Tips For A New Drummer

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Permalink Reply by Flying Walrus on April 26, 2010 at 5:46pm

Hi Jarrod,

A few thoughts from the bass player's perspective. Along with playing at church, I also play in a post punk/ambient outfit (think Curve if you remember the mid nineties) with a monster drummer and two highly proficient and innovative guitarists. Our singer, she can really own a stage as well, but I digress. I suspect the point I'm trying to make is that I can empathise with you somewhat.

The first thing I learnt is to dial back. A lot. As much fun as it might be, the aim isn't to bring the roof down, even if the whole worship group or band is monolithically tight. This might well mean cutting back on the kit (I've seen worship drumming done very successfully with just a bass drum, snare and high-hat), and definitely get some hot-rods. Unless you're playing at a complete megachurch with many kw of PA, most rock drummers I know can overwhelm most set-ups, particularly if it has to be de-rigged every time.

Perhaps the next point is tempo. Work out who'se leading it. Are you expected to sync to the worship leader on piano or acoustic, or are they expecting you to hold the tempo and they'll sync to you? Get it stated as unambiguously as possible, and hold them to it. It makes life a lot simpler (especially for the bass player who has to link it all together).

This leads onto arrangements. Where I am, very little arranging is actually done - we get the chords and the words and put it together on the fly with whoever is playing that day. This means that the drummer has to set his loops to match the accents from the leader, so the drums and the acoustic/piano actually sound like they're going in the same direction. With some of the more laid back worship leaders I know they'll change their patterns without thinking about it, and those of in the backline have to pick up on this to support them, turning the rhythm section round on a sixpence to do that. You'll need as close a relationship as possible with the leader, both musical, personal and spiritual, to understand and even sometimes predict when they might do this.

I suppose this leads onto my final, and probably most important point. In church, we're very much a supporting act, helping the congregation, the worship leader and the pastor to worship God. In many ways, when we're not noticed, but hold the whole thing together properly whilst the church is worshipping God, I think that's a very good day for the rhythm section. Of course, this is directly opposite to what we have to do in a secular band a lot of the time. Still, personal opinion, doing this I think helps me to be a better worshipper, both in being an outlet for my desire to perform (very bad in church), and forcing me to improve my skills in a way that doesn't happen in church (where I've had days where I know technically I've played extremely badly but no-one calls me on it).

Anyway, that's the technical side, which is dwarfed by the spiritual side, and I'll leave to those far wiser than me on this forum to unpack for you, but I would suggest pray lots, study the Bible lots (not just the bits about worship) to understand more about why we're doing this, and have as close a relationship with the worship leader and the rest of the band (especially the bass player) as possible. The book 'Worship Matters' by Bob Kauflin is very good on all of this, I'd strongly recommend you get hold of a copy.

I hope this helps, it's very much a starter for ten, and may God be with you in all your worship endeavours.

Best regards,

Ian

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Permalink Reply by Matt Allison on April 26, 2010 at 7:19pm

Keep it simple.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Abrahams on April 27, 2010 at 12:46am

I would say listen to whats going on, be intune with the rest of the band, play with feeling, mix it up, high parts, low parts silence... I like the rest of the advice here too. Listen to the Holy Spirit and dont forget that you are there to worship too!

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Permalink Reply by Dan on April 27, 2010 at 3:30pm

Most churches I have played at, the worship leader tries to lead the tempo. If you find yourself in this case following him/her, be sure to use a set of in ear monitors or headphones to hear the worship leader above or equal to your drums. That made a huge difference for me staying with the groove. Some worship teams follow the drummer more. If they do that, you may not have as much of a problem, but still a good idea to use headphones to be able to hear what they are doing. A speaker monitor on the floor doesn't quite work because the drums often drown out the monitor.

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Permalink Reply by Caleb Rigby on April 30, 2010 at 10:03am

Hey Jarrod,

The thing to remember as a drummer is you can always sound conducive to whats been recorded previously, but its important to remember that you are not that drummer and therefore will sound distinctly different....... but i think sometimes we can concentrate too much on how did it sound when that amazing professional drummer played it, and not to being intune with even the leading of the worship leader, or what the holy spirit maybe directing you to play.
Another helpful thing would be to ensure that you listen to many different styles of music and not just praise and worship you need to pull different influences and thats what makes a great worship team....... some of the worship music i would encourage you to get into is, David Ruis & Indigika project or any of his independant stuff... this guy is a phenemonal worship leader from Canada and worships across multiple genres but is always in tune with what God is doing.
The other guy to get a hold of would be kevin prosch, specially from a drummers point of view, i saw him and his band many years ago lead and had instruments mainly percussive from around the world and they utilize all of these during worship..... this was incredible, David Crowder band is another great one to look at, and Delirious.
I play in multiple different projects as well, so this is always a great thing, keep your options open because one project style may actually increase say your funk & groove as a drummer, where as another may increase your aggressive tribal style..... :)

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