[Dixielandjazz] PRO - drums

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Marek --- You may be right - but I still have to hear synthesized "drummer" 
that
> listens to the band!
_____________________________________________

You are right and that can be a problem.  It takes guys that listen to the 
rhythm section to play with them.  Not everyone can use them.  There are a 
lot of guys that expect the rhythm section to follow them and that obviously 
won't work.  Singers have a real tough time with it.  You have to count and 
be accurate although there is right now programming that can follow a 
soloist.  Not only that, it can memorize a score and if you have a mike on 
each instrument and that instrument makes a mistake it will cut that 
microphone for that instant and you end up with concert groups that don't 
make mistakes.  I read that they were using it with kids in concert bands as 
an experiment.

That's a little too far out for me but there is a lot of research going on 
with producing music with computers and they are that 500 pound gorilla in 
the room that we should pay attention too.

I like to listen to music on the Spanish Language TV shows.  A couple of 
years ago a band came on that was half computer and half instruments.  I was 
blown away by how good the digital instruments were.  Most of the brass 
section was canned.

You may not like them and they do leave something to be desired but the 
general public doesn't care and corporations really, really don't care.  If 
they are looking at the bottom line, and I assure you they are, cutting the 
cost is what it's all about.  Explaining art to someone like Wal-Mart is a 
joke.

They keep getting better.  They now use digitized drums sounds that are 
exact and depending on how they are programmed can do change offs and change 
at the phrase ends and all kinds of stuff.  Real drummers often don't do all 
that.

Several years ago I had a regular annual circus gig.  It paid a little bit 
better than $600 for the week.  The band was a 21 piece union band.  That 
band is now four pieces with no local musicians and not union.  It's made up 
of keyboards, synthesizers and drums.  The only reason they have a drummer 
is because they haven't figured out how to do rim shots and rolls when the 
acts are going on.  They told the union to go suck an egg and the national 
labor relations board said fine and we were all fired the week before the 
gig.  I don't like sucking eggs.

My daughter attends a what I call a rock and roll mega church.  They use a 
drummer but he plays on synthesized drum pads that sort of look like a drum 
set.  The drum comes out the roof and the cymbal sound comes from the stage 
and is mixed with mikes into the set sound.

I can't help the trends and I didn't make the new rules but music is headed 
in that direction and OKOM musicians are slow to pick up on it.  In case you 
haven't noticed a lot of the TV commercials use drum machines.

There's another thing too.  I think guys who use this stuff try to go on the 
cheap.  You just can't use some little $59 guitar amp to do it with.  It 
takes some good gear and you have to have some good players to go with it.

I have been thinking about doing a 8-10 pc big band without a rhythm 
section.  Probably three, maybe four saxes, a bone or two and a trumpet or 
two.  I could give some of the big bands a run for their money.  I just 
haven't had the time to put it together.  Right now I only have about 10 
tunes in my computer.

I was using my computer to rehearse "The 1940's radio hour" at my high 
school.  I put about half of the show into my machine.  It was working 
pretty well but the school decided to cancel it and go with another show 
that year.  Mainly because the teacher that was handling it was very young 
and quite incompetent.

There are some people that like them, for example the ball room dancers like 
the exact rhythms.  By the way the bass and piano sound very good.

Every gig that I go away from that wasn't good is because that almost all of 
the time it's the rhythm sections fault.  I have worked with good rhythm 
sections and it's wonderful but.......................

It's called competition.  As I said I don't make the rules or drive the 
trends but I do recognize and use them.  I came up in the 50's with real 
instruments and real bands and I would like to return to the good old days 
but my desire to keep playing and making money trumps that feeling.
Larry
St.L