Tips on Timekeeping: Having a Good Sense of Time, Interpretation, and Awareness

In my business as a drummer, time is the foundation.

My initial enthusiasm with the musical art of drumming was steered by my guitar teacher who was frustrated that I didn't have a solid sense of time. I started playing the guitar at age seven, simultaneously becoming exposed to the instrument's technical foundation on the fretboard (fingering scales/melodies and harmonic chording) and, at the same time, learning the laws of music that one becomes familiar with in reading and playing music (reading notes and rests, understanding their values, applying them to time signatures, and the other basics of notation).

At age seven, it didn't all come together in a groove. After a year or two, my teacher suggested I listen more to the rhythm of the drums—the beat. I did. And I watched drummers play as well. My first experience behind a set of drums was exhilarating! I was easily able to do the few basic beats and fills I'd watched another drummer play. My mother secured a place for me in the school band and I was hooked! After struggling with so many notes, scales, and fret positions on the guitar, drumming, initially, seemed a lot easier to hang with.

It started to change as I got serious. I began to realize that I couldn't really tell if I was speeding up or slowing down in more subtle, less obvious, tempo zones. This made me rather insecure when faced with criticism on the subject. "Lay it down!" "Take MY tempo!" "Don't rush!" "It's slowing down!" These were things that I can remember people literally sometimes screaming at me before I was barely a teenager (“ Whiplash ,” anyone?). That kind of abuse can mess with your head and your heart, but I loved the feeling of playing those drums and being in the eye of the hurricane on the bandstand, which is right where every drummer—and no one else—on stage lives in performance. I decided to get serious about understanding the concept of time and how to feel it from the inside out.

Looking back, I made some smart moves like practicing with a metronome, playing with musicians more experienced than myself (specifically for focusing on time and groove), recording my playing in these situations, and studying what everyone else hears when I play.

I also got a lot of good advice:

• Play along with certain records/drummers;
• Practice first with the metronome then the same thing again without it, recording both and listening back to notice any differences;
• Practice any one idea at a wide variety of tempos and/or subdivisions to learn your comfort zones and breaking points;
• Practice any one idea at a variety of dynamics—crescendoing and decrescendoing, then playing continuously through extreme dynamic contrasts and notice where things tend to rush or drag;
• Practice with the metronome, hearing the click as "2 & 4," or even as just "1" or "4"… This study works your "inner clock" much better than playing along to just a quarter note pulse, or even sequenced sixteenths that spell it all out for you, because the time is still perfect but you are responsible for "more" of it while keeping it together.

All of this was applied over several years of growth. In the process, I realized I could harness my timekeeping with greater control but I still needed more depth of feel.

Nowadays, a drummer needs to be able to groove in the old school, organic, real-time way (from African or Cuban drum/chant choirs to Brazilian Samba Schools, as well blues, funk/hip-hop, jazz, and rock 'n roll bands), and also in more inorganic, quantized disciplines (playing with loops, sequencers, Pro-Tools, etc.).

It is one thing to have good time—as I mentioned at the beginning, it's the foundation for a drummer, but it's still just one thing a great drummer needs to succeed. Color, shading, and imagination are also important in a drummer's interpretation to the music he or she plays. Still, all these embellishments are essential in timekeeping as well. They are, in my opinion, what separates a truly great drummer from the others who play the drums.

But what does that mean? Well, I mentioned wanting more depth of feel at a certain point. One way to do so was to improve my application of not only dynamics but also inter-dynamics —and that's another subject altogether. The other was to understand and be able to apply color, shading, and imagination to my feelings for both organic (real time) and inorganic (quantized) time. The only way I know how to get that together is simply through playing a lot, specifically with:

1. Other musicians;
2. Loops and sequencers;
3. Both a & b together.

It also helps to have some insight.

Perfect time is an important goal but it's actually kind of dull after a while, in my opinion, if it plods along and everything's... “perfect,” like a machine. I think time feels better if it breathes a bit, like you and I do. A strong sense of good time is perhaps the better skill to have.

Knowing how to subdivide within a quarter note pulse helps keep the time even but there is also a level of depth, combined with feeling, in knowing how and where to "place" the downbeats for maximum effect. Max Roach said that, in his day, the best players weren't as concerned about time that was so strict as to be inflexible as they were with having the sensitivity to be able to steer the time to generate the proper feeling for any piece of music. Jack DeJohnette speaks of the directions of both forward and backward motion in timekeeping. What does it all mean and how can you get a handle on these concepts? In an old Paul Simon song, he sang, "You can sit on top of the beat, you can lean on the side of the beat, you can hang from the bottom of the beat, but you gotta admit that the music is sweet!" This actually explains a lot about what I'm talking about.

Once we can control both organic and inorganic timekeeping, and are able to both anticipate and apply where to phrase the time, then we’ve created a zone of confidence in any musical situation we feel comfortable in.

It helps to understand the duration of different values of notes at a variety of tempos. Drums don't have much sustain unless you play a roll or let a cymbal ring, but if you sing quarter notes or half notes, first at 250 bpm, then 150 bpm, then 50 bpm, etc., like a horn player would—feeling the attack and release of each note, you'll get a clue about where to center your attack when emphasizing steady time and expressing a deeper feel in directions of rock steady, forward, or backward motion. These directions are commonly referred to as:

• Spot On the beat. Studio pros call this "sitting on it" or "burying the click" because your attack is so dead center in the middle of the note and rocksteady that you virtually cancel the click out;
• On Top of the beat. Pushing the attack by slightly anticipating it, driving the time forward without actually rushing;
• Laying Back on the beat. Pulling back, delaying the attack somewhat, without actually dragging.

Often the music requires a certain approach, like those listed above, for the proper feel and vibe.

Sometimes I find myself "balancing" the time by, for example, laying back if I feel the bass player or the band rushing the pulse or certain figures, or getting more on top if I feel the time starting to lag. This can also require flexibility in where I center my attack during the course of a single tune as well. I might strive to "keep everyone out of the same end of the boat" to avoid rushing or dragging the tune. These are usually subtle nuances that may arise while I focus on "the big picture" of making the song I'm playing shine.

After this hurdle of awareness, there are more to ponder. The mysterious "gray zone" of rhythm springs to mind – also referred to as "elasticizing" the time, or playing "in the cracks"– the ability to phrase the rhythm in a way that is flexible and can't be written down. In this approach the time, per se (the downbeat pulse), is not elastic but how we subdivide within it is. Commonly, this refers to examples of eighth or sixteenth note subdivisions that are not phrased exactly even (or "straight"), but also not exactly what I'd describe as usually:

• A hard or "tight" swing (like a shuffle rhythm that you could lock ALL of the notes of a triplet cleanly inside of);
• A true hemiola grouping of 3 over 2 (think of the rhythm "1-2&3-" repeating – Like the rhythm of the melody of “Carol of the Bells”).

Instead, we want a flexible interpretation between these milepost subdivisions.? Many forms of music around the globe incorporate this flexibility and drummers, in particular, can quickly appear very "square" (aka "not happening") in many genres of music if they cannot supply this flexibility to the rhythm and also steer the direction of its motion) over a strong steady pulse. Staying relaxed helps. To get a rhythm really grooving, Jeff Hamilton would say, "Don't worry if it's a little sloppy & don't sound nervous." Some players produce this instinctively but others have to work for it.

A very important concept to consider here is that much of all this depends on how you use the space between the beats. Think of the rests as the notes turned inside out !

The space needs the same focus and attention as the notes you are playing. Time and space working in harmony will affect how you'll play those notes in a way that will even out your time flow, providing a deeper feel for the music you play. Either way, in this day and age, awareness of these concepts is the key to developing and applying them.

In developing all this insight and ability I realized at a certain point that now I'm the one, in certain situations, that hears the lack of a strong time foundation in some players I share the bandstand with and now that’s frustrating to me, so what do I do about that ?! I read an interview with the late, great, Jeff Porcaro, where he asked rhetorically, "What does it mean to have good time?"

Jeff basically stated that one half of his clientele thought he had good time if he plowed unwaveringly through a tune, no matter who or what around him threatened to pull the time in one direction or another, and the other half thought he was a time wizard if he could follow their emotional and unsteady flow of time through various parts of a song.

I could relate to that. I find myself at times playing gigs with sequencers (or to a click in the studio) where I have to be spot on with the track and still add fire and feeling to the music or , conversely, in show orchestras where I have to hold a fifty-piece group together in real time and "drive the bus." Then there's Avant Garde jazz groups, or symphony orchestras, where the ability to play effectively in and out of time, perhaps following a conductor's purposefully unsteady phrasing, is essential. These scenarios all demand a strong understanding of time but can incorporate different approaches to it.

So, yeah... what does it mean to have good time?!?

I come back to the idea that a strong awareness of the concepts of good timekeeping and combining that awareness with discipline, relaxed concentration, and an openness to understanding that playing with different people requires flexibility and adjustments in approach from one situation to another is the key to playing the game.

And just to be safe, in the words of Bill Bruford, "When in doubt-- roll !"

Lastly and perhaps most important of all: Whether you choose to stay firm or bend, remember to do it with conviction ! Steering the ship and leading the band builds trust and relaxes your fellow musicians. It's how you assert that authority that makes all the difference.