Drum Clinic

PASIC 1993, Columbus, Ohio

Saturday, November 13

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, percussionistas. It’s a pleasure to be back at PASIC. The last time I was here was in about 1983 or 1984, as I recall. I’m surprised to be invited back, because there was this kind of incident. As I was approaching a stage just like that, I had this fit of creativity. Very unwise in these occasions, I assure you. And decided to make this connection between your lovely American jazz tradition, with my country’s innovation in electronic drums at the time, the Simmons SDS5. I know you’re all too young to remember this, in 1984 this thing was a brute. And so tackling Max Roach’s The Drum Also Waltzes  on a Simmons SDS5 was a mixed blessing. A little like icing a cake with a blowtorch. It was tough, so we won’t dwell on that anymore. I’m thrilled to be invited back and surprised to be allowed back in actuality after that.

We’ve got lots and lots we can do, lots we can talk about, I’ve only got an hour, we’ll take some questions at the end - maybe that’s the best thing. There’s different ways of running drum clinics. There’s the one where the guy, the drum god you know, gets up on the set, wails like crazy and we all go, “Wow.. that’s great. I don’t wanna play anymore like that. It’s too difficult, too good.” And I suppose if I represent anything, I represent the amateur status. Amateur I mean in a good way, I mean there are amateurs and professionals. Professionals get paid actually, but amateurs as well have, perhaps not the training of others.

This is obviously an academic organization, the Percussive Arts Society. I am an untrained drummer. You know, I have really no idea about anything, other than what I learned on the street or picked up somewhere down there in the gutter. Everything I’ve ever done has been as the result of looking at guys like you - 900 people in Peoria on a rainy Thursday night with a drum kit and how do you amuse them. I’m a band guy. I’m a guy who really didn’t come up with the how to industry, you know. Now, a lot of video tape, a lot of tremendous information - almost too much. But bear in mind, there’s only ever one guy’s how to. Everything I’m telling you now is just a result of my experience. Anything that, if I can connect with you in a couple of things I say, that would’ve made my trip worth while. But it’s only my point of view.

In the rock, and I think the jazz world, often necessity is the mother of invention. Often some of the nicest things that come out weren’t ever on a video tape. They come out because of necessity. I’m sure, you know when Max Roach, for example, was playing Be-Bop in ‘46, in 1946 in New York City, and the tempos were getting so fast, because of those cutting competitions - it was 12341234  “bum bum bum bum bum” - he just got real tired of playing the bass drum real fast, it wasn’t possible. What do you do? You start dropping the bombs in the bass drum. You’ve invented a new technique. There wasn’t a video tape, nothing happened, it was just the result of the music. Everything I am tends to be the result of the music.

How many people here are professional musicians making a living at music? Oh yeah, great. Good luck! And a number of others at this sort of what we call amateur level, or high school level, presumably. Any bass players? You know, any sort of ordinary musicians, guys who don’t wanna hit things? Yeah, there’s an ordinary guy, great. Any citizens of the nation who are here anyway and not actually musicians? Oh great, nice to have you madam. I hope I can manage to connect a couple of things to you, because if this is about anything, it’s about music, and the way drum sets fit into music.

I thought about calling all this Imagination, Options, and Choices, except that sounded so horribly pompous, I couldn’t possibly title anything like that. You know, I’d get drummed out of the building. In a way, that is what it’s all about for me - imagination, leading to some options, and then picking one of those options. This can happen on the micro level, you know, you’re playing the drum set, imagination says, “I know, we need another color here, let’s have a tom tom.” A couple of options, a high one, a low one. Exercise a choice, we’ll take the high one-boom. This on the micro level. If you add this stuff up, this becomes your character. What did you imagine you could do? What were the options as to how you could bring it about? What did you choose to do? Look, it was Bill Bruford who did that, or it was Joe So. You know, that’s where your character comes from, exercising options and choice on the drum set.

There aren’t rules from the sky about how you play a drum set.  There are ways that suit you, ways that suit the musical environment you’re living in. And at an intermediary level, imagination, options, and choices, you’re designing drum rhythms to go well with a piece of music. You know, which instruments you’re going to play on a kit, how you’re going to stick it, what kind of configuration-are you going to take as being a standard drum kit like this, which is a beautiful instrument, or are you going to add on, you know, other little bits and pieces, log drums and boo-bams, gong drums. This is a percussion orchestra here. . . and it’s a lovely percussion orchestra, but there are other sounds as well. There’s whole other kinds of things we can do. We don’t have to play this in necessarily the way that’s descended from heaven.

And then on the macro level of imagination, options, and choices: what do you imagine yourself doing in a musical career? Do you imagine yourself being an educator or a rock star? Hey, or a jazz player? Or how do you imagine it going? What are your options for bringing these things about and what will you choose to do? And really it’s what you finally choose to do that indicates where your character is. It’s the choice that finally distinguishes you between, you know, from Elvin or Max, or from Bill Bruford, or from Steve Smith. There’s the way you choose to hit things and when you choose to hit them. So another thing we could have called this is, it’s not what you’ve got, but how you use it,  that becomes very important.

So I’m just spending a little time on this because I know this is sort of technique thing, and it’s nice, so comforting when somebody tells us, “That’s the job you’ve got to do. And when you’ve mastered those para-triplets at 120 BPM you will get a gig.” You know, we can spend nine hours doing that with the sure logic that we are at the end of it, musicians. No such luck. Life is infinitely more complex I’m afraid to have to tell you. Good technique has of course a very important part to play, but for me it’s all about imaginations and options and choices.

I’ll just warm up for a second. [Plays on snare drum] This is the stuff you all do three hours a day, right? [Plays triplets] I’m looking to try to get some blood in the wrists, you know, just to warm up a bit. I don’t have any special warmup techniques, but I spend quite a lot of time doing this, because I’ve always found technique, or execution on the drums, things that I want to say, I’ve always found it quite hard to get the right notes and the right sticks to say them. [Plays more] And already we will have noticed the weaker left stick, very common.

When I first started playing with YES and there was a great big guy on bass called Chris Squire, and he used to play very loud and they didn’t put microphones on the drums in 1968, London. I mean that was actually a revolution, putting mics on drums. We all take that stuff for granted now. I’m pretty ancient, actually I’m about 180 years old. So this is a little history and background here. How the heck am I going to be heard through that wall of kinda sound. For me the rim shot became real important. There’s a way of getting the higher frequencies out of the drum in order that I can cut through, in order that I can become famous. These are techniques, that one’s not kind of in the book. But a technique for me is, something again, not descended, not a tablet from heaven. It’s something you do in order to fix a problem. Or something you do to get your deficiency across. You know, we’re all imperfect, the tremendous deficiencies and imperfections in all us drummers. And it’s the way we use them, capitalize on them, make some music out of them, that distinguishes guy A from guy B. [plays more snare, short rolls & flams]

I’m not really what they call a hard hitter these days, but I get a fair amount of crack [plays a rim-shot] out of trying to whip it away from the snare drum. I’m not going to get any kind of gig with Cinderella or something. They don’t call me for that stuff. But I do actually cut out a fair amount of sound from the kit, even though it doesn’t look as if I’m doing very much. You know there’s that school of drumming, the heavy motion guy. But I was always one of the economical people. I don’t appear to do very much. When I sit behind a kit in a minute, you’ll look at my upper torso and say, “Get that guy out of here, he’s not doing anything.” It’s just a lot of this, economy of motion I like. It’s a very British thing actually. They can’t stand it when anybody makes a fuss. I always admired Max for being able to play with a tie on. I thought that was great.

So let me zoom over here [to his drum kit] and try getting the wrists to move around. [plays snare and toms] Just single strokes. Looking for evenness in the sound. We hope no accents at this point. In drumming we don’t really have a rhythm until you have an accent. Really, it’s the way you break up time that becomes the melody and the rhythm of the thing. So unaccented drumming is just a series of notes going past in a kind of meaningless and purposeless space.

But the minute you put a rhythm in it, the minute you put accents in there, you get some nice - to my ears melody - it’s called rhythm. [plays unaccented single strokes on snare] Pretty dull. [adds accents] You start having a tune. Pull the accents out around the toms and you’ve got a melody. To me you have already there a nice syncopated rhythm of some sort. [plays more accents] Doubles [plays double strokes around the kit] Options and choices-thinking about what you’re playing, very important.

Having spent 10 years with an electronic drum set you have to think very carefully which pad you’re going to go to. Cause  pad 5 is the sound of a dog bark in a C minor 7. And  pad 6 is the sound of a cat with a major 7/9th. And if you get them in the wrong order you’ve got the dog and cat coming in in different places. It gets very important which pad you strike.

Same with the drums. So let’s think carefully about when we strike them. You’ve all heard this: [plays the standard fill of 4 16ths on each drum] A little choice in moving from the snare to the high tom and you’ve got something nicer. [plays same fill with the high tom coming in on the a of 1] Infinitely hipper. [adds more accents and moves around] It’s very simple stuff and I know you’re all beautiful and intelligent, so you don’t need to be told this stuff. But I have to remind myself to think a little bit what it is that I’m playing. To try to be responsible for the notes. All of us have a tremendous responsibility up here with this arsenal of percussion instruments. 1-2-3-4-5 cymbals, 1-2-3-4-5 drums. This is an orchestra up here. So when I’m sitting at it, I’m trying to look at it and respect the instruments, see when they should be used, when not used. I’m not just wailing away or trying hard not to just wail away. So these become very important things. [plays more kit] It’s a very nice way to think about rhythm actually.

Well, what is rhythm? When you strike a drum, time and space are flowing along quite nicely without us. Actually, unbelievably, the world will continue without me. But as a drummer, when I strike a note I say hello, I make an event, I impose myself on time and space and say, “Hello, it’s Bill.” Then there’s this kind of gap in time, nothing happens until the next note is struck. Note 1, note 2. And what do we have in the middle? Nothing but more space and time and silence. And it’s that silence that’s actually called rhythm.

So you better be careful when you put down that second note because you are cutting up, you’re literally breaking up time. It’s your responsibility to get it right. And if you make a hiccup in that, we’re all going to feel it. Which is why we all feel beautiful and comfortable with a very groovy, swinging drummer and a little awkward with this guy. You’ve all met him.  This is going along really nicely. [plays rhythm and then a 7 beat fill] Well somehow his responsibility, his choices and options all went madly wrong. And the beautiful flow of time and space suddenly got chopped. This is elementary stuff, but you and I have to remind ourselves of these things, I think.

[Plays a typical Bruford groove with broken fills]

Just trying to cut it up in a way that leaves you with a cliff-hanger, leaves you with that great big hole in the thing that-sometimes people call it the nictomorph, I don’t know why they call it that - but it’s that lovely feeling of anticipation on the edge of the cliff. You look over the edge, you get a funny stomach, pull away and think, “Thank God, we’re safe again.” Tension and release in drumming and rhythm is of course another one of the main things that it’s all about. [Plays a short fill] Try to leave space for the other people to play.

You know the famous rehearsal room scene, I’m sure you’ve all been in it if you play kit drums at all, or any other mallet instrument, or in fact, any musical instrument. And the drummer is there and he’s wailing away, he’s got his groovy lick together, it’s absolutely great, it’s burning on two kick drums, it’s in, you know, 19/105 time. And it’s just great, the bass player is [looking around in confusion], “So where do I come in?” You know I’ve had that problem a lot with Tony Levin, a New York bass player, very good, works with Peter Gabriel and so forth. There we were in the rehearsal room on the first day, there’s me doing my, you know, “God he’s going to love this, this is great.” And away you go and you realize that there’s silence coming from the bass division. Why is this? And he’s waiting for something he perceives as music to happen.

You think you’ve got it all going, but the bass player, from his point of view, and this gives us another big problem, you’ve got to somehow learn to listen to yourselves the way other normal human beings do. I know that we all know that we’re great. But somehow the bass player and the guitar player and your mother-in-law, they all react to this in a different way. You give them a little space, a little bit of tension, a little bit of release in the rhythm, and then they’re there. Now this can be a very fast tempo, it doesn’t have to be slow, namby-pamby music. It can be graceful and in control. At fast tempos that’s a wonderful thing. Anyway, let’s try a tune of some sort.

[Plays along to a tape of If You Can’t Stand The Heat, from his first

solo recording Feels Good To Me and Hell’s Bells from One Of A Kind.]

Thank you very much indeed, thanks. Well, a couple of old blasts from the past there. The second one of course, a strange meter of some sort. People often ask me about odd meter rhythms, because it’s something that I’ve seemed to have gotten into. I don’t quite know why. Odd meters suddenly appeared with Take Five  and stuff, in about 1966 or something. And for me, I always felt more comfortable and able to come up with a groove of some sort, if it had an odd number at the beginning of the bar. I don’t quite know why that is, it probably says a lot about my deep rooted maternal conflict. But it was easier for me than 4/4. I could never think of a damn thing to do in 4/4. So it was again, to do with imagination. I used to write a lot of lines and hooks and bass riffs when I first started writing, which is something I would encourage anybody to do. Try to find bass grooves and melodies that are in some strange time. And no, the answer is, I do not count and sit there and go, “12345123451-2-3-4-51234512, oh damn, missed one, 1234512345.” You don’t actually sit there doing that. You’re hearing a tune in fact. [Sings out the melody to Hells Bells] End of story, it’s just a little tune that you just play around it somehow, trying not to come down too heavy on the front of the bar sometimes.

When we all first started playing 5/8, 7/8, 9/8 and the rest of it, we were so happy and thrilled to make the beginning of the bar cleanly, the up coming bar, that we would rather overemphasize it. [Plays a rhythm in seven while talking over it, playing a heavy bass drum on 1] “12 3 4 5 6 7, Oh! what a relief 5 6 7, Oh! Tell the bass player,there it is!” And it all became a bit one legged, like that. Now this is a great big thing, every now and then. It’s nice if you can handle it, if you’re going to handle odd meters at all, if you can try to disguise, perhaps, it’s oddity. That way your mother-in-law will like you more if the bad gets work and all that stuff.

For example, there was a piece that came up in King Crimson I called Discipline, which is a tune you may know from an album called Discipline. And that was in, again, some uncountable odd rhythm which I happened to devise and then find out later it was in some uncountable odd rhythm. And it went, [vocalizes the rhythm while clapping in 4] and again, around to the half beat to round it off. Altogether, [vocalizes again]. Don’t worry, I won’t sing anymore, you’re all looking very anxious. You won’t be tested on this. But the point is, you sit at the drums and you’re trying to be imaginative and you’re trying to find choices and options.

What do you do with it? Well, try to pick out some of the rhythm on the tom tom with an accent. Perhaps not the hand clap, ‘cause that would sit it down too much [sings], just try to find an accent somewhere after that, pull up the lilt. Perhaps configure it on some boo-bams, a gong tom, and a log drum - something a bit different - which it was written for, so it doesn’t sound quite the same on this kit. You get the gist of it. [Plays beat on kit] Begin again. So it’s just a way of trying to pull some accents out that are not the accents of the rhythm, but complimentary accents to give it this [plays accents on kit] feel in the drum tune.

To me this is a drum tune, to heck with this thing about drums have melody, it’s right there. [Plays complete rhythm] And around this time, of course, we sort of had disco hell from the record companies about how everything had to have [Plays straight 4 on bass drum] in it. So, the way around that problem was to keep that, because it’s a lovely feeling bass drum, but you need the tension and the accents to give you that tension and release. So the line altogether becomes [Plays Discipline  with bass drum].

Now there’s nothing special about it, nothing particularly new about it. I just use it as an example of trying to think your way out of a problem, to keep the band leader happy, to keep the record company still there, still keep your gig, and generally make the music lilt and swing, rather than be oppressive and dead. Discipline. So nowadays, that works well over hi-hat too. You take a 7 and a steady kick drum. [Plays a rhythm in 7 over a 4/4 bass drum] It’s just that the hands are complicated, the feet are simple. The foot is simple and there you have that lovely thing in music, which is something you should all try and get if possible, the simple and the complex running at the same time. One of those lovely musical things which is what we all like about these things.

People say to me, “Is it difficult?” Wow, that’s complicated. Well things can be complex and simple at the same time. Complex in conception, but simple in execution. For example, they can be complex in the hands, simple in the feet. So look for these compositional ideas. I know you’re saying, “Ah, it’s okay for Bill Bruford, he can do this stuff because he’s in weird groups.” But it’s not true. A lot of guys have left rehearsal rooms when I start this stuff. So it’s to do with making people feel comfortable. How’s the bass part going to go with that? I sang you the bass part so we were writing the drum line from the bass player’s point of view. But it has to do with people being comfortable. Here comes another one, another odd meter one from Earthworks.

[Plays Bridge Of Inhibition from Earthworks]

Thanks very much indeed. Thank you, you’re very kind. Is there anything anyone wants to ask at this point?

Question: Could you play that part from Red that goes bam-bam-bam-ba-bam-bam?

You got me in my weak spot here. I’m real bad on this old stuff, about what I did and whether I did it or not. Some triplets in there, huh. Did you play those triplets on November the 6th, 1963? I think I know the sound you mean, I don’t know verbatim, but it’s this kind of thing. I think it’s just the right hand up on the cymbal. [plays 1 bar rhythm then triplet fill] I think it’s just splitting the hands. Really, there’s nothing very simple to it, I forgot to bring the other hand down and it ended up sounding like that. All just triplets. Triplets are great things, I mean they go on forever. We could have a whole drum clinic on triplets.

Question: Have you thought about making a video of just of what you’re playing right there?

Are you asking me if I should make a video or have I? I haven’t made a secondary video. When I did a video tape in about 1979, I was extremely green. A lot of video tapes at that time hadn’t been recorded. And I thought the best thing I could do was prop up the bar at Toads in New Haven, Connecticut, and talk about drumming. I thought that’s what everybody would kind of like. And have Robert Fripp inserted, saying something about something. But now I understand of course that really, we don’t want philosophical video tapes at all. We don’t want them about that. I can’t think of another way to tell anybody how to play a paradiddle, you know, after Steve Smith and Kenny Aaronoff, Simon Philips - they did such a good job.

But maybe I can devise some odd meter stuff, that’s possible. But there’s so much of it, I’m loath to make people feel any more inadequate than they already feel. Let’s have a video tape for tuning the drums! Yeh, a drum tuning tape. A video tape for getting out of bed in the morning. There’s a distinct paranoia among the young drummers I know about tuning the drums. Because, well God, you need the Tama weight machine and you need a video on how to tune the drums. I mean it takes 2&1/2 minutes. You put it on, boo-boo-boo-boo-boom-stop, done. It’s something that’s becoming demagogic, to use a PASIC word. It’s something that’s becoming a little too over the top.

Question: So when you talk about melody and odd meter, and having that in your head, when you did a tune like Discipline, it seems you must have to think about it.

That’s a question about melody and odd meter and having it in your head. No, I’m not thinking about it. I am singing the tune. Dada-de-dada-de-dada-be-dadadow-bedabedada-de-dada-dedabedowdow. I can’t forget it. And as long as that movie’s running in the skull, to me, you have something to play with. Chances are somebody else in the band is playing the tune. But even if they weren’t, you should have that running in your skull. Same with Hell’s Bells, bing-bong-bing, same with that one. They’re all tunes. The drummer can play around them.

Question: Related to his question, when you were doing the solo break, are you counting cycles, or jumping back in when the band gets back in?

Yeah, kind of long phrases. I am trying to think of long phrases. Now it may catch 1, or it may catch 2 the next bar, that’s fine by me. I’m not going to try and catch 1 every down beat. I try to spread across the bar.

Question: So when you’re with the band and you’ve got your solo section, is it an open thing, or do you have a set number?

It’s an open thing, but there is a keyboard player playing that little high bell part. And I’ve always really enjoyed soloing over something, giving you, therefore, the relationship to something. Even if it would be just a steady hi-hat going up and down. To me you need this interplay, between the constant rhythm, the flow of time, and the way it’s broken up. That’s where the appeal comes from.

Question: What’s it like playing with the London Philharmonic and were you happy with the result?

That’s in reference to the Symphonic Music Of YES CD. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the fact is the strings were done two days later, in three 3 hour sessions. Steve Howe and Tim Harries, who’s the bass player from Earthworks, and myself redid the YES music for about five days, did about 9 or 10 tracks, or something. The rock group was done first. Skillfully arranged so that when the weight of the orchestra comes, you hope it’s going to be okay. Course they’re always late, always. If we ever take this thing on the road and I play with local symphonies - Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, and so forth - I’m gonna make an awful lot of enemies with lead violin players. It’s like, “Where are you?” The drummer goes bang and the strings go niaah. It’s like, “Why are you early Bill?” It’s murder playing with string players. I love you, all string players.

Question: Who’s the bass player you most enjoy playing with? And when you make up a song, do you hear the rhythm or the melody?

Bass players, all different guys. At the time , they’re all interesting guys for the time: John Wetton, Jeff Berlin, Chris Squire; Tony Levin’s my favorite. Definitely. He just makes me laugh a lot. Plus he’s always on time, which is the other principle thing with bass players. It’s always the guy, whether you’re late or not. And music, do you hear the melody or the rhythm? I’m latching on to any bit of the music that I can get my teeth into. And in Hell’s Bells, which is the second tune I played, bing-bong-bing, bing-bong-bing, again, you can’t lose it. That happens to be the top line, it could be the bass part that would do the job. And in odd moments, you just have to know that you’re playing 16 notes, you might just have to know that. So it’s anything you can get your teeth into.

Question: How do you keep yourself so creative and fresh?

Have a Sprite, 7-up, tons of money [laughs]. I don’t know, by trying to look at the drum set from outside of drumming. I hate to confess this because I’m here at PASIC, but in a way I’m not a guy who’s fanatical about drumming. I drum, you know, I play the drums for a living, but my interest is in music. When in that great rehearsal room in the sky, and God was giving out the instruments, it’s just that he gave the guitar and the bass to somebody else and I ended up with the drum kit. I would have been a musician I think anyway, on some other instrument probably, but I ended up on those. And I like tinkering like an engineer does, in a kind of motor of rhythm and stuff. I like messing around in there.

Where do you get ideas from? People often ask me about influences and more often than not they’re non-drummers. Of course I’ve heard every drummer in the world and the only thing I know about that is I don’t want to sound like any of them, if I can possibly manage it. Miles Davis, you know, look at the way he could make an entry and an exit. They say an audience listens to you twice: they listen to you when you begin, they listen to you when you stop. These are the two big events in any kind of a solo. [Speaks very fast] Nowifyoukeepgoingontalkinglikethiswith eryfasttechniqueandyou’vegottospeakveryfast , the audience stops listening. So it’s the beginning and the ending that’s very important. I try to think of these things.

Miles Davis, big influence. David Bowie. What did David Bowie do? He kept moving. Very nice, never let the audience catch up with you. Very creative idea, there you go. Brian Eno. British kind of sage, wit and thinker, a very interesting man. I think he's got lots of great ideas developed. Just trying to view these things like a child might. You know, every time you have a band, you have a rehearsal, think up a new thing. What would a kid do? Pretend you can’t play that paratriplet really fast. Leave that out. Examine the hi-hat. Why don’t you put the toms around in another way so that the sounds come out differently? Why don’t you try playing with no cymbals for a bit? These are like, you know they talk about chops builders - let’s have lots of chops builders - I would refer to imagination builders. Set the drums up the wrong way. Put the snare drum where the high tom is, the high tom where the snare is, see what that does for you. There are all kinds of ways you can trip yourself up and try to come up with something just a little fresh. Nothing I do is complicated. It’s just the way that you try to approach the music that I think is important.

Question: What are your long term and short term recording plans?

Short term, I’m on several CDs this Christmas that are of course all back catalog. Stuff that was recorded, at least 20 years old. 20 years ago, which is okay, but not okay. That is Concise King Crimson, Symphonic Music Of YES, Anderson/Bruford/Wakeman/Howe Live At The Shoreline, The very Best Of YES, it goes on. More important to me, in February  [1994] I have out a live album of my own band, Earthworks, which was recorded in Boston; Cambridge, England; and New York. It is possible the Symphonic Music Of YES thing will appear and I will be making friends, enemies of all these lead violin players. That may well appear in March if there’s enough take up. Aside from that, I have a new album on the slate that I can’t really tell you about, but I’m doing all the writing for that.

So look, I’m going to leave you with one very quick 3 minute tune. Nothing much I can tell you about it, except that it’s looking for that contrast all the time. That one’s called Beelzebub. The first part of it is heavily automated, it’s like looking for that vertical movement in the rhythm, and the bridge is sort of legato.

[Plays Beelzebub from Feels Good To Me]

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.