Despite all the transcribing I’ve done, I’ve never actually articulated an answer to this question: how do I decide what makes a drum recording worth picking apart?
Well, for the most part, I think it’s an “I know it when I hear it” situation. But this question has been on my mind since my blogging reflection when I admitted that my transcription library seems to be a wild mishmash of different players and styles.
It’s actually to find that song that checks all the boxes and really piques my interest, and there are a lot of things I have to consider before tackling a song. I could always go to YouTube and punch in “drum solo” to get a deluge of dazzling drumming, but I tend to gravitate to proper music releases.
I’ve been transcribing things to various extents for a little over ten years now, and I think I’ve decided that timekeeping is my favorite thing to dissect. I suppose it’s because that’s what I mainly do as a drummer rather than just soloing on my own.
But timekeeping can be a fine line — I like the kind of drumming where someone is playing out while avoiding being so outrageous that their part becomes hard to comprehend in any capacity. But if it’s too simple of a groove then it’s not worth transcribing… which, truth be told, is most of what’s happening on the average drum part. At least for me, that is.
A drum solo can win me over if there’s a vamp to go along with it since there’s still some interaction between the drummer and the rest of the band. But completely unaccompanied drumming is pretty far removed from what I have to do on the kit day to day.
Nevertheless, I still tackle the occasional “Moby Dick” solo if it really excites me. But as I’ve learned the hard way, unaccompanied drums can be a headache since timekeeping can go out the window.
I’m always somewhat anxious when I start a new transcription project because there are always issues I can run into. If it’s not timekeeping, it could be that the production is mudding the drums and I can’t make out details, or even the kick drum (I had this problem recently).
The big problem is that you don’t really know until you try, and it can be very frustrating to sink an hour or two into a transcription just to realize that I’m not going to get anything out of the song in question.
I also like transcribing a song that has a drummer I’m somewhat familiar with since that can cut down on the guessing. Unfortunately, transcribing a drummer’s playing is a great way to get familiar with them!
Nevertheless, I would rather not spend weeks on a transcription; finding videos and articles of the drummer to get familiar with their style, messing around with stem splitters, finding other transcriptions if they even exist… that’s a great way to go a long time without finishing anything.
On that last topic, I recently found a wild prog tune that I thought would be a great candidate for a transcription, only to recognize that the drummer was Matt Garstka. And sure enough, he’s got sheet music for his playing. So scratch that one (still a kickass tune).
And as far as prog tunes go, it’s always… fun to hear a song with some interesting rhythms and time signatures, only for the horror to set in that the drums are MIDI, courtesy of a pompous guitarist who thinks they can do everything themselves.
When I do find that magic song that ticks all the boxes, the final hurdle is deciding how much of the tune to notate. I number of tracks I’ve done within the last year, like the Aristocrats song or the Hiromi stuff were probably worth doing in their entirety, but I just don’t have the time. And as I mentioned in the past, transcribing a song runs the risk of ruining it.
Truth be told, I don’t have a big list of songs I want to tackle. As soon as I hear that “it” factor, I get right to work. A good chunk of the music I’ve been discovering lately comes from me playing a song in my library and starting a radio station, letting Apple Music take me where it wants to go. There are no doubt a lot of songs out there with drums worth transcribing, but finding them can be a whole other ordeal. A topic for another day perhaps.
