Trying to understand timekeeping/placeholding during solos
Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 2:43 pm
I'm at the point in my development as a drummer that I can start thinking about soloing. I can't afford lessons, so I'm trying to sort some stuff out by watching all the videos I can. This Giovanni solo,for example, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6V8S8U9iLs) is one that I've watched a lot, mainly because he's keeping most of it at a nearly-human level of complexity and you can clearly see what's going on with his hands.
It seems that you can generally break this solo down into three types of drumming: chop-busting riffs, melody, and timekeeping. The first two are easy to understand, if not easy to replicate; right now I'm trying to psyche out the whole timekeeping thing. He's using a combination of muffs, touches, heel-tips, fingernail taps and slaps--that much is obvious. What I can't figure out is the underlying logic behind it. Is there a pattern that he's following, or is he just putting everything together in a more-or-less random way in order to get to the next round of chop-busters and melody?
How do you begin to put together a bag of timekeeping riffs that sounds good and makes sense?
It seems that you can generally break this solo down into three types of drumming: chop-busting riffs, melody, and timekeeping. The first two are easy to understand, if not easy to replicate; right now I'm trying to psyche out the whole timekeeping thing. He's using a combination of muffs, touches, heel-tips, fingernail taps and slaps--that much is obvious. What I can't figure out is the underlying logic behind it. Is there a pattern that he's following, or is he just putting everything together in a more-or-less random way in order to get to the next round of chop-busters and melody?
How do you begin to put together a bag of timekeeping riffs that sounds good and makes sense?