< PreviousModern Drummer August 2022 48 MD : You have always set your drums up in a very creative-unique way, now with the new Jack White tour, your set-up has evolved even more. Where did your current set-up with Jack White come from? DJ : We are playing a lot of Jack’s older music from The White Stripes and The Dead Weather. We are also doing music from all of Jack’s older records. On Jack’s last record he jumped into the world of sampling and looping as well. Some people might not know this, but Jack’s a drummer, so he and is engineers are very tuned in to drum sounds. For this tour the band learned about 100 songs from his back catalog alone, then there was the stuff from of the new record which I played on. On this record Jack was using different electronic sounds and samples of things like finger snaps too. So when you combine all of that music with the angled drums that I have been doing for the last 15 years or so, there was a lot to incorporate in my touring set. I was looking at rock drummers like Ray Luzier, Portnoy, Stewart Copeland, John Bonham, Mitch Mitchell, and when Vinnie was play- ing with Sting. Those drummers all have these monster kits, and big drums. So for this tour with Jack, I wanted to find my rock drumming voice, and throw in everything and the kitchen sink. I wanted to fuse my traditional set with some pancake style drums, and the Roland electronic pads and the SPD. I have more Paiste Sound EFX cymbals, and bells. I need to be able to play anything whenever Jack whispers what song we are going to next in my ear. People are used to seeing my play small drums, and some people seem to have a problem that I am out here playing a big kit and big drums, but Jack White is a rock gig, so I need to play a big rock kit. MD : It’s all about the gig. If you are playing your drum and DJ gigs, you play an appropriate kit, and if you are doing Jack White’s rock gig, you have to bring an appropriate kit. DJ : I like to pay attention to detail with sounds from his records be- cause I know that’s what the audience wants to hear. That means that I have to have instant access to all of those sounds from all of those bands and all of those records. So this set is the best of all worlds. This set incorporates sounds that I am incorporating stuff from my gospel roots, through my R&B and blues playing, to my hip hop stuff, rock music, and now the electronic music. MD : So many people think that you play “your drumset” for the gig. But what you are saying is that the gig determines what “your drum- set” actually is or should be. DJ: The music is always supposed to tell you what to play. It’s not about thinking, OK I am an amazing drummer and I am going to play “my style” on anything that I play and with anyone whom I play. It isn’t about that at all. That’s not the case. If you want a career you got to play the music that is happening around you. On this new record there is a song that Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest raps. So I trigger his vocal track. There is another tune called “What’s the Trick?” with a lot of electronic sounds that I am triggering. MD : What is your set-up for this Jack White tour? DJ: The drum sounds are really dialed in on this tour. The front of house engineer has done a great job getting huge drum sounds, and I am really trying to provide him with the accurate sounds from the record. To do that I have a 26” bass drum, my snare drum is a 15”, and I have some other custom toys that you can see in the photos. MD : A 26” bass drum, that’s a lot of “boom.” But a big bass drum and small toms that’s interesting. DJ: Then I have some roto toms in 8, 10, and 12 as a shoutout to guys like Stewart Copeland. I first saw Roto Toms in church and loved the way they sound and the way they looked. MD : I first heard Roto Toms in go-go music in bands like Trouble Funk, Rare Essence, and Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers. DJ: It was really cool when Terry Bozzio started using the parts of Roto Toms and played them and called them Spoxe. MD : What cymbals are you using on this tour? DJ: My main ride is a 26” Giant Beat. The drum sound on the last Jack White record is the closest thing to it was in the White Stripes when Meg was just bashing, there is a lot of that vibe on this new record, so for that, the Giant Beat ride cymbal is my best friend. Then I have a 14” Splash Stack, a 22” Precision China, an 8” and a 10” bells, a Modern Essentials 22” that I am using for a crash, my hi hats are 16” Giant Beats. MD : I have been a Paiste endorser since 2000, and I am guilty of not knowing a lot about Giant Beats, but when they re-issued them and I played them, I was in love. The 14” hats, the 18” and 20” crashes are just killer. They are great transparent cymbals, and they record amazingly. MD: So when and why did you first begin to play the drumset at the extreme angles? DJ : In between Jack White tours I play other gigs like with my DJ and drum band and my rock hip-hop band called th1rt3en with rapper Pharoahe Monch. I use my small PDP signature travel kit for those. Mark AlleeAugust 2022 Modern Drummer 49 That kit is an 18” kick, 13” snare, 10” and 14” toms. I use my signature Paiste cymbals for that too, I mix my DJ 45’s with the 22” Dark Energy ride cymbal for those gigs. For Jack White’s Lazaretto and Blunderbuss records and tours I used a 26” kick, a 16” snare. My tom and the marching snare were to the left of the hi hat, and my floor tom was in the regular place on the right. One issue with that set was that it was hard getting snare stands to hold the 16” snare real securely. But I was setting up the drums angled away from me on that tour. The only difference was for this tour I have all of the toms on my left, and all of my cymbals on the right, except the hi hat is on the left in the standard spot. MD : Did you start to put all of the cymbals on the right because you had seen some of the older English rock drummers do that? I know that Bill Ward from Black Sabbath, and Charlie Watts did it for a while as well. DJ : I didn’t know that. All of my set-ups challenge me to be intention- al when I play something. When I hit any drum or cymbal, that sound has to count. I want to really be intentional when I play. I never want to play a sound because it’s convenient, or because it just happens to be there. I want to play a sound because that’s the sound that I want to hear. I also like to get more sounds out of a limited amount of drums. I started touring with Jack White in 2012 after the Blunderbuss re- cord. But before I started playing with Jack, I was playing with mostly hip-hop and rappers with artists like Talib Kweli and Black Milk. In fact, Black Milk is who introduced me to Jack. But when I was playing with those guys I was using a small bare bones set-up with just kick, snare, floor tom, hi hats and ride. That was a little after the time that Questlove had starting doing that, and I didn’t want my drums to look like Questlove’s. In the hip-hop community, even as a kid, it was all about identity. If you looked like anyone else in your look or your fashion you had problems. That stuck with me. So when I was learning to play drums I wanted to sound like Vinnie and Weckl and I had similar kits to theirs. But I knew that I would have to develop my own drumming identity. When I was younger, I started playing with hip-hop bands and I realized that I didn’t need a big kit, so I downsized. I stripped everything away, I was just using that stripped down kit. But then I saw Questlove playing with The Roots. I didn’t want people to think that I was copying Questlove, and I never wanted to be in the same room with him and have him think that I was copying him. So I had to figure out a way to create my own identity, and that was when the angles on the drums started. Then of course I had to fine tune my vocabulary to work on those kits. I worked on that set-up and my musical vocabulary to create a musical identity. I was aware of the OG’s who used those extreme angles on their drums first like Buddy Rich and Philly Joe Jones. Although I know that they tilted their drums to the side because of traditional grip, I knew that I could take that inspi- ration and use it in my own way. There wasn’t a scientific reason that I started doing it, it was all for looks and create an identity like Bozzio did with his sets, Vinnie with his China cymbal on the left. I remember reading about all of those drummers in Modern Drummer when I was coming up, and they all had created an identity, and a unique drum set that people identified with them. MD : So exactly when did your drumset with the extreme angles start? DJ : That started in 2006 when I was playing with hip-hop group called Slum Village. MD: That was the group that J Dilla produced? DJ : Dilla died in 2006, and Slum Village had been invited to play some festivals and big gigs that required having a live band. I was recommended to come on board as the drummer by their music director at the time. It was when I was living in Pittsburgh for a while, playing with steel drummer Phil Solomon and his band, Solomon Steel. When I started playing with Slum Village is when I changed my kit setup, because like I said, they were well-known, and doing a similar thing to the Roots at the time, and I wanted to steer clear of Questlove’s thing. MD : When you made that change in your set-up, how did that affect you playing? DJ: It helped me create a lot of new vocabulary, and that’s when I really started paying attention to detail and thinking like a producer behind the drums. I started to become a live MPC drummer. I played music so it not only sounded like the record, but it felt like the record. That meant being aware if a track was top heavy or bottom heavy. I discovered that there was a way to play acoustic drums on a gig and keep the integrity and the spirit of the original recording, even though it was made on an MPC. That’s what I focused on. I’m still learning and developing, but I think that I’m starting to develop a drumming identity and voice. MD : We’ll get into that next time! The Daru Sessions is the first of a four-part installment of Daru Jones discussing several specific subjects in music and drumming. Mark AlleeModern Drummer August 2022 50August 2022 Modern Drummer 51 CHRIS LESSO Life Through Rhythm By Mark Griffith C hris Lesso is a renaissance drummer: bandleader, sideman, clinician, teacher… His studies with the great Dom Famularo and the legendary Jim Blackley have helped him form a great foundation for his drumming and his teaching. Chris’ playing with his band Modus Factor, Cirque Du Soleil Cavalia, and his touring with Wild T and the Spirit (led by guitarist Tony Springer,) shows his forward looking yet grounded drumming approach, and his up-coming book will help any student become the best version of themselves that they can be. MD : Your new book is called Life Through Rhythm, what does that mean? CL: Simply put, it’s believing in who you are, taking it to 2.0. Excellence. But it’s really more than that. My new book and my podcast are both called Life Through Rhythm and they focus on the fact that everyone has a voice, so let’s bring out that voice and release the confidence that your voice can help you create within yourself. The first chapter is called “Your Escape Velocity” and it discusses how you use most of your fuel to “just” blast off. Another concept that I talk about is called Wrong and Strong. That deals with not being afraid to make mistakes. I have a chapter called “How You Move is How You Groove” which discusses body language and movement at the drums. The “Language of Drumming” chapter is about breathing, being able to speak what you play, and being solid on the grid. I have an important chapter called “The Rhythm of Practice.” I could write an entire book on that. “The Rhythm of Practice” discusses the inner- meditation and the outer goals of practice, and just the art of practice in general. MD : I often talk to students about HOW to practice. I think that’s an overlooked yet vitally important subject. CL : I agree! The entire book is tied up in the final chapter “Living LTR Every Day” which deals with longevity. That chapter also deals with aligning your drumming movements with nature, stage fright, disappointment, and presents it all in a way that shows how you can play drums until you are 105 and beyond. MD : What is your musical background? CL: I started playing music by studying classical piano, but I was obsessed with drums. However, the piano gave me so much that I would tap into later. Early on, I didn’t have any drum teachers, so I Modern Drummer August 2022 52 wound up doing and learning a lot of stuff the hard way. When I was 19, I sought out Jim Blackley and Dom Famularo MD : Jim Blackley was a legendary teacher, and unfortunately most drummers (outside of Canada) don’t know about him. I was introduced to him by (another great Canadian drummer) Terry Clarke, but I never got to study with Jim. I am studying both of Jim’s books (with some guidance from some of his students) what was that like? CL : He was like a Freddie Gruber or a Jim Chapin type of figure. Like a Yoda of drumming. His wife would always greet you at the door with a cup of tea. He just looked right into your soul. He was big into deleting things, focusing on less, and not chasing your tail. The interesting thing about Jim is that there is a shelf-life of about two to five years of studying with Jim. At some point he calls you, and in his great Scottish accent he says, “Hello lad, do you have a pen, here is the number of a great piano teacher named Brian Rudolph, he’s expecting your call, that’s what you need to do now.” And it wasn’t because you had done anything “wrong” it was sort of a graduation. It happens to every one of Jim’s students. MD When you studied with him did you work from both books? CL : Yes, the rolls book, and the second giant jazz book. I can still feel him, he was very special. Then I started with Dom, and he became my mentor-hero-teacher. He came to a small town in Canada and did a drum clinic when I was 17. Dom and Jim Blackley are the seeds of Life Through Rhythm. Victor Wooten is another important figure to me. He is as close as it gets to Life Through Rhythm. But there have been different drummers whose work and words have really resonated with me. MD : Who? CL : Billy Cobham, Benny Greb, and Steve Smith. I also did a Life Through Rhythm podcast on Vic Firth, he really exemplifies what Life Through Rhythm is. MD: Vic Firth is an important man in this industry, and there are (I’m sure) some young drummers who don’t even know that he was a GIANT and a legendary musician. To many (I guess,) he’s just the name on a stick. Peter Erskine told me in his Legends interview (for his Legends book,) that the Boston Symphony would sometimes tune to Vic. Former BSO bassist Buell Neidlinger told Peter that the entire orchestra built its pitch upon Vic’s intonation. There could not be a bigger tribute to Vic’s ear, musicality, and the role of the timpani (and, by extension, the drummer) in a “band.” CL : WOW… That’s amazing! We should just stop right there. MD : Yes, that’s a pretty cool little (maybe not so little) fact. But please keep going about your development. CL : After Jim and Dom, I became interested in the tabla and Indian music. I knew Steve Smith was studying Konnakol, but I wanted to feel the drums and get the rhythm in my hands, so I started studying tabla with a guy in Toronto. Then I went to India to study Tabla. I discovered the language of rhythm, and the wider view of rhythm as a voice. Drums are an ancient power. Sure, the drumset has been around for only 100 years or so, but the drums themselves go back thousands of years. MD: I sounds like you and I both believe in the greater power of the drums? CL : Absolutely. I have a student who is a retired military officer, and he suffered from a lot of PTSD from his years in Afghanistan, and his drum studies are helping him with his PTSD. On my podcast I have all sorts of guests. All of my different podcasts are about the drums, but they go beyond drumming. I have had David Rutherford on. He was a Navy Seal, and we talked overcoming fear and anxiety. I had Mark Bowden on, and we analyzed the body language of drummers like Neil Peart, Stewart Copeland, and Tony Williams. MD: Stylistically, where are you coming from as a drummer? CL: Carter Beauford, Jojo Mayer, Simon Phillips, Tony Williams, and Lars Ulrich are my big five. MD : Does all of that come out in your band? CL: My band Modus Factor is a combination of world rhythms (Indian and African) and electronica, so I am heavily influenced by everything that is included in those. But overall, I love any music that is pushing the bar and exposing who YOU are. If something doesn’t have that spirit or spark, I’m not really interested. MD: I see that you play open-handed, do you play open-handed all of the time? CL : Yes, 100% of the time. I fell in love with it when I saw Dom playing at KOSA. I love the feeling of it, and I love the body language and the mindset of open-handed playing. Of course, seeing Simon Phillips play open handed is inspirational, but also seeing Steve Gadd, David Garibaldi, or Kenny Aronoff do it once or twice a set is really inspirational too. But I also like the “weaker side” and the “split down the middle” approach too. It was amazing when I would teach it to young students who were already playing cross-handed. At first, I thought that I could have been messing them up. But then I saw their brains just flip the switch, and I knew it would be OK. MD: After hearing your record The Picasso Zone, what more can you tell me about your band Modus Factor? CL: I’m really proud of Modus Factor because of two reasons. First, it’s something that I conceived and put together. I picked the musicians in the band because they sound like themselves. And second, it’s challenging because I am the “worst” one in the band. The other guys in the band really push me to shoot for the next level because they are that good. I first heard about that idea from Victor Wooten. He said, “Strive to always feel like you’re the worst one in the band.” It’s meant with a bit of humor, not that you’re literally “the worst” (which is negative and kills confidence.) Instead, to feel like you really have to deliver 110% and pull all of your potential out, by surrounding yourself with A-players. It really all comes down to Bruce Lee for me. His book was called The Art of Expressing the Human Body. He wanted to see who you were through your motions. He invited people to bring themselves into the martial arts. He really broke down the traditions of his time. That’s what I am trying to do with drumming. MD: Be like water, right? (A common Bruce Lee expression.) CL : That’s it! Check out Chris’s Modern Drummer profile page at moderndrummer.com"Amazing Rock Drum Set history in one book now for the world to see. Sit back and enjoy!" - Carl Palmer Photographs by Mark Weiss The World’s Greatest Drum Kits are Right Here! If you love drums, you ‘ll love CRASH! ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY! ALSO AVAILABLE AT MODERNDRUMMER.COMModern Drummer August 2022 54 The Game Changers Part 2 By Billy Ashbaugh W elcome back for part two! Last month we discussed several important topics that I felt were monumental in my growth as a player. Those were: understanding subdivision, learning to read music, developing your ears, and learning to write charts/ roadmaps. Once I was able to understand and utilize these ideas, my playing took a huge leap forward. Trust me, it will do the same for you. If you missed it, please go back and check it out. For this months article we will take a look at the four remaining topics: recording yourself and listening back, effective looping, proper practice structure, and always using a metronome and counting. Recording yourself and listening back is something I’ve been doing almost as long as I’ve been playing. I’m not sure why, but for some reason I just instinctively did this. I’m so glad I did. This enabled me to hear how I was actually playing, not how I thought I was playing. This was a real eye opener. I can remem- ber back in the day I would carry around old portable cassette decks. Sometimes I used the room mic on the unit and some- times there were auxiliary audio inputs that I would use. It just depended on that particular gig. If I was using microphones on my drums, then I would bring a mixer with a line out to record. This way I had better audio. If it was a smaller gig, then I would just use the built in mic from the tape deck. Either way, I made it a point to always listen back to my performance. This was a huge step toward me fine tuning my playing and pocket. Simply put, the tape doesn’t lie. During my early gigs, I found it very difficult (if not impossible) to tell if my playing was really “on point” and sounded good with the rest of the band. Back then I was just too focused on the art of playing the drums. I simply wasn’t able to “pull myself” out of the moment to accurately listen. The only way to do that is by recording yourself and listening back. Sometimes my playing would sound much better than it “felt” at the time. And sometimes it actually sounded as bad as I thought. Over time, I was able to develop my ears to the point where I could tell in real time (as I’m playing) if something was off with my playing. This won’t happen over night but it will happen if you put the time in. I would recom- mend recording everything, practice sessions, band rehearsals, and gigs. This way you have an honest assessment of your playing for the entire learning process, not just at the gig. Think of it this way, it’s better to expose and fix any problems in your playing in the “practice room” before you get together with other musicians to play. Another cool thing about recording yourself is what I call “the hot seat”. That’s the nervous feeling you get when you know you’re re- cording yourself to listen back. Often, I’ve been in situations where the music director would record the band and then everyone would listen back and critique. Talk about the hot seat! The same feeling happens in the studio when the engineer hits record and the little red light goes on. Having these nervous situations pull you “out of your zone” is a great way to find out exactly how comfortable you really are with the material. When you’re in this situation, only the things that you “own” through muscle memory will show up. The more you record yourself, the more you put yourself in “the hot seat “. Thanks to technology, re- cording yourself is very easy these days. No more carrying around tape decks and cables. Just pick up your phone and hit record. One of my best practice tools is effective looping. This is my “go to” process for getting comfortable with any new idea behind the kit. When done properly, there is no better method for settling in and “owning” new or uncomfortable material. As we know, muscle memory is the only way to truly get comfortable with an idea. You can loop anything from one beat to an entire section of a song. The trick here is to isolate the trouble spots for efficient and effective looping. You want to get “in and out” of these spots as quickly as possible. By this I mean, create your loop so you don’t spend extra time playing anything that you’re already comfortable with. If you’re working on a fill going into the chorus, you don’t need to play eight measures of time prior to the fill. Try playing just one measure before the fill. Likewise, play just one measure of time when you come out of the fill as well. This will set up your most effective looping. When you do this, you are spending the most time possible on just the spot that needs it. You’re no longer wasting precious practice time playing stuff that you’re already comfortable with. It may not seem like much, but it really ads up. The more frequently you play an exercise in any given amount of time, the better your brain (and limbs) will settle and “own” that idea. I use this technique with my students and it works great every time. While preparing for a tour with ‘NSYNC, I learned first hand how well this works. We (the band) were learning a new song and the bridge section just wasn’t feeling right. The music director had us loop only the bridge for about ten minutes. Sure enough, a few minutes into repeating the section, everything started to settle and it began to feel great. You see, we only played the bridge one time in the entire song, unlike the verse or chorus that were re- peated several times throughout the song. By isolating and focusing on just the bridge, we were able to achieve the same comfort level as the rest of the song. Once again proving this technique works great. One crucial lesson I learned years ago: You will perform at the comfort level you achieve in the practice room. Being aware of how to best structure your practice time will help you get the most from your time invested. If you’re like me, you don’t have countless hours available to commit to practicing. So naturally it makes sense to struc- ture your time so you can master those ideas as quickly as possible. Here are a few tips. Use a timer for your practice sessions. This will give you an honest assessment of exactly how much practice you’re actually doing. You’d be surprised how much time you’re really “goofing off” during practice. A good practice session should be nothing but struggling to achieve something new. If you can already play it, then you’re not practicing. It’s important to keep that in mind. What I do is warm up first for a few minutes. Then I set the timer for 30 minutes. Once I hit start on the August 2022 Modern Drummer 55 timer, I block all distractions out and bury my head in the exercise. The next thing I know, the timer is going off and I got 30 minutes of solid, uninterrupted, practice. I have found that if I’m out in the studio for three or four hours during a day working on stuff, I actually get maybe two or three hours of real practice time in. Before I used this approach, I would think I had gotten four or five hours of practice in, but the reality was I only got three. Big difference. So if you really want to keep track of how much practice you’re getting, grab that timer and hit start. You might be surprised! Most drummers pick up the sticks to learn the art drumming and to play music. For me, taking an idea from a book and playing it musi- cally involves different stages. That’s why I break my practice time into three areas. Each area requires a different mind set and also achieves different results. The first is what I call the “Grunt Stage”. This stage is always first. Here, I’m discovering new ideas and often my head is buried in a book. I’m busy breaking things down, counting, repeating, and basically trying to gain full control over my limbs. I’m constantly struggling in this stage. This is what most people consider to be your “normal” approach to practicing. This is all fine and good but I soon discovered I needed to approach my new- ly found material in a different way. For the next stage, I close the books, stop counting, turn off the bright lights (for reading music) and sit with my new ideas with a different mind set. I call this my “Exploring Stage”. Let’s look at this process. In other words, how is the idea broken down, what’s the subdivision, how is it being phrased, where are the accents falling, and what voicing’s are being used. Then I take that idea and begin to move it around the kit. You will be surprised how many different ways you can play an idea. Even if it’s as simple as moving to the ride for a groove you just learned. Or maybe adding a hi-hat part with your left foot. I’ve even discovered that a sticking pattern for a groove can make an awesome sounding fill around the toms. The cool thing is, I’m now adding or altering the idea on my own. I’m no longer getting ideas from a book. These are creative ideas that I stumbled on myself through exploring. For me, this stage is a lot of fun. The trick is my mind set while doing this. I’m no longer invested in learning this idea, I already did that in my grunt stage. My mind is now open to think creatively. The point is to inten- tionally put yourself into this frame of mind. If you don’t put enough time in the grunt stage, this step will fail miserably. You need to have complete control over your idea before your mind can open up and explore in this way. You should start to notice a whole new level of comfort as you do this. Your ideas should begin to flow and become more musical. This leads to the third stage: “Thinking Musically”. When I sit behind the kit, the only thing I’m thinking about is the music. Technical stuff is last thing on my mind. I’m never counting or thinking about anything I play. I do my best to get inside the music and play for the song. I let what I’m hearing in the song dictate what’s best to play. I have found that if I don’t take my ideas through the first two stages, this step doesn’t work. Not only do I need to have control over things, but I must also put the exploring time in before my mind can open up and play musically. The best thing about this approach is I now have three areas I can choose from to dig into. Some days I might feel like doing the “grunt work” and getting some new ideas down. Or, some days I might feel like just exploring my ideas around the kit. Either way, the point is I’m now more motivated and focused to practice because I get to work on what ever I’m interested in that day. I also recommend separating your “hand time” from your “kit time.” It helps to have a separate space so you can focus on your hands without all of the distractions that come with playing the kit (reading, co-ordinating limbs, counting etc.) This uninterrupted hand time is crucial. It will allow you to concentrate on the fundamentals of your grip before you jump behind the kit. Remember, the brain can only process so much information at once. It’s important to create a zone where you can do this. Set up a practice pad in a space that you can get to anytime the urge strikes. It’s awesome to have 24/7 access to working on your grip and fundamental hand technique. Also, try jotting down notes for your practice routine. Back in the day, I would have six or seven books that I was working on at the same time. It really helped me to jot down notes for every exercise. I would mark where I was in the book, along with side notes for anything that was giving me trouble. If I altered the exercise or phrased it differently, I would also write that down. This way if I took a short break from any of those books, I could come back later and pick up right where I left off. Also, get in the habit of writing down the tempo for everything you do. This leads us to the final subject. Always use a metronome and count! Simply put, drum- mers must have a good concept of steady time. The only way to assure this is by practicing with a metronome. That’s the true test to see if you have control over an idea. If you can lock your exercise with the metronome, then you own that idea. I know metronomes can be intimidat- ing in the beginning. However, if you’re patient and work at it, over time you will be able to lock everything you play with a metronome. Don’t be afraid to turn off the metronome if it’s giving you too much trouble. Work more on controlling that idea on its own, then re-introduce the met- ronome until you’re able to stay with it. This is a great time to record yourself. (Sound familiar?) Listen back and try to determine if you’re ahead or behind the beat. Quite often, just making yourself aware of a problem will fix the problem. If you’re recording and listening back, you will know to “push or pull” those notes and get them to line up with the metronome. Lastly, let’s talk about the importance of counting. Think of count- ing as the “rhythmic grid”. Your spoken voice will provide the perfect spot for each note to land. In the beginning, this can be difficult. Just slow everything down and be patient. As long as you’re counting, it’s just a matter of time before your limbs start to line up. The good news is, you will only need this skill when you are learning a new idea. Over time, your voice will go away. Think of it like training wheels for your bicycle. Once you have your balance, it’s no longer necessary to have them. Likewise, take them off too soon and you’ll crash. It’s the same thing with counting. Stop counting too soon and everything will fall apart. Eventually though, you’ll be comfortable enough to where your voice goes away and you begin to feel the rhythmic pulse internally. I know when I’m practicing and that happens, my new idea has settled and I have good control over it. That’s always the goal. I hope you’ve enjoyed these two articles on the “Game Changers” that had a huge impact on my drumming. I feel they will do the same for you. Everyone’s path to learning is different. The goal is to obtain as much skill as possible as we grow. The main thing is to enjoy this never-ending journey. Good luck! Check out Billy’s Modern Drummer profile page at moderndrummer.com While preparing for a tour with ‘NSYNC, I learned first-hand how well this works. We (the band) were learning a new song and the bridge section just wasn’t feeling right. The music director had us loop only the bridge for about ten minutes.Modern Drummer August 2022 56 Sound Design Part 1 By Tony Verderosa S ound Design is essential in the fields of musical instrument development, live performance, video game development, music production, theater, new media, post-production, virtual reality/augmented reality and of course, filmmaking and television production. Most of you probably think of sound design in the context of epic film trailers and blockbuster Hollywood films. Directors use sound design to enhance and elevate storytelling by carefully choosing sounds that create atmosphere, impact, and emotion. In this month’s column, we will examine why sound design is relevant and vital to the evolution of Creative Percussion Controllers and Hybrid Drumming. We will narrow the focus and examine sound design through the lens of music production and musical instrument development. Sound design in this multi-part series refers to the intentional blending, sculpting, and processing of various organic and synthetic tones. This is quite different and separate from analyzing the melodies and rhythms being played in a music composition. Our primary focus will be with “processed sound” rather than music, though in the world of modern music production and modern film scores, those lines are easily blurred. A good example of this can be found in the audio track below. “Lock On Target” is a sound cue I created that, upon first listen feels like a strange synthesizer patch but it also has rhythmic, “stuttering” elements, plus evolving pitch shifting components. I want to draw your attention to this sound because it could function as a “sound effect” in a sci-fimovie like Dune and it could also function well musically as a film score cue. This is a great example of “blurring the lines” between music and sound design. You might be surprised to find out that this track was created using a frame drum and a rubber gong mallet as my only source material. I will provide a video link further on in this article to take you through the process of transforming the sound of a frame drum using sound design. Composer Dave Porter who created the score for the hit series Breaking Bad is a master at merging sound design with music composition. If you listen to music by artists like FKA Twigs, Tomat, Son Lux, Louis Cole, Rival Consoles, Death Grips, Gold Panda, Moderat, Shigeto and dozens of others, it should be immediately apparent that they are spending a great deal of time crafting unique sounds to bring their music to life. Deliberate, creative sound sculpting is at the core of what they do. There are many different paths one could take to arrive at original sound design. These include, but are not limited to, the use of additive or subtractive synthesis, processing recorded source material with hardware effects pedals, and manipulating source material in a computer based digital audio workstation such as Logic, Pro Tools, or Cubase. In this part of this series, we will explore the use of widely available, computer-based FX Plugins inside a DAW as a method of creating unique soundscapes. Before we dive into DAW based “sound manipulation”, let’s discuss some historical context for sound design. “Sound Effects” have been in use since prehistoric times to convey various emotions. It was used in recreation as well as religious healing practices. Plays and Theatrical performances dating back to medieval times combined music and sound effects to elevate performances. Luigi Russolo, the Italian composer, built a mechanical sound design device called the “intonarumori” which was used in experimental theater production starting around 1913 to bring different sound effects to a live stage performance. You can see and hear his devices on the YouTube link below. Luigi Russolo, Intonarumoris, 1913 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=BYPXAo1cOA4 Russolo was part of the “futurism” movement which focused on the relationship between man and machines. The Dadaist movement started around the spring of 1916 in Europe and was greatly influenced by the futurists. “Dada” was sometimes known as the “anti-art” movement. They sought freedom from previous restrictions imposed on the arts. Dadaism was a rebellion against popular western musical sensibilities. Eric Satie used simple folk music elements and Marcel Duchamp created the concept of “found art”. His controversial “found objects” were assembled as “constructions” and displayed in art galleries. For Dadaists, noise from everyday life was often integrated and used as a compositional device. Composers like John Cage and Edgar Varese were also pushing the boundaries of what was considered music. John Cage - A Book of Music (1944) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O--VJ5BH2u8 John Cage - Dream (1948) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hVFCmK6GgMAugust 2022 Modern Drummer 57 Edgard Varese - Complete Works of Edgard Varese, Volume 1 (1951) FULL ALBUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEtuTzdCr6s Developments in mechanics and electricity combined with research in acoustics gave rise to the early electro-mechanical instruments. Inventor Thaddeus Cahill developed the Telharmonium which some consider the very first “synthesizer.” The First Synth Was Bigger Than Your House - The Telharmonium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lVtk5bLqt4 In the 1920s the Theremin was designed and played without being touched. Leon Theremin designed an instrument that would respond to your hands being waved in between two antennae. Theremin also invented the Rhythmicon in 1931 which was used by composer Edgar Varese. This was essentially an early version of the modern drum machine. Leon Theremin playing his own instrument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5qf9O6c20o In the 1940s and 1950s, broadcasting equipment, test equipment and magnetic tape recorders became key components in early electronic music compositions. John Cage composed a series called “Imaginary Landscapes” which combined live instruments with oscillator test tones played using vinyl records. The Cologne Station of West German Radio was founded in 1952 and this became the studio used by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen. They manipulated found sounds by purely electronic means. They called their “studies,” “Elektronishe Musik”. “Musique Concrete” was also developed during this period by Engineer Pierre Schaeffer and composer, Pierre Henry. They used “found sounds”, industrial noises from everyday life, and sounds from vinyl records. Musique Concrete relied heavily on Magnetic Tape to process sounds. These various sonic materials were layered and manipulated using various recording techniques such as filtering, sound splitting, magnetic tape speed manipulation, elongating sounds using reverb or repetition, tape splicing and other mix techniques. Stockhausen - Studie 1 (1953) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4QaMwpVXVM Pierre Schaeffer — Le Trièdre Fertile (1978) [Full album, 2012 Reissue] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHudu1Am6oQ Karlheinz Stockhausen: Telemusik (1966) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdIe2CrorMM Pierre Schaeffer - Apostrophe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2o9VyuJSD4 Today’s music producers and composers owe a lot to these early pioneers. Manipulating recorded source material such as drums, guitars, vocals and pre-recorded found sounds is very common in modern music production. We have an amazing advantage over the early pioneers because we can utilize MIDI and digital audio technology, which started in the 1980s and 1990s. If you want to do a much deeper dive into the history of electronic music and the early pioneers, you can check out my book, The Techno Primer: Essential reference for loop-based music styles, published by Hal Leonard. The influence of computers in the world of sound design cannot be overstated. Digital audio workstations (DAWs) offer a variety of signal processing algorithms known as FX Plug Ins, plus a wide range of delays, filters, EQ’s and much more. You can take advantage of all these technologies whether you are using a laptop, iPad, iPhone, or a larger format computer (Mac or PC). I create custom sound samples that are used in feature films, TV shows, and global advertising campaigns. I use sound design extensively when I am composing music for my own albums or remixing music for John Petrucci and other artists. I have also used creative sound design techniques to produce special sample libraries that appear in Yamaha electronic drums and keyboards. My sound design and custom sample work usually begins by first recording the raw elements, such as cymbals, percussion, drums, vocals, guitars or “found objects.” When I hear the sound of a beautifully recorded acoustic snare drum or bass drum, I love it, but on some levels, it falls flat for me creatively. This just happens to be the way I “hear” music. I have been influenced over many years, listening to the early music pioneers as well as modern music producers that are experts at bending, warping, and shaping sounds. On some level, the influence of computer manipulated sound has “distorted” and “colored” all our listening preferences. A good case in point, are the many drummers over the past 20 years that are trying to reverse engineer electronic music using acoustic drums. That fact alone has dramatically altered many of the acoustic drums and “drumhead treatments” being manufactured and produced. The range of acoustic “FX cymbals” and cymbal “stax” designed and produced by cymbal companies is even more dramatic. I was fortunate to design an entire series of signature effects cymbals with Sabian years ago. That project was a direct result of trying to blend the worlds of electronic loop-based music with acoustic drums. My experiments with “hybrid drumming” over the years was developed to bring sound design to a live improvised stage performance. My primary objective as a sound designer, is to try and create a sound that I have never heard before. That is my motivation each Next >