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- What Every Worship Drummer Loves...and Hates
What Every Worship Drummer Loves...and Hates
- By Daniel Collison
- Published July 4, 2008
- Drums
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Daniel Collison
Dan Collison has served as a worship pastor for 17 years and is currently the Worship Arts Pastor at Wooddale Church in the Twin Cities of MN. (http://Wooddale.org) His education includes the Interlochen Arts Academy, The Eastman School of Music, Bethel Seminary, and currently is a doctoral candidate at Fuller Seminary. Dan is the author of “Worship by Design”, and has co-authored two books with Leith Anderson. (Abingdon Press). Dan is married to Holly (18 years), and has two sons, Walker and Atley.
View all articles by Daniel CollisonWhat We Love
1. A good groove between piano, bass, drums, and guitars…slow, medium or fast.
2. A good bass player…not perfect, but someone who listens well and is willing to work with us. Especially with the shared patterns that need to occur between the bass guitar and the bass drum.
3. Well organized rehearsals
4. Music that is easy to read and very close in form to what we are actually supposed to play
5. Listening CD’s to give us a sense of the groove subtleties that the music may require
6. Both music and listening CD’s prior to the rehearsal. Preferably at least a week before rehearsals.
7. A good monitor mix with a solid blend of all the musical components to hear what parts of the music may need to be set-up or modeled in our simple and tasteful fills.
8. Meaningful relationships and discipleship. We can sometimes be quiet and appear to just want to play drums 100% of the time. But in actuality, we participate in worship bands because we are trying to find purpose for our lives and our music.
What We Hate
1. Being asked to play so quiet that we cannot lift our arms more than one inch off the surface of the drum heads. It is very hard to establish a groove without being able to ‘get into’ it. We are not asking for permission to play our brains out at our personal taste volume levels, but we do need some head room. Worship Leading Solutions: smaller sticks, plexiglas drum shields, electronic drums, better worship space designed for electronic music
2. Musicians that rush tempos. We know that drummers rush tempos better and more often than anyone in the band; however, we feel that it is everyone's task to not rush...including singers.
3. The assumption that we cannot play musically. We actually listen to what is happening throughout the entire band and vocals to react with subtle dynamic changes and fill set-ups.
4. Bad or broken equipment. We are grateful that churches often times provide drumsets for us to play, however, we need help from the church to replace broken high-hat clutches, drum thrones, and cymbal stands. We know that it can be hard to control damage to a drumset when it is shared with the junior high band, but if we tell you what needs to be fixed, or are even willing to fix it, can we be reimbursed?
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9 Responses to "What Every Worship Drummer Loves...and Hates"
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said this on 21 Jul 2008 9:48:29 PM CDT
That's it...You got a very well explained position..This is reality time my brother!!!
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said this on 22 Jul 2008 12:09:18 AM CDT
Interesting that you mention listen to CDs twice but don't mention to listening to your fellow players while you are playing and interacting with that. There is a huge difference between hearing and listening to support what the people in the band are playing. Frankly that is a problem putting to much emphasis on listening to the professional cds, because in most cases your band mates are not going to be playing the same thing.
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said this on 22 Jul 2008 8:48:19 AM CDT
In response to Andy: As a worship leader, I really appreciate a drummer who wants to study some of the subtleties of the music. Changing a groove at a bridge or dropping out at the right time at an a cappella section can make or break a song. Your other musicians should be listening to CDs too. Even if they're not going to make it sound like the pros, they need to know how the song goes, and a well-prepared drummer can do a lot to give a song the right feel even if the rest of your team isn't professional.
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said this on 22 Jul 2008 12:35:36 PM CDT
So often Mark inexperienced drummers will listen to the fill being played and say "I have to play that fill or that groove," when it is not goin to fit with the approach your bass player or keyboard player or horn section are goin to take. It does take guidence and experience to know what to take from the CD and to leave out. I guess my point is that inexperienced drummers are given the cd and the worship leader says play this and the drummer thinks, even on a sub concisous level, play what the cd IS playing note for note. That can be problematic.
One of my own experience was a worship leader called me in to play Timbales for a Latin chart. He said here is the music and listen to the CD. I came in and the worship leader and drummer and bass player were so white that I had to alter what the music said and CD played to make it work. A less experienced player would have stuck to the cd and crashed the whole thing. About setting up grooves, I completely agree. About knowing how it goes I completely agree. But there is a potential problem with that strategy that went unmentioned. |
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said this on 22 Jul 2008 8:59:04 AM CDT
You don't have to always give the team "professional" CD's in order to help them know what's going on. I will often record myself with my guitar through just my lowly laptop mics and give that to the band. It's not beautiful, but the team loves it! They know the key, the arrangement and the dynamics that I actually have in mind for the song. Then, when we come together, we all have an idea of what's going on. Sure, we're not all professional musicians, but that's why we have a leader - someone to interpret the song to the level of the musicians he/she leads. Most important is clear communication about what you are trying to do with a song. (And you might want to read his #2 and#7 again.) HOWEVER,... I do not shy away from professional recordings either. I often give them both, as they will take a lot from a professional CD in how the parts fit together to produce a certain feel.
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said this on 25 Jul 2008 3:11:37 AM CDT
We don't have a bass player, we have keyboards and lead guitar, plus 2/3 singers. I play the bongo's and have introduced a cymbal and next is the drums. Just breaking the congregation in gently.lol I agree with all your points made, drummers need to express their worship in spirit and truth and that means we do, shout! on them sometimes . I love to hear a drummer when the Holy Spirit takes over. Good article thank you. Diane from NZ
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said this on 29 Jul 2008 11:09:26 AM CDT
Praise God that someone is addressing these issues!
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said this on 15 Sep 2008 7:06:24 AM CDT
The big disagreement we have on our Praise Team is playing exactly what is on the CD. The answer is unless you have the personell that played on the recording as members of your church and the same recording engineers running sound that day,you should not remain faithful to the CD. The probability that you have people in your church that are studio quality musicians is slim to none. So tailor your music for the musicians you have according to their talent. Most often the drum fills, multi-percussion intros and effects simply don't work on Sunday morning.Greg from Annapolis Md.
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