Writing Drum Parts for Songs

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Ken Marcou and I’m here to talk a little about writing a drum part to fit a song. If there is a pre-existing song idea a rhythm maybe in some melodies and you’re trying to create a drum part for; basically the first thing you need to do is know what time signature it is, know how the song goes in your mind so that you can play something along with what’s there, now from there it’s completely a decision based on you know the style that the band is and kind of where you want to go with the sound, your job as a drummer is to kind of flush out the overall sound in the dynamic value of the song. Now if your song is in 4/4 you can play a simple 4/4 beat like this…or if you want it to be more abstract, more driving, more interesting just different you could play this… Now the points to which you branch off from your standard metronome style of beat depend greatly on what the songs called for and that’s a matter of taste, it’s the matter of discussing between you and your other band mates and it has a lot to do with the direction, the tone, the vibe, the color that you want the song to have, you need to have listened to lots of different things, know how to play lots of different things to reflect and you know portray different abstractions like that and play what’s necessary, it’s very much an issue of trial and error."