Do any other members play drums, before they started in with cigar boxes and diddley bows?
If so does it have any influence on the way you approach the guitars?
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Do any other members play drums, before they started in with cigar boxes and diddley bows?
If so does it have any influence on the way you approach the guitars?
You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!
Replies
I tried. Still have a set. Haven't played em in years. Guess the way it helped me was approaching rhythm in a more complex way. Looking at interactions between my guitar and voice instead of just a standard beat. I played guitar for years before I tried the drums. Probably been a good five or more years sense I've played on them.
Could those with "drumming" backgrounds maybe start some posts about "stomp boxes," "washboard percussion." "spoons and rhythm sticks," "shakers," "buckets and cans as drums and scrapers," "cajons," "marimbas," etc., etc?
Those of us with pitch-oriented music backgrounds are as mystified by unpitched percussion as you drummers are by G chords.
I've seen it convincingly demonstrated that a well placed click or pop can enhance musical performances without having to have "drums" dominate the whole project.
yes it depends, anything goes! ;-)
did you know drums have to be tuned...?
If a drummer cant play the shapes with just a snare and hi hat, he's not worth his salt. EG look at that arab band Tinariwen, they have one guy playing djembe, no big kit or cymbals BUT the guitars (3 or 4 of them?) create a fantastic groove
To drum on a kit (set) or with the other stuff you mentioned is very simple, you need to be able to keep time. Thats about it. Counting in blocks of 2 3 4 or whatever, And do it in a way that is interesting, fits and supports the music, doesnt drown out other musicians or get monotonous or boring. I have come to the conclusion that as with most instruments, a lot of drumming can be flashy, showy, technical, "impressive" but not especially played with sensitivity and feeling. I think the most important aspect is a good groove, even if its just a simple few notes, rather than a machine gun batter em dead approach.....but then you wouldnt get paid to do a clinic I guess..LOL I saw a tv show where M Davis was interviewed he said something about hiring some ornate guy (leibermann? )on soprano sax "because folks like to see someone moving their fingers real fast"
I use a set of electronic v-drums on recordings, it would be impossible to use acoustic drums in my situation, maybe if i lived in a bungalow in the middle of a field, but they are easy to mike up and i can practice whenever i like, drumming does help with music experience overall, as with most things there is a lot to it if you do it properly - even bass! ;-)
Did you play guitar for a while before you played drums? I had a set of roland e drums for about 5 or 6 years. They are great for ease of practising without annoying wife and kids or the neighbours, and you can switch to different kits/EQ/efx etc in an instant without having to set up/tear down. BUT the thing I missed was the acoustic quality of real drums and (especially) real bronze cymbals, the feel of them, how you can make them whistle and so forth when you mix them. And I am a soft hitter (I rarley use sticks and even then only 7a jazz sticks, and prefer vic firth brushes generally). Its a true test to play quietly with brushes and still have a tight intensity to the sound. So any way I sold the roland and went back to yamaha drums and sabian/diril cymbals. I made a stomp box drum, not good sound with it yet.
yes i had a set of Pearl drums set up in the dining room but they made the house shake, but yes the cymbals sounded amazing :-)
i converted a set of cheap acoustic drums to v-drums using piezos as triggers with a Roland TD-12...
That is fascinating, Is that your current kit? Looks like regular hi hats? That was what made me decide to ditch the e drums, the hi hat was just a round 2 zone pad. To get a "proper" e hi hat was like £200+ or something I thought this is crazy, I could get some real decent used sabian hi hats and a good microphone for that money, AND at the end of the day the e hi hats would still never be the real thing.
But you got the best of both worlds on this. those peiezos get in everywhere...As I understand it e cymbals have improved a lot, but for me they were always the weak point of my roland kit. I think my brain was TD7?? Since starting in with diddley bows etc, I realised how easy it is to create a pickup, and how much the manufacturers were ripping off to charge so much for such a cheap and simple thing. Do you stick the piezos to the heads or the shells? Do you get problems with say tom 1 interfering with tom 2 (cross talk)?
yes the hi hats were expensive but used them quite regularly for several years on my recordings, don't know if it would survive the rigours of live travelling but very well made.
the piezos are mounted beneath a rubber cone set just touching the head mounted on a metal bar..
no "cross talk"
I'm not sure that being a drummer effects my approach to building or playing CBGs. I didn't have lots of guitar knowledge before I started building. I owned a cheap six string guitar and I could strum chords, but that was about it.
I must say that playing slide guitar has really improved my listening skills and my ability to play in tune.
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