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Nate Morton
2008-09-05

Here’s a quickie for MD Online readers. Just wanted to throw a couple things out there. I’m about to find myself back on television again, playing in the house band on The Bonnie Hunt Show. Bonnie is an actress whose career has spanned multiple mediums, from television to film to talk shows to theater. She’s incredibly sharp and one of the fastest people I’ve ever had a conversation with, so don’t you dare engage her unless your brain is firing on all cylinders.

Bonnie’s show is very interactive, and everyone from the crew to the producers to the writers to the band could be involved at any given moment. Look for her on NBC starting September 8.

The yet to be named house band is led by long-time film and TV composer Nicholas Pike, and also features Mike Nelson on horns, CheChe Alara on piano, B3, and keys, Reggie “Mr. The Legend” Hamilton on bass, and myself, Nate “Diggity Dawgg,” on drums. Musically, the band’s sound leans towards swing. We’re basically a miniature big band. When you tune in, keep your ears open for us paying homage to Louis Prima, Count Basie, and Gene Krupa.

In other news, if you happen to be in the greater Singapore metropolitan area September 13 and 14, stop in on the second annual Singapore Drum Festival. This year I’ll be performing with Rafael Moreira from the Rockstar house band, as well as Corey McCormick (Chris Cornell) and the one and only Storm Large. We’re performing in various incarnations at multiple times during the event. It should be pretty darned amazing!

That’s about the size of it. I hope everyone’s great.

Peace, happy tidings, and Obama/Biden 2008!

Nate

For more with Nate visit his website, www.natemorton.com/

Branden Morgan Of Misery Signals
2008-09-03

Hey, all! First, I want to take this time to thank the guys at Modern Drummer for having me in mind at all to write something for such an amazing publication. It’s a true honor, and there’s tons of guys out there that deserve it way more than I.

Everything I want to discuss in this blog is based on my own personal experience and is designed for the benefit of players who want to explore their live playing further. So I’ll say it once, but I will definitely say it again and again: There’s no right or wrong way—everyone is different.

So with that in mind, I’d like to start out by talking about the difference between playing live vs. playing in a more comfortable setting—and what I’ve found to be helpful when I’m in an uncomfortable playing situation. (Note: All of these elements alone will help, but if you put them together, that’s when you’ll be at your best, performance-wise.)

The style of music I’m currently performing on tour ten months a year demands tons of endurance and energy. So relax, and remember that the show isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. Pace yourself. This is especially important for the first show of a tour, if you haven’t been on the road for a few weeks or months. It’s extremely easy to get tired-out if you come into the show full force after not having played live for a few weeks.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been off tour and jumped into a show full force, thinking I would fly through with no problem. But my hands, forearms, or shins can lock up due to lack of maintaining the strength I achieve after being on the road for a few days, playing hard. Having a daily “routine” was the answer for me. That routine consists of a warm-up section, a “how I would play live” section, and then a section where I play anything new that I feel needs work or development.

When you’re at home or in a practice space where you’re set up for weeks or months at a time, it’s often a smaller room, which means that you don’t have to play as hard to get the volume needed for heavier music. Plus you have ample time to get used to your setup, whereas in a hectic live setting, you’re often rushed and don’t have the time for minor adjustments needed for your personal satisfaction. Also, every room is different, and we naturally try to compensate for lost volume when performing in a larger room (possibly with bad sound) by playing harder. In turn we spend way more energy, and our muscles tensing becomes a strong possibility, which can ruin a performance.

Warm up effectively; don’t just go through the motions. Do your exercises with purpose, listening to every detail of every stroke, and make the sound and your technique as perfect as you can. Pretend that any time you pick up sticks to hit a pad or drums, you’re playing for dudes who are the best of the best. Have a comfortable setup, so that when you sit behind your drums before a performance, you’re confident that you’re gonna own shit. It’s far more entertaining watching a confident, relaxed drummer than one who is struggling through a performance for any reason.

And remember that attitude is everything. If you come to the stage frustrated about something, or if you had a shitty day and you let that effect your mood, chances are it will change your performance in a negative way. Come to the stage excited about what you do. If you’re having a bad day, try to forget about it and focus on what you’re playing—from the time you set up to the time you’re finished—and have a great time up there.

So stay aware of things you could improve and change for the performance setting. Also, be aware of the differences between playing live and playing in a comfortable setting, whether that be at home or at a friend’s house, practice space, etc. I believe that knowing all of these things can only work to your benefit in the long run. Good luck, everyone!

For more on Branden Morgan and Misery Signals, go to www.myspace.com/miserysignals

Still Time’s John Vucinich
2008-09-02

Hi, everyone. My name is John Vucinich and I’m the drummer for Still Time. I dabble in funk, polyrhythm, and long walks on the beach. I’m really excited to write this blog for Modern Drummer, but I had to think for a while about what I would write. I eventually decided to do what I always wanted to see other drummers do, which is break down some of their own songs. This gives me a great chance to look back at what I’ve done and explain to myself the reasons for many of the instinctive decisions I made while writing and recording. Incidentally, this allows me to understand myself a little better, but if anyone else can take something from it, then all the better. I decided on “Power Of Now” and “First Date,” two tracks off our new album, Stream of Consciousness. They’re both available to download on iTunes, but you can check them out on stilltimemusic.com as well. The first track is a funky pop song with a constantly changing feel, and the second one is an acoustic love song that constantly builds up to an epic climax.

“Power Of Now” came out of a jam we had in our singer’s bedroom a couple years back, and is built around the guitar line, which starts the song. The intro is basically a condensed version of that first jam: everyone listening and coming in one at a time with their part. The first beat (with the doubles on the snare every downbeat and the accents on the hi-hat) used to be played throughout the verses, but when everyone else started layering parts it became too busy (especially with the out-of-time vocals), so I cut it back to the beat I get to four measures later when the bass comes in.

The key part about the verse beat is all the ghost notes that fill it in. Since both guitarists are playing very tasty but light parts, the bass and I need to keep it moving along. The chorus opens up on the ride, and although I improvise a lot of it each time, the one thing that never changes is the collective emphasis on the second syllable of “settle” and “nothing” with a hit. I clean up the beat a bit for the second verse to allow some room for the scratch part that one of the guitarists is playing. The sax solo is my favorite part of the song because I love what our friend Ryan Moss threw down. Unfortunately, I recorded the drum part before he improvised his solo, so I didn’t get the chance to play off him like I do live. To compensate, our bassist and I tried to keep the groove going as hard as possible so it would stand on its own, like all the Medeski, Martin & Wood breakdowns I love (think “Bubblehouse”). If you listen closely, you can even hear a little cowbell during the solo.

“First Date” is much less of a jam song and more structured than most of the other songs on the album. It is constantly building, so I start super simple. The entire groove builds around the 3-3-2 that the acoustic emphasizes, and then grows from there. The lack of snare builds tension throughout first two verses so that the introduction of the snare in the chorus works as a release. Verse three is where it starts to get interesting. I keep the 8th notes going on the hi-hat but use my right hand to cycle around the snare and toms on the 3-3-2. After one more chorus, the beat starts to build again, subtly at first by adding extra bass drum beats around the original beat. In the last chorus I change the right foot to a constant quarter pulse to build it a little more. For the bridge out, I open up the hi-hat and add little flourishes with the right hand. The key for me is to have the original beat there and keep adding things around it without ever changing the 3-3-2 pulse underneath everything. We briefly flirted with the idea of double bass for the last few measures, but that sounded just a little too ridiculous.

I hope these explanations were useful or at least interesting. Please check out the music, and feel free to drop me a line to talk drums.

For more on John Vucinich, go to www.stilltimemusic.com or www.myspace.com/stilltimeband.

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