What makes a great rhythm section?

I often get asked to cri­tique bands and sound. Admit­tingly, this is prob­a­bly one of my least favorite requests; not because I can’t do it, but rather how del­i­cate this mat­ter is.

As musi­cians (and I include myself), we all come off as tough — wrap­ping the  lay­ers of skin around our offense detec­tors to ward off any unpleas­ant dis­course.  As a result, we have the propen­sity (yes, our word of the day is propen­sity–lol) to lose objec­tiv­ity and insight on the very issues that are hold­ing us back. The key is to learn from pos­i­tive crit­i­cism. As long as there are specifics and solu­tions to rem­edy the prob­lems, then to me, that is effective.

With that being said, If there is one thing I’ve learned through the years, it’s the impor­tance of hav­ing a good rhythm sec­tion; specif­i­cally a solid drum­mer and bassist. Your focus should be heav­ily cen­tered around these two indi­vid­u­als. No, I’m not talk­ing about pump­ing their egos every 10 min­utes (although some do require it!) but rather lis­ten­ing to how the bassist and drum­mer con­nect. They should be one unit, not two.

Although your audi­ences won’t be able to put a fin­ger on it, they will know and hear the dif­fer­ence between how good Band A is ver­sus Band B, if Band A has a bet­ter rhythm sec­tion. When a band is tight, inten­sity and dynam­ics are sig­nif­i­cantly taken to another level. There is more of a dif­fer­ence than you may have considered.

The best drum­mers are in the pocket

Ever heard of the expres­sion, “That drum­mer is in the pocket?”  That pocket not only sig­ni­fies how tight the drum­mer is (mean­ing, a human metronome) but also the feel or the groove. The best drum­mers not only have con­sis­tent tem­pos, but also are great feel play­ers. They know how to lay out the groove.

Speak­ing of groove, one of my favorite books is Vic­tor Wooten’s The Music Les­son. In his book, he says that “once you find the groove, it doesn’t mat­ter what note comes out; it will feel right to the lis­tener. Peo­ple gen­er­ally feel music before they lis­ten to it.” With this being said, you need to focus on groove! (Page 31). Groove and lay­ing in the pocket has absolutely noth­ing to do with how busy a drum­mer is. Some of the best drum­mers go spar­ingly on fills. The ones that use fills gen­er­ously know how to make them work in con­text of the song and the band. They are team play­ers. A drum­mer solo­ing through­out a song only con­tin­ues to solid­ify his or her ama­teur status.

To empha­size groove and pocket play­ing, let’s take a look at a video from the late and mighty Jeff Por­caro. Jeff was one of the most sought after ses­sion drum­mers in the stu­dio and was the drum­mer for Toto (Hold The Line, Rosanna, Africa) You’ve heard on him on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” as well as record­ing with Steely Dan, Madonna and more. Here is his expla­na­tion of how he came up with the shuf­fle for the song Rosanna (that’s Cyn­thia Rhodes of Dirty Danc­ing in the vid). Lis­ten to both Porcaro’s tempo and groove.

Stew­art Copeland is one of the best “pocket” drum­mers around. Copeland’s fill work is tasty in the mid­dle of Rox­anne; using the drums to cre­ate that inten­sity with­out break­ing the tempo. Lis­ten to how well Sting and Copeland com­pli­ment each other.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics of a killer rhythm section

So what are the ele­ments of a great rhythm sec­tion? In my opin­ion, they are the following:

1. They under­stand their role. The best bassists and drum­mers know what their roles are…to act as the adhe­sive for the band. They under­stand that their role is one of the most impor­tant and their focus is to pro­vide the foun­da­tion of tempo and feel, mak­ing it a delight for the other musi­cians to play over. They don’t noo­dle and solo through songs until that moment arises when the lead singer says, “and on the drums….”
2. They lis­ten to each other. Is your bassist not in sync with your drum­mers kick? Are they miss­ing the down­beat or expe­ri­enc­ing tempo prob­lems over the back­beat? Bassists and drum­mers need to be able to open their ears, and play off of each other. The best almost melt together or what I term, “gel.”
3. They under­stand the ele­ments of style. Style is every­thing when it comes to play­ing. It’s really what sep­a­rates aver­age play­ers from qual­ity. Being busy can be effec­tive, but only when it’s in the right places.  When I see drum­mers plac­ing more empha­sis on their fills than keep­ing time, then I know where the focus needs to be.
4. They use dynam­ics to cre­ate emo­tion. A com­mon mis­take is con­sis­tently play­ing at the same vol­ume, which is usu­ally loud. Cre­at­ing var­i­ous lay­ers of dynam­ics within a song can really take a song to the stratos­phere. Clas­si­cal piano is a good exam­ple of this. The best play­ers know how to make dynam­ics work for them. The ones just play­ing a flut­ter of notes, are doing just that and as a result, there is no feel­ing. It’s just there. Cre­ate some­thing com­pelling for your audi­ences. I guar­an­tee it will make a dif­fer­ence in how you set the mood.
5. Space is music. Why so many bands fail to use space to accen­tu­ate their music is beyond me. Space is prob­a­bly the sin­gle most effec­tive way to make your music stand out.  The best rhythm play­ers (and any musi­cian for that mat­ter) uses space (or if you are a music the­ory buff…rests, ritar­dan­dos and fer­matas) to their advan­tage. In The Music Les­son, Vic­tor Wooten says that “before you can fully under­stand notes…you must under­stand the space you will place them in. Space can be seen as the birth­place of all things. That is why all things are even­tu­ally attracted back to it.” (Page 207).
6. Their gear reflects and com­pli­ments their play­ing. Every drum­mer sets up their rig dif­fer­ently. Some like the toms higher or spaced apart more than oth­ers. Some pre­fer to play with a cage, oth­ers couldn’t bother with it. Some like to uti­lize the splash. Some don’t. Bassists are the same way. Some pre­fer dif­fer­ent brands or tweak the setup for max­i­mum performance. I’m not say­ing that new gear or a spe­cific brand is going to help you play bet­ter. I’m merely point­ing out that like a bat­ter and his unique stance –the best play­ers know what works for them.

Eval­u­ate your sit­u­a­tion and act!

Plac­ing empha­sis on a smok­ing rhythm sec­tion is one of the most dra­matic actions you can take to improve the qual­ity of your band. To some, this may mean re-evaluating your cur­rent line-up and mak­ing changes to the mix. This takes some objec­tiv­ity, espe­cially if you’ve been friends for a long time. I’ve been in the mid­dle of this on many occa­sions. It’s not fun, but if your goal is to make this a career, deci­sions of this nature are common.

The bot­tom line, is that it is essen­tial that you con­tin­u­ally eval­u­ate your chem­istry as a band. Dif­fer­ent play­ers can change a bands level of play­ing and style. Just make sure you are choos­ing the right play­ers to com­pli­ment who you are as a band.

I wel­come your com­ments – espe­cially you bassists and drummers!

For clos­ing, I want to leave you with Nickelback’s “Pho­to­graph” on AOL Ses­sions. I chose this ver­sion, because AOL Ses­sions is more stripped down – with­out a huge con­cert hall or stu­dio effects to cover up weak­nesses or mis­takes. You can hear how tight the band really is in more of a “prac­tice room” envi­ron­ment. Cheers.

Mak­ing It In Music recommends:

From Grammy-winning musi­cal icon and leg­endary bassist Vic­tor L. Wooten comes The Music Les­son, the story of a strug­gling young musi­cian who wanted music to be his life, and who wanted his life to be great. Then, from nowhere it seemed, a teacher arrived. Part musi­cal genius, part philoso­pher, part eccen­tric wise man, the teacher would guide the young musi­cian on a spir­i­tual jour­ney, and teach him that the gifts we get from music mir­ror those from life, and every move­ment, phrase, and chord has its own meaning…All you have to do is find the song inside.

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