Having spent time with Paul Baloche on a few occasions, he’s undoubtedly one of the most respected voices in worship. In this video he shares some incredible tips for worship leaders and more importantly, for us, worship drummers.
Especially if you’re just starting out, it’s important that you “get this” from day one:
Chops/Huge fills don’t equal a good drummer.
It’s for this exact reason that I have refused to teach many drummers. All the they wanted was to learn the cool beats and fat fills, when in reality, they couldn’t even hold their sticks properly. So get this into your head and let it stick (sorry, I couldn’t help the pun): TIME is key! Keep good time! That’s the first thing that a band will need from their drummer!
Some key thoughts from Paul Baloche:
- Would rather have no drummer than a bad drummer
- Everybody follows the drummer
- Drummer dictates the feel, “drives the train”
- 2 main things: look at the heart and look at the skill
- A good drummer is not one who has good fills. A good drummer keeps good time!
- Consistently work with a metronome or drum machine
Pretty amazing stuff!
In this list, is there something that you need to learn or put into practice?
Share it in the comments and let’s be honest with it so we can start making things right!
(side-note: Paul’s a decent beatboxer ;))
Some pretty good points. I don’t think I’ll be going to sleep with a metronome, my wife might have a problem with that!
Got me to thinking though, just downloaded a metronome app for the iphone, now I got something other than dc*b to listen to on the train 🙂
Gavin
haha.. cool! Which metronome app did you get?
Good video, now i want to try one night sleeping with a metronome 😀
let me know how it goes 😉
I know David Rollins of PFOR is known for sleeping w/ the metronome on (using an earpiece). I think it can be just as effective to play along with recorded studio songs as a metronome and/or drum machine. Focus on staying with the beat before repeating what’s on the recording. Sometimes in my car I’ll “play along” (finger taps on steering wheel) to the radio and will hit mute (again, steering wheel controls help 😉 ), keep playing for 20-30 seconds, then unmute to see how closely I maintained the beat.
I know getting back into music it was something I had to fight for a while as I was working off the rust. And I’ll admit, I put “chops” ahead of it to a degree, to my detriment. But working with recorded songs and paying attention to the “real issue” has helped. Not perfect, but far ahead of where I was a year ago…
Awesome!
I agree. Most of my early practicing was done by playing along to cassettes from Hosanna Integrity Music (I feel super old now!).
A common place for drummers to lose tempo is transitioning from beat to fill and back again. Nothing replaces the practice time w/ the metronome. My fav app I use is ‘tempo’ which allows for playlists. Blessings!
word! (I use the same app too)
Yea, Paul likes to keep me on my toes… He knows what he wants from a drummer. Remember,,,”The click is my friend.” & “Groove is everything!” — Rock ON, Carl
Always great insight, Carl! Thanks for visiting as we get things started – much appreciated!