always going to fun. As my bass player, Jeff Laird, likes to say, "Art is hard." Play your best and engage your audience like you would if they were your biggest fans, even if they're making it hard to do that.

Also, if things aren't going well, choose a couple of songs before you go on stage that everyone is comfortable cutting from your set list. Keep your strongest tunes and cut the ones that you know to be weaker. There's no point in torturing and audience who just isn't going to like your music no matter what. In fact, you might win some respect if you stay professional, do a shorter set and get the band they all came to see out there.

Don't take it personally. As artists, we tend to connect with the music we create at a very personal level. When people don't show approval for it, we take it very personally. We get defensive and, in some cases, combative. One of the most important things to remember when you're playing that difficult gig is that, if the audience isn't paying attention, it doesn't mean you and your music sucks. It simply means it's not their thing. Coming back to the previous two points, give them your all and gauge their reaction. If it's just not working, like any bad relationship, cut it off before both sides get hurt and acknowledge that it just wasn't right.

My hope is that these suggestions will help you and your band mates avoid ending up in awkward situations in the future. If you've had similar experiences, I'd love to hear about them. Leave a comment for this post and tell me all about your "difficult gig" and what you did to work through it.

I've made it no secret that Chad Smith is one of my favorite drummers playing today, and I'm really excited about his new Chickenfoot project with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Joe Satriani.

Now, Music Radar is taking questions for Chad via their web site. To submit your question, have a look at this post and submit your question in the comments section (you'll need to create a Music Radar account to do this).

Curious about the RHCP's next album? Have questions about Chickenfoot? Want to know about dynamics within the band? Here's a great opportunity to ask and get an answer from Chad directly.

Enjoy!

Sunday is a day when I pull out albums I haven't listened to in awhile. Old pop, old rock, old jazz, whatever I look at and think, "Man, I haven't listened to that in forever," I throw it in the stereo and give it a listen.

Today, I pulled out Buddy Rich's Swingin' New Big Band, and it brought back a lot of memories.

I first heard Buddy at my cousin's wedding of all places. She hired a disc jockey named Denny Farrell who spun records at a local suburban jazz station for the reception. I had listened to big band music at my grandparents' house, but had never heard music like that before. It was fast, and it really swung. I talked to my uncle about it and he introduced me to Mr. Farrell after the reception. He told him I was a young drummer and I asked about the Buddy Rich tune he'd played, which I can't even remember now. We talked for awhile and, about two weeks later, I got a package in the mail from Mr. Farrell with a cassette tape full of Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent in my basement on my old Ludwig kit playing along to that tape on my Sony Walkman. I always found Buddy's speed, precision and musicality astounding. And most importantly, he inspired me to practice rudiments, to focus on my technique and to develop solid time.

I only saw Buddy play live one time. It was in 1985 at the Chicago Jazz Festival. That was it. I was a drummer for the rest of my life. As proof of the ongoing value of YouTube, I actually found a video of Buddy's solo during his famous West Side Story Suite that I saw that day. Laughably, you can still see the telltale discoloring at the top of the screen from the source VHS video tape.

On a family trip, recently, I had occasion to listen to some music while the rest of the family tuned into a movie. (I hate movies in the car -- I'm compelled to turn and look instead of watching the road!) So, I perused the music on my Zune and found an album I hadn't listened to in quite awhile: Try! John Meyer Trio Live in Concert. It wasn't long before I remembered why I love this album so much.

The always incredible Steve Jordan lays down some of the funkiest grooves I've ever heard on this album, serving Meyer's guitar lines very well and grooving in perfect lockstep with Pino Palladino's bass lines. Specifically, there's a groove Jordan plays on Who Did You Think I Was and their innovative cover of Jimi Hendrix's Wait Until Tomorrow. While both grooves are similar in feel, Jordan mixes them up to serve each song independently. Also, once I learned these grooves, I found myself incorporating bits and pieces of them into the parts I'm developing in the studio with Lake 32.

Who Did You Think I Was

Jordan's line on this tune seems bent on kicking Meyer's guitar part. Here's a transcription of the part:

The power of this groove comes from the heavily accented snare hits on beats 2 and 3 of each measure, with a quick hit on the offbeat of 4.

Wait Until Tomorrow

The first measure of this groove is essentially the same as Who Did You Think I Was. The change comes in the second measure where there is almost a double time feel when compared to the first measure. Here's a transcription:

Notice that in the first measure, the only real difference between this and previous transcription is that the kick drum staggers out from a straight eight note pattern to a shuffle with the second hit coming a sixteenth note later. The major difference is in the second measure where the two eighth notes on the second beat give the groove a double time feel compared to the first measure, with beat three showing a paradiddle between the snare and the kick. Finally, the fourth beat of the second measure, with the kick on the second and fourth sixteenth notes, really propels the sound back to the measure one patter again.

Here's a video showing how to play both transcriptions:

Try these out and play with them. I think you find some nice parts you can incorporate into stuff you're already playing.

I'll be playing with Lake 32 this coming Sunday, October 12th in support of a great charity event, Feed the Need. This event was organized by a local Pizza Hut restaurant to raise money in the battle against world hunger, a cause all of us in Lake 32 are proud to support.

This will be a full day of live music and fun (this event is family friendly, so please feel free to bring kids along). Here is the schedule for the day:

12:00 Noon: Oh, Falco!
1:00 PM: Sunday but Summer
2:00 PM: Becca Harper
3:00 PM: Fight! Fight! Fight!
4:00 PM: Darrel
5:00 PM: BAMF!
6:00 PM: Lake 32
7:00 PM: Cake Eater

The address for the venue is:

Elks Lodge
1163 Tom GinneverAve
O'Fallon, MO 63366

Map

Admission to the concert is free, but Feed the Need will be taking donations, so please consider making one to this very worthwhile organization.

See on Sunday!

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about a discussion I had with Lake 32 bassist, Jeff Laird, about a mic setup technique for drums he'd heard about called the Glyn Johns Method. As opposed to the more standard close-mic setup, the Glyn Johns method requires only four microphones placed in strategic locations around the kit to maximize sound quality and reduce phasing. Jeff sent me some information on this and I read it. It looked good in theory, but I was going to need to see it in action to believe it could really work.

The Glyn Johns Method Explained

There are many articles, both online and in print that explain this (links included at the end of this post), but I'm going to explain our adaptation of the Glyn Johns setup. Again, you need only four microphones, though we used five -- we included a room mic in front of the kit as well. Here is an overhead view of the setup:

Obviously, the kick and snare mics are easy enough to position. We placed the kick mic, a Sampson Q3, about two inches inside the kick drum. The snare mic, a GLS Audio ES-57, is clipped to the rim and positioned about 1 1/2 inches from the drum head and pointed just above the center of the drum.

Placing the two overhead mics require a little more time and precision to place properly. Both mics are Behringer C-2 condensers. Mounted on a boom stand, the first mic comes over the kit to my left and is positioned roughly over the snare drum at a distance of about two drum sticks, or 32" to 36" from the center of the snare drum. The second mic is positioned over my right shoulder and is the same distance from the center of the snare drum as the first mic.

Finally, our room mic, a Behringer C-1 condenser, is positioned six feet from the kit, directly in front of the kick drum. I was talking with someone with an engineer background at a gig a couple of months ago and he said you should always position room mics in factors of three feet to avoid phasing problems. I don't know how accurate that is as I haven't found that information anywhere else, but I can say we haven't had any phasing problems during our recording as of yet. So, that seems to be working well for us.

Here are some photos detailing the mic positions:

Results

The first time I played using the Glyn Johns setup was at a live performance last August. I was a little concerned about it because it was an outdoor venue where the band was playing on an elevated stage under a pavilion and the audience was sitting out, relatively far away from the stage. Primarily, I was concerned about any fill work I did on my toms sounding like an audio "dead zone" while the kick and snare ruled the mix.

Man, I was wrong. Really wrong. Listening to the recording of the show afterward, I was really amazed at how all the drums cut through the mix over the PA with tremendous clarity. And setup was over in less than five minutes. Fewer mics means much faster setup and teardown times.

So trying this out in the home studio was to be the final test of the value of the Glyn Johns setup. Now, I should also point out that my "home studio" doubles as a family room when Lake 32 isn't rehearsing, so I have not undertaken major renovations. I've hung some sound deadening comforters on the wall, hung drapes over the french doors to cover the glass, I've rearranged the furniture in a more practical way, but that's about it.

I guess the proof is in the pudding. So here is a sample of "Left Standing" which we recorded last week in our first session in the new "studio." This cut is just the drums, but you'll hear the guitar part in the background, picked up by the room mic in front of the kit.

Note: I'm using Microsoft's Silverlight player to stream this audio to you. If you don't see a player embedded in the page below, please click on the image and install Silverlight. This is perfectly safe and required to listen to these tracks.

No too bad. Again, one of my concerns about employing this method, especially with this song, was capturing the tom work. I couldn't believe the clarity with with the repeating tom pattern came through the mix. But, of course, the next test is how well does it cut through when you add bass and guitar to the mix as well. Well, listen for yourself. It certainly doesn't sound like it was recorded in my family room!

So, I'm officially a fan of the Glyn Johns setup. It helps you save money on equipment, time on stage and in the studio and delivers amazing results. I highly recommend giving this a try at your next session or live gig. Feel free to drop me a comment and let me know how it went.

Thanks again to Jeff Laird for introducing me to this and all the hard work put in on the "home studio."

I was going to do it this year. I was going to book the airfare and fly to New Jersey to catch the Modern Drummer Festival this weekend.

But I didn't make it. However, I can experience the festival virtually thanks to Hudson Music. They're be posting regular updates, including pictures and video, from the festival throughout the weekend.

The line up this year is impressive to say the least. It includes:

• Thomas Pridgen (The Mars Volta)
• Billy Ward (Joan Osborne/Ace Frehley/B. B. King)
• Will Calhoun (Living Color)
• Ndugu Chancler (Michael Jackson/Santana/Weather Report)
• Simon Phillips & Protocol (Toto/The Who/Jeff Beck)
• Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree/King Crimson)
• Todd Sucherman (Styx/Brian Wilson)
• Dafnis Prieto (Michel Camilo)
• Derek Roddy (Serpents Rise/Traumedy)

Hell, I would have made the trip alone to listen to Billy Ward and Will Calhoun alone, but to see the rest of these phenomenal drummers. Wow!

If you want to tune in and following all the action and performances this weekend, you can see it on Hudon's web site. Check it out and enjoy.