For ages it seemed like I was almost against drumming in my music – it was all definitely in the “Ambient” (code for “no drums”) category. Bizarrely I did have a totally context-free drum fill in “An Evening with Ada” but that was it for ages. Until “Carriageworks” (2016), six years and 13 albums later, which had some badly programmed lo-fi drum machine things in it.
Since then, all the drums I’ve used (if at all) have been using patterns from my Montage synth or provided by the MT Power DrumKit plugin – which has groove & fill presets – on the basis of “that sounds OK, I’ll use it”. I’ve mostly avoided drum machine sequences and finger drumming as I never really “got” them for some reason, and the results were never satisfactory.
So, to the surprise of everyone, including me, I now have a semi-decent e-drum kit and am taking proper lessons (on the internet, but the tutor is very contactable and interactive, it’s not just a series of videos). What happened?
The answer is, I think, related to the subject of an earlier blog post, I’m getting more into ‘normal’ music by way of chords and structure, so adding drums to that seems a logical extension. And it’s not like I’ve never been interested in drumming – I have always admired the drumming on my favourite albums, especially Phil Collins and Gavin Harrison. The drums on Genesis & Porcupine Tree are more than just providing a groove, there’re an integral and important part of the way the music works.
The main spur was when a friend of mine ‘gave’ me an Alesis samplepad-pro which she no longer wanted. Using this device for rhythms made more sense to me than when trying to make them using sequencers or finger drumming. Here was a properly visceral way of making them. I’ve always liked the physicality of making music, coming from violin where the slightest adjustment of fingers or arms can affect the tone produced. I used the pads at CSMA gigs and on a CSMA video track.
After trying a cheap-and-cheerful electronic drum kit for a while I realised that something better was needed and so I recently decided to buy a Roland V-drum kit. I so enjoyed it that I signed up for lessons and seems to be making decent progress.
So in future there will probably be EVEN MORE drums on my albums, thus alienating almost everyone who ever liked my music (yes, both of them!). They have even infiltrated the new ‘ambient’ guitar duet Glider Theory that I do with Stuart, though I suspect that Helicopter Quartet will remain drum-free for the foreseeable future, so don’t worry about that.
Oh, and I still don’t really like drum-solos though 🙂
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