For those of you who don’t know, one of my favorite bands is Ghost-Note. The drummer Sput, six-time grammy winner and no doubt one of my biggest inspirations, filmed and conducted an online “master class” series on drumming and musicality. If you aren’t hip to Sput… do yourself a favor and look him up.
Anyways, the company that is producing and hosting the course, Yousicplay, recently posted on their Instagram page saying they are going to give away $100. Being out of a job due to this coronavirus situation canceling my streams of income, I thought, “Hey I could definitely use $100 right now.”
All I have to do is submit a video of myself playing drums over Sput’s arrangement of “Actual Proof” by Herbie Hancock to enter the contest. If they dig my playing best (based on playing skills, feel, creativity, and musicality) and pick my video, I get $100. No big deal right?
Well, it happens to be a 6:14 long track, full of hits, a heavy groove, and plenty of space to open up and play some solo ideas. I’ve never done anything like this, but what better time than now to try something new and push myself out of my comfort zone? I want to show you how I prepared for this.
Wednesday, March 25th 8:00am
In the past three days I’ve put in about 12 hours of practice time (video is due Friday). But to be honest, it didn’t start with practice. I’ve seen Sput play this tune on keys live with Adam Deitch on drums - which was absolutely nuts - and I’ve also seen a Youtube video of Sput playing over his arrangement in a crazy drum video. Check it out below:
Ever since I started hearing this song being played by modern musicians (check out Chris Dave playing it at the 11:30 mark here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtWCD_8kz5U) I realized I should probably learn the tune, so In the past few months I’ve listened to it a bunch and learned the melody.
That was my first step to prepare for this contest. I learned the melody. The basic structure of the tune is a 12-bar “head” but has a 3-bar “tag” at the end which is a measure of 5/4, then 4/4, then 3/4. To be honest I didn’t figure that out on my own, I looked up the lead sheet. But still, I listened to the tune while whistling and reading the chart to internalize it better.
Sput’s arrangement of the track has a few extra hits and interesting phrases that allow the drummer to improvise over. So step two was learning the form of the arrangement.
I downloaded the track into Ableton and labeled the different sections, “Intro groove - 28 bars,” “head,” “16 bar vamp,” etc. Then to get familiar with the different sections I spent time just looping them and seeing what kind of options I have in terms of how to play and create phrases over them.
Step three was spending time with the feel of the track and being able to play a groove that kept the music driving and bouncing. So for 30 minutes, I played with the intro groove on repeat, trying to dial in my note placement to emulate the feel that Sput played with in his video.
Step four, which is what I spent most yesterday thinking about, was taking the time to think of how I can be creative and play to my strengths in this contest. I’m not a guy who can whip out a ton of sextuplet and 32nd note chops and just blaze over the track. I don’t have the fastest hands or the facility to play cleanly in those note rates at that tempo yet.
One advantage I do have, though, is that I study with Pete Magadini and we have been working through material out of his book, “Polyrhythms for the Drumset”.
Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard was to “play your own game,” meaning don’t try to imitate others or be better at what they're doing. Instead, find what you naturally gravitate towards in terms of style, and develop your own unique skill set.
In an attempt to follow that advice, my goal is to weave elements of the 3:4 and 6:4 polyrhythmic relationships into the track and mess with the listener’s ear. Instead of filling space with licks and notes, I want to distort how the listener perceives time in a few places.
I could make a whole series of videos and blog posts on how I practice this, so I’ll leave that for a future date.
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Saturday, March 28th 7:45pm
Alright, the past few days have been basically nothing but working out, reading, eating, and drums. Which has been awesome to be honest.
Sput is about to do a live Q&A on Instagram and announce the winner. I’m not expecting to win. That’s not even why I entered (although, I did put 100% effort into it). I pushed myself to do something I’d never done before, and learned a lot in the process.
I learned:
The basics of recording drums into Ableton
How to play a funkier “shuffle” feel
“Actual Proof” and different ways to play with it
How to apply polyrhythms to a song
The difference between how I think I sound and how I sound on a recording
How to play with an “on top” of the beat feel
And perhaps most importantly, I learned the value of pursuing something worthwhile and meaningful. Although I didn’t win the contest (as I just found out via Instagram live), the fact that I set a goal and pursued it to the best of my ability is meaningful in itself.
The goal of learning, recording, and uploading the track to the best of my ability (not to win, but to put forth my best effort) gave me a sense of purpose and a boost of energy to start and get through my day. Something that I
think I’ve been lacking recently by just practicing arbitrary exercises and grooves.
I challenge you to commit to something you’ve never done or to set a goal that seems a little scary. I truly believe that the benefits you’ll gain from the honest pursuit, regardless of the outcome, will make you a better person in the end.
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Sunday, March 29th 2:04pm
This morning I woke up and recorded my first ever podcast. It’s about 25 minutes of me reflecting on this experience as well as talking about why I even wanted to start a podcast. So if that interests you, please check it out on my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjOFq90jvlc
Best,
Austin
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